Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1899-01-26
Getting Rich.

Many and many time you sigh
and wish you were rich. When you
build castles in the air they are gener-
ally castles in which you are surround
ed with the luxuries of wealth Often
and often, casting aside the trammels
of the body, by aid of the imagination
do you make all sorts of excursions
into unknown regions ,expending
princely income, indulging yourself in
every fad and taste and making all of
your friends happy by your generosity.
You imagine that you are the benefac-
tor of all your relatives, you plan how
you would trick out the children, what
handsome things you would buy your
wife, what splendid donations, per-
haps you would give to the church, or
to colleges or to organized charity
There are very few fyou who have not
hundreds of times laid out schemes
for the expenditure of millions, and
who have not program cut and dried
of the kind of swath you would cut
If you were rich.
1t is to be feared that the most of us
are built that way, Notwithstanding
the saying about the rich man, the
camel, the needles eye and the king
,dom of heaven. We care not what the
poets and philosophers say about the
curse of gold, and we heed not the
sneers that are cast at the so-called
gold bugs by a certain class of politi-
clans. The most of us would like to be
gold bugs. We are always talking and
thinking about rich men, we pry into
their history and family relations, we
gossip about their dress, their car
riages and their amusements, and we
sort of set them upon a pedestal, in
spite of our democratic tendencies. It
is human nature and we cannot help it
Just now, when the race for wealth in
this country is On again with q fierce
| ness that has never been equaled in
our past history, when we hearing ev-
cry day of the making of new fortunes
and of great additions being made to
possessions of those who are already
wealthy, this subject Is uppermost in
our minds.
Of course we ought not to do this.
We should fix our minds upon spirit
ual, moral and intellectual attainments
and our imaginations should lead us
to the heights of knowledge; but we
are just poor mortal men and women,
many of us getting hard knocks as we
pass through the world, SO that we
cannot help thinking of an existence
where everything will be soft and easy
and where we all tread on velvet. Ev-
en- religion presnts heaven to us as a
place where we shall wear golden
crowns and pass through gates of Jas
per and pearl, 1t is to be rich coun-
try, full of ease and splendor We
cannot burt wish for little of the gold
and the casper and pearl on this side
of the paarly gates.
| was reading an article the other
day written by man who is rich and
who knows great deal about wealth
and riches. In it he stated that in this
country there were at least 10000 900
men striving to be rich. Out of these
| 5000 accumulate as much in a lifetime
as much as $1,OOO,OO less than 10000
as much as 100000, while perhaps as
many as 100000 may pile up for their
heirs 100000. 1t will be seen from
this that very few Of those who are in
the game come out winners, and that
still fewer attain the wealth with
which we are accustomed to endow
ourselves in our imaginatlons When
we block out fortune for ourselves
we seldom make 1t less than million,
for it generally includes country and
a town house, and ther must be income
enough to maintain these; and a pri-
vate palace car AID steam yacht gen
orally enter into our calculations
Pittsburg Times,