ther for the body or the mind. But the consideration of luxuries
leads us to a new aspect of the whole question, and to a second
proposition no less true, and maybe no less startling, than the last.

At the present day, we, of the easier classes, are in a state of surfeit
and disgrace after meat. Plethora has filled us with indifference; and
we are covered from head to foot with the callosities of habitual
opulence. Born into what is called a certain rank, we live, as the
saying is, up to our station. We squander without enjoyment, because our
fathers squandered. We eat of the best, not from delicacy, but from
brazen habit. We do not keenly enjoy or eagerly desire the presence of a
luxury; we are unaccustomed to its absence. And not only do we squander
money from habit, but still more pitifully waste it in ostentation. I
can think of no more melancholy disgrace for a creature who professes
either reason or pleasure for his guide, than to spend the smallest
fraction of his income upon that which he does not desire; and to keep a
carriage in which you do not wish to drive, or a butler of whom you are
afraid, is a pathetic kind of folly. Money, being a means of happiness,
should make both parties happy when it changes hands; rightly disposed,
it should be twice blessed in its employment; and buyer and seller
should alike have their twenty shillings' worth of profit out of every
pound. Benjamin Franklin went through life an altered man, because he
once paid too dearly for a penny whistle. My concern springs usually
from a deeper source, to wit, from having bought a whistle when I did
not want one. I find I regret this, or would regret it if I gave myself
the time, not only on personal but on moral and philanthropical
considerations. For, first, in a world where money is wanting to buy
books for eager students and food and medicine for pining children, and
where a large majority are starved in their most immediate desires, it
is surely base, stupid, and cruel to squander money when I am pushed by
no appetite and enjoy no return of genuine satisfaction. My philanthropy
is wide enough in scope to include myself; and when I have made myself
happy, I have at least one good argument that I have acted rightly; but
where that is not so, and I have bought and not enjoyed, my mouth is
closed, and I conceive that I have robbed the poor. And, second,
anything I buy or use which I do not sincerely want or cannot vividly
enjoy, disturbs t