The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-11-14

to impart of their substance to us under
the conviction that in so doing they are
lettering their own condition. This is the
rationale Of speculation.
Not being willing to work for and be
practically useful to John Smith, you per-
suade John Smith that It Is for his advan-
tage to work for you, 10y purchasing with
current money certain "choses in action"
which have conspicuous value, and which
you are benevolently inclined to part with.
That in his capacity of mouse he does not
spy the cat lurking under the meal is be-
cause he is hungry and doesn't trouble him
self to look, or that being selfish himself he
somehow imagines that nature has worked
miracle and has created you unselfish.
Conditions of Success.
One of the great kings of speculation in
the United States, when "a boy in an inte-
rior town, and by no means born in the
purple. was ordered by his father to dig
dozen post holes for a new fence. His active
intellect conceived a plan by which he
could avoid the muscular fatigue involved
in the task, and going to several of his
playmates he proposed game of slave
By the terms of the game he was to pro-
vide several spades and n long whip, and
while they were digging holes at fixed
distances in earnest he was to pass from
one to another with simulated angry words
and loud crackings of the whip. BY even
ing the holes We're dug, and the boys had
gone home from their fun at the new game
fully as tired as If they had been working
Since that time numerous small capital
lists, eager for gain, have played slave at
the bidding of this keen intellect. They
have supplied the sinews by which his rail
lat 4 L.. ~
with bonds, and frequent cases of exhaus-
ton have occurred among them.
A university education is not prepare
tory step to life of successful speculation
As Valentine said to Sir Samson Legend
in Congreve's play, Get thee chine of
steel and the shoulders of Atlas and then
look matrimony in the face" so ths philos-
opher may say to the ambitious money
hunter, Get thee a conscience of adamant
and the assurance of Ananias and then
look speculation in the face"
He may 20 farther and lay it down as an
essential condition of success that the
operator should dismiss those scruples that
look far ahead and that warn the public
against possible disaster; that he should
make the legal maxim caveat emptor his
guiding star; that he should follow Sir
Edward Sugden in the theory that the
vendor Is not bound to disclose defects and
a Robert Macaire in the art of concealng
them; that he must believe no representa-
tions and not be too ready to accept the
conclusions of his own eyesight, while he
must labor to impress upon all other per-
cons the wisdom and utility of placing alb
.olute confidence in himself Such one
will find plenty of allies with capital and
with the willingness to make war under
he same flag with him.
Not an Enduring Satisfaction.
1t must be admitted that although a nice
sense of honor, great scientific attachments
and the requirements of classical educa-
ton or a cultivated taste for fine arts are OBJ
stacles to the speculator-he still requires,
and if successful usually possesses, intel
lectual ability of high order. 1t is mis-
take to suppose that the greater the intel
lect the more it concerns itself with alb
stractions The proper objects of intellec-
tual forces are material. The poet who said,
1.-The universe is a thought of God :" showed
a profound sense of the dignity of material
things. Matter, that which we can touch
and measure and use and which all men
desire, affords the true field for human ex-
ertions, whether of muscle or of mind II
it is not beneath the dignity of Deity to
create matter and make laws for it, it is
not beneath the dignity of human beings
to devote their talents and time to its inn
provements and combinations.
Speculation, while it tends to conduct
away the moral principles from active rec
titude, fails to compensate by affording any
enduring satisfaction. No measure of at
tainment ever has completed the desires. No
one has ever assigned a limit to the heap of
y
this truism there is no need to enlarge The
domain of matter being infinitely large,
any acquisition of any portion of it must be
infinitely small, and in comparison with
that which has no limits the limited pos
sessions of the millionaire and the tramp
are precisely alike, each being infinitesimal-
ly small. This fact, although not openly
expressed or recognized in terms, is at the
bottom of the Unsuitable passion for never
ceasing accumulation that dominates all
men who speculate.
Lost Opportunities.
Speculation has this unfortunate effect
upon numerous imperfectly balanced
minds-that it causes them to dwell on
what might have been, than which no oc-
cupation is more detrimental to sound
thinking or destructive of human happi-
ness. A person who passes his time in
mourning over lost opportunities is already
on the high road to insanity. When he
buttonholes you in the evening and de-
plores his folly or shortsightedness in not
buying thousand shares of the X. Y. rail
way in the morning at 30 and selling the
same in the afternoon at par, you pity him
as victim of i'll regulated emotions while
you recoil from him as bore.
If the cure of such disease as that under
which he labors could be effected at all, it
would be by directing his attention to the
fact that since daybreak in all parts of the
world an infinite number of opportunities
for speculation have shown themselves, all
of which it would be impossible for any
one person to avail of or even to become
acquainted with. If one must miss 10000
of these, where is the hardship of missing
10,0O1s And if wealth consists in reducing
ones wants, certainly happiness is OBJ
tanned by eliminating disappointments and
regrets from our mental functions and our
emotions. Until this philosophy is put
into practice, the essayist in speculation
will always be torn by self inflicted sorrows
and be the prey of myriad pack of wolfish
miseries.
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