I Will Believe No
Man Who Tells Me That He Would Sooner Earn One Dollar A Day Than
Two - And If Two, Then Two Hundred.
That is, in the very nature of
the argument, caeteris paribus.
When a man tells me that he would
prefer one honest loaf to two that are dishonest, I will, in all
possible cases, believe him. So also a man may prefer one quiet
loaf to two that are unquiet. But under circumstances that are the
same, and to a man who is sane, a whole loaf is better than half,
and two loaves are better than one. The preachers have preached
well, but on this matter they have preached in vain. Dives has
never believed that he will be damned because he is Dives. He has
never even believed that the temptations incident to his position
have been more than a fair counterpoise, or even so much as a fair
counterpoise, to his opportunities for doing good. All men who
work desire to prosper by their work, and they so desire by the
nature given to them from God. Wealth and progress must go on hand
in hand together, let the accidents which occasionally divide them
for a time happen as often as they may. The progress of the
Americans has been caused by their aptitude for money-making; and
that continual kneeling at the shrine of the coined goddess has
carried them across from New York to San Francisco. Men who kneel
at that shrine are called on to have ready wits and quick hands,
and not a little aptitude for self-denial. The New Yorker has been
true to his dollar because his dollar has been true to him.
But not on this account can I, nor on this account will any
Englishman, reconcile himself to the savor of dollars which
pervades the atmosphere of New York. The ars celare artem is
wanting. The making of money is the work of man; but he need not
take his work to bed with him, and have it ever by his side at
table, amid his family, in church, while he disports himself, as he
declares his passion to the girl of his heart, in the moments of
his softest bliss, and at the periods of his most solemn
ceremonies. That many do so elsewhere than in New York - in London,
for instance, in Paris, among the mountains of Switzerland, and the
steppes of Russia - I do not doubt. But there is generally a vail
thrown over the object of the worshiper's idolatry. In New York
one's ear is constantly filled with the fanatic's voice as he
prays, one's eyes are always on the familiar altar. The
frankincense from the temple is ever in one's nostrils. I have
never walked down Fifth Avenue alone without thinking of money. I
have never walked there with a companion without talking of it. I
fancy that every man there, in order to maintain the spirit of the
place, should bear on his forehead a label stating how many dollars
he is worth, and that every label should be expected to assert a
falsehood.
I do not think that New York has been less generous in the use of
its money than other cities, or that the men of New York generally
are so. Perhaps I might go farther and say that in no city has
more been achieved for humanity by the munificence of its richest
citizens than in New York. Its hospitals, asylums, and
institutions for the relief of all ailments to which flesh is heir,
are very numerous, and beyond praise in the excellence of their
arrangements. And this has been achieved in a great degree by
private liberality. Men in America are not as a rule anxious to
leave large fortunes to their children. The millionaire when
making his will very generally gives back a considerable portion of
the wealth which he has made to the city in which he made it. The
rich citizen is always anxious that the poor citizen shall be
relieved. It is a point of honor with him to raise the character
of his municipality, and to provide that the deaf and dumb, the
blind, the mad, the idiots, the old, and the incurable shall have
such alleviation in their misfortune as skill and kindness can
afford.
Nor is the New Yorker a hugger-mugger with his money. He does not
hide up his dollars in old stockings and keep rolls of gold in
hidden pots. He does not even invest it where it will not grow but
only produce small though sure fruit. He builds houses, he
speculates largely, he spreads himself in trade to the extent of
his wings - and not seldom somewhat farther. He scatters his wealth
broadcast over strange fields, trusting that it may grow with an
increase of a hundredfold, but bold to bear the loss should the
strange field prove itself barren. His regret at losing his money
is by no means commensurate with his desire to make it. In this
there is a living spirit which to me divests the dollar-worshiping
idolatry of something of its ugliness. The hand when closed on the
gold is instantly reopened. The idolator is anxious to get, but he
is anxious also to spend. He is energetic to the last, and has no
comfort with his stock unless it breeds with Transatlantic rapidity
of procreation.
So much I say, being anxious to scrape off some of that daub of
black paint with which I have smeared the face of my New Yorker;
but not desiring to scrape it all off. For myself, I do not love
to live amid the clink of gold, and never have "a good time," as
the Americans say, when the price of shares and percentages come up
in conversation. That state of men's minds here which I have
endeavored to explain tends, I think, to make New York
disagreeable. A stranger there who has no great interest in
percentages soon finds himself anxious to escape.
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