LOTS OF MONEY.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 553, 3 August 1869, Page 4

LOTS OF MONEY.

(From All the Year Hound.) It is a common notion among the poor and struggling that it is a fine thing to be rich ; and that if wealth is not happiness, it is a very near approach to it. Doubtless it is a very good thing to be rich, if the rich person knows the value of riches, and turns them to a proper account, for his own advantage, and that of his family, his friends, and his fellow-creatures. Doubtless, too, it is a very sad thing to be poor, to endure cold, hunger, and nakedness ; or to owe debts which one cannot pay. But when the mass of people come to the conclusion that, as a rule, the rich are much happier than the poor, and that the poor have no compensation for the hardship of their lot, and the rich no drawbacks on the luxury of theirs — an eiTor of serious consequence to their own well-being takes possession of their minds, and leads to that worst kind of idolatry, money-worship, and that worst kind of heresy, that it is everybody's duty to get rich. In the course of a not very long life I have known the liistories of many .persons who had, to use the common phrase, "lots of money" — money that they either acquired by speculation, by industry, or successful commerce, or that they had inherited; from their ancestors. Out of seven such people whose histories I knew, five were either very miserable in their minds, disappointed in their hopes, or would gladly have exchanged all their money for something that poor people had, but which unkind fate had not bestowed upon them. The first of these little histories is that of a gentleman who had acquired a million of money, at least, by successful commerce, and was able to retire in the prime of life and strength, and marry for love, a young lady, wellborn, accomplished, and beautiful. The world was fair before them. They had a town house and a country house, and a shooting box in the Highlands. They had a large library, and a picture gallery, carriages and horses, and a yacht. They had troops of friends, and the respect of everybody who knew them. They were hospitable and charitable, and adorned every society into which they entered. But they were not altogether happy after the first two or three years of their wedded life. Not that their love diminished, but Fortune, which had given them so much, did not give them everything. The gentleman desired an heir to his estates, and the lady, with a large maternal heart, desired a child, for the sake of a child ; and the blessed boon, for which she would have been so grateful and so happy, was denied her, Beggars came to her gate with twins in their arms, and she sometimes thought that such beggars were happier than she ; at last the sight of an infant would so excite her envy, and wou.ld so deeply impress her with the

