MONEY MAKING. 131 



the system of Cash Credits, with its distinctive feature 

 of enabling men to coin their character, experience, and 

 talents, is obviously better adapted to a small country, 

 where each man may know his neighbour, and where 

 the possibilities and limitations of enterprise admit of 

 easy calculation, than to a large one. 



It may be an exaggeration to say that it is from a 

 Bank parlour you can best observe modern society, but 

 it is the exaggeration of a truth. No one can under- 

 stand modern society who does "not apprehend to what 

 an extent every form of romance or enthusiasm peculiar 

 to other ages is drying up in the intense and scorching 

 thirst for gold. Our notion of modern society will 

 always be more or less fanciful, more or less of a morn- 

 ing dream rather than an afternoon reality, if we do not 

 appreciate in its fulness of meaning the banker's defini- 

 tion of ' a good man.' The banker's definition ; and, 

 with but a half-hearted, ineffectual, semi-honest protest, 

 the definition of literary, artistic, and clerical society, 

 We have to remark, also, that though as a Bank 

 Accountant Hugh Miller had the best opportunities of 

 witnessing the infinite importance attached by society 

 to money, he was never conscious even of a temptation 

 to devote himself to the task of becoming rich, and he 

 never admitted into his breast that feeling of bitterness 

 and exasperation, on account of the unequal distribution 

 of the gifts of fortune, which, according to Mr Carlyle, 

 instilled its subtle, maddening poison into a heart so 

 genial, healthy, and generous as that of Robert Burns. 



