94 THE HOME, FARM AND BUSINESS CYCLOPEDIA. 



I can, if I please, give away to another. We feel this as we advance 

 in years. How helpless is an old man who has not a farthing to 

 give or to leave ! But be moderately amiable, grateful, and kind, and 

 though you have neither wife nor child, you will never want a 

 wife's tenderness nor a child's obedience if you have something to leave 

 or to give. This reads like satire ; it is sober truth. 



But now we arrive at the power of money well managed. You have 

 got money you have it ; and, with it, the heart, and the sense, and the 

 taste to extract from the metal its uses. Talk of the power of knowledge ! 

 What can knowledge invent that money can not purchase ? Money, it is 

 true, can not give you the brain of the philosopher, the eye of the painter, 

 the ear of the musician, nor that inner sixth sense of beauty and truth by 

 which the poet unites in himself philosopher, painter, musician ; but 

 money can refine and exalt your existence with all that philosopher, 

 painter, musician, poet, accomplish. That which they are your wealth 

 can not make you, but that which they do is at the command of your 

 wealth. You may collect in your libraries all thoughts which all thinkers 

 have confided to books ; your galleries may teem with the treasures of 

 art; the air that you breathe may be vocal with music; better than all, 

 when you summon the Graces, they can come to your call in their sweet 

 name of Charities. You can build up asylums for age, and academies for 

 youth. Pining Merit may spring to hope at your voice, and "Poverty 

 grow cheerful in your sight." Money well managed deserves, indeed, the 

 apotheosis to which she was raised by her Latin adorers ; she is Diva 

 Moneta a goddess. 



I have said that he who sets out in life with the resolve to acquire 

 money should place clearly before him some definite object to which the 

 money is but the means. He thus sweetens privation and dignifies thrift. 

 Money never can be well managed if sought solely through the greed of 

 money for its own sake. In all meanness there is a defect of intellect as 

 well as of heart. And even the cleverness of avarice is but the cunning 



o 



of imbecility. 



The first object connected with money is the security for individual 

 freedom pecuniary independence. That once gained, whatever is surplus 

 becomes the fair capital for reproductive adventure. Adhere but to this 

 rule in every speculation, however tempting, preserve free from all hazard 

 that which you require to live on without depending upon others. 



It is a great motive to economy, a strong safe-guard to conduct, and a 

 wonderful stimulant to all mental power, if you can associate your toil for 

 money with some end dear to your affections. I once knew a boy of good 



