New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-04-13
MILLIONAIRE.

MILLIONAIRE
Excuse me- Sir: you wrongly guess;
This gold is for the c. O. S.
Think You the rich object know
Save that they still may richer grow?
Nay for myself-when shares are high
| hear the call of Charity:
And when Eve given the humble poor
some fraction of my golden store.
Full well | deem that fraction spent
For | have been benevolent
PHILOSOPHER.
benevolent, It's quite absurd
How people use that stupid wore!
Read. 10 correct your hoaStful mood,
The Luxury of Doing Good.
Where Mr.. Gwynn and Thomas Hobbies
Prove that the seeming generous throbS
" hitch asitate times your breast
Proceed from mere self-interest-
Learn that the man who helps his friends
Does ii to serve his proper ends;
What aid you give, in power or pelf,
Is simply given to please yourself.
II shows kind of moral twist
To think that you re an altruist:
Let such ideas a once take wing
Because, of course, there's no such thing,
MILLIONAIRE.
Forgive me- if perhaps l err
/ not philosopher
The gentle art of splitting hairs
Is not for muiti-milicnaireS.
Yet. say.-if this your conduct guide,
Such rules consistently applied.
Play. if conclusion right draw,
The dickens with the Moral Law;
For how. your peculiar plan,
Define the Bad or Nirtuous man!
PHILOSOPHER.
You touch the spot; It's even
That's just the thing meant to show
/ hardly thought find swift
4 readiness to take my DRIFT.
Both Good and Bad are really based
on mere discrepancy of taste:
That Virtue which your puiplts praise
Is simply a misleading phrase.
For so-called Vice is every bit
As justly laudahle as it:
And in quite especial sense
This holds Of your BeneNolence-
MILLIONAIRE.
Dear me. dear me, You're right TO doubt
But leave the moral question out,
And think of my relations with
Impoverished Jones and b!ighted Smith,
Who freed 10y me from misery's mesh,
Are started on their legs afresh:
Surely, its reaSona bly, PLAIN
Some gratitude from them | gain,
They'll bless the man qui otto dat
There's something, after all, in that.
PHILOSOPHER.
Dismiss at once these notions crude:
This is no case for gratitude.
Here's Smith or Jones Il care not which.
] mean the man who's far from rlch),-
With his affairs cts kindness sheer)
He suffers you 10 interfere,
By loaves of bread and pounds of tea
To Vex his love for liberty.
With bounty arrogantly doled
His personality to mould
That YOU my friend, may feel thereby
Your finger in an alien pie,
Nav find. forsooth, active sphere
Bv feeding him with beef and beer,
Which aratifieS your selfish 81 nSe
OF Pride and Power and Influence
And is it then your curious view
That he should grateful be to you?
Let no such mists your brain bedim:
Ills YOU should render thanks to him!
MILLIONAIRE.
If this he so. / plainly see
Reneyolence is not for me:
1t is a thing which happy makes
Nor him that gives nor him that takes
For if It's based on motives low
Nor cen affords a quid pro quo,
WHY should | pay a lOngish price
For unremuncratiVe Vice?
Oh no, I'll do what's wiser FAR,
And buy another motor car.
In vain may paupers throng my door
I'VE sinned enough. I'll sin no more;
And when starvation makes them thin
I{Iane Thomas Hobbies and Mr.. GWynn!
IA. D. Cooley in The Cornhill Magazine.
TALK IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.
If is a noteworthy fact that in considering
English conversationalists we find ourselves al