Year: 1872

/ 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