The Republican journal., 1872-10-31
Misers.

have studied the people called miscrs
! and thought a good deal about them In
former years | used to keep Il little gold
by me in order to ascertain for myself ex-
| actly the amount of pleasure to be rot
out OF handling it; this being the tradi-
tional delight of the old-fashioned miser.
1t is by no means 70 be despised, Three
or four hundred dollars in double eagles
will do very well 10 experiment on
There is something very agreeable in the
yellow CLEAN, very musical in the metal
lie clink, very satisfying in the singular
weight, and very stimulating in the feel
ing that all the world over these same vel
low disks are the master-kevs that let one
| in wherever he wants to 90, the servants
that bring him pretty nearly everything he
wants, except virtue-and a good deal OF
what passes for that. | confess. then. to
an honest liking for the splendors and
the specific gravity and the manifold po-
tentiality Of the royal metal, and under
stand, after certain imperfect fashion,
the delight that an old, ragged wretch
starving himself in a crazy howell takes
in Stutliing guineas into old stockings and
filing earthern pots with sovercigns and
| every now and then visiting his boards
and lingering the fat pieces and thinking
over all they represent ot earthly and an
gellc and diabolic energy. A miser podr-
ing ont his gulneas INTO his palm and
bathing his shriveled and trembling hands
in the yellow heaps before him. is not the
prosiac being we are in the habit OF think
ing him. He is a dreamer, almost u poet
on and read u novel or poem to help
our imagnations to build up palaces, and
transport us into the emotional states and
the felicitous conditions OF the ideal char
acters pictured in the book we are read
ing. But think of him and the signiti-
cance of the symbols he is handling com
pared with the empty syllables and words
we are using to build our :rrial ediices
with In this hand he holds the smile of
beauty and in that the dagger of revenge
The contents OF that old glove will buy
him the willing service of many an adroit
sinner and with what that coarse sack
contains he can purchase the prayers OF
holy men for all succeeding time In this
| chest j. a castle in Spain, a real one, and
not only in Spain, but anywhere he viii
| choose to have it. If he would know
what is the lberality of Judgment of any
| OF the straltcr sects. he has only to hand
| over that chest of roueauX TO the trustees
| of one of its educational institutions for
| the endowment of two on three professors
| ships. II he would dream of being re-
| memebred by coming generations, what
| monument so enduring rs 4 college build
| ing that shall bean his name. and even
when its solid masonry shall crumble give
place to another still charged with the
same sacred duty Of perpetuating his re-
membrance. Who was Sir Matthew Hol-
worthy, that his name is q household word
on the lips of thousands of scholars, and
will be centuries hence, as that of Walter
de Mertoa, dead six hundred years AGO.
is to-day Al Oxford? Who was Mistress
| Holden, that she should be blessed among
women by having her name spoken crate
fully and the little edfice she caused to he
erected preserved Us her monument from
generation to generation? All these pos
sibilities, the lust of the eye, the lust of the
| flesh, The pride of life; the tears of grateful
orphansby the gallon; the prayers of West
minister Assembly's cathcchism divines
| by the thousand; the masses of priests by
the century-all these things, and more,
| if more there be. that the ina gination OF
q lover of gold is like to range over. the
miser hears and sees and feels and hugs and
enjoys Us he paddles with his lean hands
among the sliding, shining, ringing, inno-
cent-looking bits of yellw metal, toying
with them rs the lion-tame handles the
great carnivorous monster, whose might
and whose terrors are child's play to the
latent forces and power Of harm doing OF
the glitlering counters played between
angels and devils. Poet at the Break.
fast Table