greenbacks?
No; not those neither. What is it then--is it ciphers after a capital
I? Cannot you practise writing ciphers, and write as many as you want?
Write ciphers for an hour every morning, in a big book, and say every
evening, I am worth all those noughts more than I was yesterday. Won't
that do? Well, what in the name of Plutus is it you want? Not gold,
not greenbacks, not ciphers after a capital I? You will have to
answer, after all, "No; we want, somehow or other, money's _worth_."
Well, what is that? Let your Goddess of Getting-on discover it, and
let her learn to stay therein.

2d. But there is yet another question to be asked respecting this
Goddess of Getting-on. The first was of the continuance of her power;
the second is of its extent.

Pallas and the Madonna were supposed to be all the world's Pallas, and
all the world's Madonna. They could teach all men, and they could
comfort all men. But, look strictly into the nature of the power of
your Goddess of Getting-on; and you will find she is the Goddess--not
of everybody's getting on--but only of somebody's getting on. This is
a vital, or rather deathful, distinction. Examine it in your own ideal
of the state of national life which this Goddess is to evoke and
maintain. I asked you what it was, when I was last here;--you have
never told me.[220] Now, shall I try to tell you?

Your ideal of human life then is, I think, that it should be passed in
a pleasant undulating world, with iron and coal everywhere underneath
it. On each pleasant bank of this world is to be a beautiful mansion,
with two wings; and stables, and coach-houses; a moderately-sized
park; a large garden and hot-houses; and pleasant carriage drives
through the shrubberies In this mansion are to live the favoured
votaries of the Goddess; the English gentleman, with his gracious
wife, and his beautiful family; always able to have the boudoir and
the jewels for the wife, and the beautiful ball dresses for the
daughters, and hunters for the sons, and a shooting in the Highlands
for himself. At the bottom of the bank, is to be the mill; not less
than a quarter of a mile long, with a steam engine at each end, and
two in the middle, and a chimney three hundred feet high. In this mill
are to be in constant employment from eight hundred to a thousand
workers, who never drink, never strike, always go to church on Sunday,
and always express themselves in respectful language.

Is not that, broadly, an