The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1869-01-07

Making Money to Die With.

Shakespeare somewhere says, 'ssince no mar
Of aught he leaves, knows what is it tt
leave betimes," and he adorned his own doc
trine. He was the greatest Of practical phil
osophers, as we'll as the poet for all time and
his plan of life was eminently wise in secur-
ing true happiness. the proper end of exis
tence. He refused to exhaust his life in the
mere means Of living, and had the sagacity
to know when he had enough, and content
edly to resign the tempting and trcackerous
solicitation of ayarice and ambition, to scrap
together and grasp at more. And what are
we doing in this high noon of civilization,
as we vainly call it Take professional men,
for instance They toll on, and toll on, al
most without exception, until weary mind
and body refuse to toll longer. They preach
sermons, argue cases, ieelpulses, spur on thier
jaded faculties along the narrow pathway of
traditional and artificial meditations until the
spur is answered no more.
And what is the effect Of this upon them
selves, and the society of which they form a
part ? Every mans pursuit, exclusively fol
lowed, draws limited portion Of humanity
within the focus Of its light, leaving all cut.
side unseen and uncomprehendcd.. We see
what we look for in this world, and not much
else Niagara is one spectacle to the artist
Or poet, another to the geologist, and still an
other to the man with the water mill The
physician thus lives in a world whose occu-
pants are patients, and the human phenomc-
ma, which he chiefly notices, are of the class
called symptoms. TO tho lawyer, humanity
takes the aspect, for the most part of wrongs
attempted or resisted His contcmpations
are of the morbid subject generally, like the
physicians. His occupations, are of sort
which it has been wisely said, may, s'sharpend
the edge but are sure to narrow the blade"
So, too, the clergyman is apt to look at the
world to which he ministers, only from the
point Of view Of the transgressions which rem
der such ministrations needful. tits to him ex-
clusively an abiding place Of sanctity and sin.
He is therefore apt to see moro Of both in it
than perhaps the facts will justify. Thus it
is with all callings by which mems lives and
faculties arc monopolized. Mr.. Weller only
exaggerated slightly, but in a perfectly natu-
raj manner, when he represented the unler-
takers regarding mortality in the light Of an
institution intended for their benefit.
In Hol5cin's Dance of Death-that
marvellous series Of grim portraitures-
is painted the coming Of the fatal messenger
to men of every condition, as they are. lie
arrests the lawyer an illfavored varlet, and
drags him away Gin a direction happily not
indicatcd) just as he is about to dispute the
authority Of the summons, and is producing
precedents to the contrary lie turns back
the physician, who, with the cup Of healing
in his hand, is fastened to stay Deaths own
career elsewhere. IIe comes behind the
merchant, who is weighing the golden pro
cceds Of some venture, and filings human
bone into the opposing scale. The moral Of
these strange pictures is that Of every day
experience and life. 1t goes beyond the
plain one which the vulya eye sees in them
1t is the folly, the absurdty, the wantonness
of defeating life, and all the hopes and en-
joyments that may be in it, to one absorbing
sole pursalt-the madness Of wasting ezis-
tcnce itself In the search after supcrhous
means Of existence, instead of defeating
what sufficcs, when found, to the rational cads
Of our being. Men of all professions and
pursuits let greed master them. Like the
spiders, they spin their entrails out of
their brains, to be hurried by paralysis or
imbecility out Of existence without having
known an hour of real enjoyment.
If ever country needed the existence and
services Of a class whose habits and influence
should counteract the teverish tendency Of
all classes to excitement, and the frenzy o.
gain and competition, ours is that one. We
must cease worshipplng men merely because
Of their wealth. Men who merely live for
the purpose that men may say, she died rich,
are generally Of very little use in the world,
and the sooner they are out Of it, and their
wealth scattered, the better for the conlmuni
ty in which they resided.