sense of loneliness, and of undeserved misery, as to produce paroxysms of passionate hysteria. Another little story is that of a successful manufacturer, hut rude, unlettered, and without much mental resource to help him to pass away his time, who retired from business at the age of sixty, and built himself a splendid mansion — he called it a castle — on the shore of a lovely lake, in the Highlands of Scotland, far away from the highways of travel, in order that his aristocratic seclusion might not be invaded by tourists, or desecrated by the plebeian rail and the whig of the democratic locomotive. When the "castle" was furnished, and his grounds were laid out to his order, he suddenly discovered that lie had nothing to do, or to occupy his time. He was no company to himself, and he and his wife were mentally as opposed to each other as vinegar and oil. Friends and acquaintances occasionally came to visit him ; but he lived too far out of the beaten track, to expect visits from any but idlers, and what the Scotch call "sorners," and as his conversation was not amusing, and he never lent or gave away money, even such waifs and strays from the great fold of humanity seldom ventured into his remote seclusion. He was too proud to go back to the great city and recommence business, which might have been the best thing for him to have done under the circumstances. So he continued to dwell in his mountain fortress, without an object in life, or any amusement that he cared about. He had nothing to do but to fish, or to shoot, and he cared nothing for either of these modes of pastime. After about six months of it, he ordered a boat upon the lake, to go, as he said, fishing for salmon. Unobserved by any one, he put an old grindstone into the boat, and a few yards of rope line, and rowed himself away to the middle of the lake. He was never seen again alive. The boat drifted on shore without him in the evening, and three days afterwards his body was drawn from the bottom of the lake, with the grindstone tied round its neck. The third little story is equally suggestive. A very hard-working professional man, careful, prudent, abstemious, but somewhat eccentric, retired from busy life with thirty thousand pounds : in order, as he said, to enjoy himself, and pass the evenings of his life in the mild radiance of the setting sun. It could not be said of him that he had no resources in his mind, for he was learned, witty, fond of books, music, and pictures ; and he was happily married. All his friends (and he had many) to whom his harmless eccentricities and real kindliuess of heai*t, concealed under a brusque manner, were sources of attraction, anticipated for him many years of learned leisure and calm domestic happiness. But it was not to be. A serious, and as it proved, a fatal illness overtook him, before, as he expressed it, "he had been three months out of business." He did not suffer much, and by no means anticipated a fatal termination to his malady. After ten days' confinement to his room, he was somewhat alarmed by the grave face and demeanor .of his usually hearty and cheerful medical attendant. " 1 think," said the latter, " that it is my duty to recommend to you, if you have any worldly affairs to settle, that you should settle them." The patient sprang up in the bed. " Do you mean to tell me, doctor, that I am dying ?" "Oh, no !" said the doctor, kindly, " I hope not ; and I trust that many happy years are in store for you. Still, if there is any matter of business for yon to settle, settle it. Life is always uncertain ; and it is best to be prepared for all contingencies." "Doctor," said the sick man, "you cannot deceive me. You think 1 am dying, and you do not like to tell me the truth. Well ! I have toiled, and struggled, and screwed, and saved, for forty years, and thought that at the last I was going to enjoy myself for a little while before the end. And now you tell me lam dying. All I can say is, that it is a, ." -He added two words that were tragic, very comic, very lamentable, very unrepeatable ; turned his face to the wall ; and never spoke more. Fourth on my list of the unhappy rich, is a gentleman who retired^ at the age of fifty, from a large and prosperous business, with the expectation that his share of the partnership would amount to half a million sterling. This expectation was not realised. On a settlement of accounts, and a valuation of the assets between him and his partners, it was found that his share fell a little, but not much, short of two hundred thousand pounds. This was a grievious disappointment to him. All his life, from very early youth, he had overworked hisweary brain. He had been unwisely eager to grow rich, and had overtasked the energies both of his body and mind, in the attempt to. build up a fortune, and to become the founder of a family, that should rank among the first in the county in which he resided. He loved wealth for its own sake, and with a love beyond reason. Though a clear fortune of two hundred thousand pounds, or even half of the. money, would seem to most men something to be grateful for, and to be well enjoyed and well secured, it did not seem so to this greedy man, who had made money his idol, and the only object of reverence in the world. His brain was weakened by the hard work expended in making and taking care oi this magnificent, but to him, disappointing sun), and he brooded so much over the failure to reach the half million he had so long calculated upon amassing, that symptoms of aberration of intellect were soon apparent to his family. His brain softened, and in less than a twelvemonth after the winding up of his partnership his mind was wholly gone, and it became necessary to place him under the protection of keepers, who attended upon him night and day, and never suffered him out of their presence, lest he should do himself a mischief. His

life became a blank. It did not appear that he knew whether he was rich or poor — free or restrained — ill or well — and in this state he remained for many months, and died. | My last rich man— a very rich man he was — an owner, not of hundreds of thousands, but of millions — was not unhappy, but was, on the contrary, cheerful, and happier than most men are permitted to be in this world, But strange to say his happiness arose, not from his real wealth, but from his imaginary poverty. At the close of a long, .honorable, and useful life, lie took it into his head that tho world had entered into a conspiracy to reduce him to pauperism, and that he should end . his days in the workhouse. It was vain to argue the point with him. His faith waa fixed and settled. He came to the conviction — though the possessor of mil* lions — that he was de jure and de facto, a pauper, and reduced in his old age to labor for his daily bread. When he consulted his son, who was to be the inheritor of his vast wealth, what was best to be done under these unhappy circumstances, the son, acting under medical advice, offered to settle a handsome annuity upon his father. The pride, of the old gentleman was roused : "No ! no," lie said, "give me employment. lam still hale and hearty, I have always taken great pleasure in gardening, Make me your gardener, and I will do my duty like a man ; and I will owe no other man anything, except my thanks to you, my dear son, for giving me employment such as is consistent with my selfrespect to accept. And mind you, I will accept no more than the usual wages, and no less." Still acting under medical advice, the son humored the harmless delusion of the father, and. paid him regu= larly his weekly wages. At last the old mau. died, happy that he could earn hia honest bread to the last, and happier still, in the consciousness that he had' so good a son, Wealth is a great and a good thing ; but who would part with his noae for any amount of it ? Or with his eyesight ? Or with the vise of his limbs 1 Or with his reason ? Not I ! And not anybody to whom the rational enjoyment of wealth is better than wealth itself.