XI 



GOLD VERSUS IDEALS 



THERE is a certain momentous question that 

 presents itself to nearly every ambitious 

 youth early in his career, and upon the an- 

 swer to which practically all his future may depend. 

 The question is this: Shall the life ideal ignore as far 

 as may be the acquisition of money; or must we reckon 

 gold among the necessaries even of the intellectual life ? 



Few questions give more open field for the maunder- 

 ing of platitudes or the presentation of illustrative quota- 

 tions than this. It were easy to discourse at almost any 

 length on the false allurements of wealth. But I shall 

 instead content myself with two quotations, which 

 present this side of the case in essentially the same light; 

 one of them terse as becomes its Greek origin, the other 

 more detailed, yet in effect an amplification of the same 

 text. I present these excerpts the more willingly 

 because one was written more than two thousand years 

 ago, the other about a century and a half ago; hence 

 they have the added value of teaching that the worship 

 of Mammon is by no means peculiar to our own age or 

 generation, as is sometimes foolishly assumed. In 

 point of fact, we should find the same spirit ram- 

 pant throughout the range of history, did we choose 

 to make the most casual search for it. 



Our Greek quotation is to be found in the Greek 

 Anthology, where it is ascribed, somewhat doubtfully 



