Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-10-16
Misers.

/ 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
traditional 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 wherever he wants to 90,
the servants that bring him pretty nearly
everything he wants, except virtue-and
good deal of what passes for that. Z
confess, then, to an honest liking for the
splendors and the specific gravity and
the manifold potentiality of the royal
metal, and l understand, after certain
imperfect fashion, the delight that an
old, ragged wretch, starving himself in a
crazy hovel, takes to stuffing guineas
into old stockings and filling earthen
pots with sovereigns, and every now and
then visiting his boards and finger
ing the fat pieces, and thinking over
all that they represent of . earthly
and angelic and diabolc 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 a novel or poem to help our inn
aginations to build up palaces, and
transport us into the emotional states
and the felicitous condition of the ideal
characters pictured in the book we are
reading. But think of him and the
significance of the symbols he is hand
ling as compared with the empty |
syllables and words we are using to
build our aerial edifces 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 chests a castle in Spain, a real
one, and not only in Spain, but any
where he will choose to have it. If he
would know what is the liberality of
judgment of any one OF the straiter
sects, he has only to hand over that
chest of rouleaux to the trustees of one
of its educational institutions for the
of two or three professor
ships. If he would dream Of being
by coming generations,
what monument so enduring as q
college building that shall bear his
name, and even when its solid ma
sonry shall crumble give place to another
still charged with the sacred duty of
his remembrance. Who
was Sir Matthew Holworthy, that his
name is household word on the lips of
thousands of scholars, and will be CEN
turies hence, as that of Walter de Mer-
on, dead six hundred years ago, is to-
lay at 0xford2 Who was Mistress Hol-
len, that she should be blessed among
women by having her name spoken
and the little edifce she
,aused to be erected preserved as her ,
from generation to genera
ion2 All these possibilities, the lust Of !
he eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride1
# life; the tears of grateful orphans by !
he gallon; the prayers of Westminster ,
Assembly's cathechism divines by the
thousand; the masses of priests by the
entury-all these things, and more, if
more there be, that the Imagination of |
over of gold is like to range over, the {
niser hears and sees and feels and hugs {
nd enjoys, as he paddles with his lean /
ands among the sliding, shining, ring i
ng, innocent looking bits of yellow 7
netal, toying with them as the lion
amer handles the great earniverous b
lonster, whose might and whose terrors L
re child's play to the latent forces and I
over of harm-doing of the glittering c
ounters played within the great game Q
etweeR angels and devils. o