Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1891-05-29
The Enjoyment of Wealth.

1t was chronlcled the other day as a
somewhat remarkable circumstance that
a man in Chicago had made all the
money he wanted and proposed to spend
the rest Of his life at his ease. But why
should a resolution be regarded as suffi-
GENTLY exceptional to demand notice
Among men perfectly sane might it not
be supposed to be the rule that when
one had amassed fortune large enough
to keep him comfortably for the rest of
his life he would leave the work of fur
Their accumulation to others?
There are, of course, reasons why a
man may not abandon the business of
E4oney-getting even after he has ceased
to care for it. 1t may be associated with
some great enterprise OF productive in
dustry which no hand can guide so
wise as his own; it may be identified
with the management of vast property
with whose details no one is so familiar
as he, or his wealth may be so bound
up with the interests of others that re-
gard for his duty to them may out
weigh his desire to make the most out
of his own life. The continued pling of
dollar upon dollar long after dollars are
needed for any actual or possible wants
of their possessor may be susceptible of
explanation or defense. The curious
thing is that in this our age and country
it is not generally supposed to require
either.
The getting of wealth for wealth's
sake is surely one of the barrenest pas
times i'll which man can indulge. To be
absorbed by it, with one foot IN the
grave, is one of the most pitiful spec
tacles that life can show. There is not
much enjoyment in the paths that lead
to wealth, and there is not much happi-
ness simply in its possession. To be
able to spend freely and wisely is a much
rarer faculty than that of accumulation.
For it implies the possession of a GER
tain range of mental endowments not
associated with great talent
for money-getting. The intense and
long-sustained exercise Of this latter is
apt to dwarf all the other faculties of its
possessor, to make him unreceptive of
new impressions and dead to all other
impulses.
Happy the self-made rich man who
has kept a hobby or two with which to
fill the void of his leisure, whose tastes
have grown more refined as his pocket
book has become plethoric, and to whom
the most terrible of all infections is not
to be thrown for his enjoyment on his
own resources. TO such there is ALWAYS
time to stop the strained effort to be-
come richer, for by such riches are es-
teemed merely as tie means to an end,
and not as an end in themselves. Men
so constituted, who are as rare as they
are fortunate, can appreciate as thor
oughiy as the poorest of US the wisdom
of Johnson's maxim that the sooner a
man begins to enjoy his wealth the bet
ter, and OF Pope's
Reasons whole pleasure, all th2 joys of serse,
Lie in three words-health, peace and compe-
tence.
But when will humanity begin to re-
alize the beauty of the Golden Mean, of
which sages have spoken and poets sung
in all the ages? People are accustomed
to refer, with reverence akin to awe,
to one mans colossal income and an
others huge possessions. But leaving
out OF sight the innumerable cares that
these bring with them, how dearly are
they purchased by ruined digestion or
Il diseased liver? For their owners
happy days are usually in the impecu-
NOUS past, and thick-coming shadows of
WEAKNESS, fretfulness and unrest all
that can be discerned in the future. A
millionaire who died the other day
priced above all human wisdom the
maxim: Waste neither time nor
money" But a man may live up to
this in the millionalaire's sense and vet
be creature essentially wretched and
/ poor. We must know for what uses the
! tieeting hours and the elusive dollars
are so jealousy guarded before we pro-
nounce the man either enviable or adj
mirable.