The Hickman courier., 1872-10-19
MiseT.s.

1 have studied the people called
misers, and thought good deal
about them. In former years /
used to keep little gold by me in
order to ascertain for myself exactly
the amount of pleasure to be got out
of handling it; this being the ira
ditional delight of the old-fashioned
miser. 1t is by no means to be
despised. Three or four hundred
dollars in double eagles will do very
well to experiment on. There Is
something very agreeable in the
yellow CLEAN, very musical in the
metallic clink, very satisfying in the
singular weight, and very stimulating
in the feeling that all the world over
these same yellow disks are the
master-keys that let one In where
ever he wants to go. the servants
bring him pretty nearly everything,
he wants, except virtue-aEd good
deal of what passes for that. l con-
fess, then, to an honest liking for
the splendors and the specific gravity
aud the manifold potentiality of the
royal s.as sts.I, a4..1 L S.s>4e-rses~4A, a-fts-
a certain imperfect fashion, the de-
light that an old, ragged wretch,
starving himself in a crazy hovel,
takes in stuffing guineas into old
stockings and filling earthern pots
with sovereigns, and every now and
then visiting his hoards and finger
ing the fat pieces, and thinking over
all that they represent of earthly and
angelic and diabolic energy. A
miser pouring out his guineas into
his palm and bathing his shriveled
and trembling hands in the yellow
heaps before him is not the prosaic
being we are in the habit of thinking
him. He is a dreamer, almost
poet. You and read novel or a
poem to help our imaginations to
build up palaces and transport us
into the emotional states, and the
ielicitous conditions of the ideal
characters pictured in the book we
are reading. But think of him and
the significance of the symbols he Is
handling as compared with the
empty syllables and words we are
using to build our aeriel edihces
with In this hand he holds the
smile of beauty and in that the dag
ger 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 succeed
ing time. In this chest is castle
in Spain, but anywhere he will
choose to have it. If he would know
what is the hberality of judgm ent
of any of the straiter sects, he has
only to hand over that chest of rou-
leaux to the trustees of one of its
educational institutions for the en-
dowment of two or three professor
ships. II he would dream of being
remembered by coming generations,
what monument SO enduring as a
college building that shall bear 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
Holworthy, that his name is house
hole word on the lips of thousands
OF scholars, and will be centuries
henco, as that of Walter de Merton,
dead six hundred years ago, is to-
day at Oxford +? Who was Mistress
Holden, that she should be blessed
among women by having her name
spoken gratefully and the little edi-
fee she caused to be erected pre-
served as her monument from gen
Grafton to generation All these
possibilities, the lust of the eye, the
lust of the flesh. the pride of life;
the tears of grateful orphans by the
gallon; the prayers of Westminster
+ Asse mbly's Catechism divines by the
thousand; tue masses of priests by
! the century; all these things, and
more, if more there be, that the
imagination of lover OF gold is
likely to range over, the miser hears
and sees and feels and hugs and en-
I joys as he paddles. with his lean
hands. among the sliding. shining,
ringing, innocent-looking bits of yel-
low metal, toying with them as the
lion-tamer handles the great car
niverous monster. whose might and
whose terrors are child's play to the
latent forces and power of harm
doing of the glittering counters
played within the great game be-
tween angels and devils.-Poet at the
Breakfast Table.