ently there arrived at a fashionable hotel a family whose command of
finance might have redeemed every day from the sordid and from any
anxious efforts, and enabled them to live in the realm of high thought,
of generous and beautiful expressions of sympathy and love to all. Their
visit might have made the time a glorified interlude to every one with
whom they came in contact by its radiation of hope and happiness and
sympathy and good cheer. Instead, each and all, individually and
collectively, were entangled in possessions,--weighted down with
_things_, and quite illustrating the terse little couplet of Emerson,--

"Things are in the saddle
And ride mankind."

The things which rode these unfortunate beings--for the
multi-millionaires may not unfrequently be so classed--were masses of
jewels, that could not be worn and enjoyed because too elaborate to be
suitable, and so must be instantly consigned to the safe. Such part of
these treasures as were in use, and left in rooms, suffered from losses
or theft. They caused more or less vexation, anger, discord, and fret in
general to the owners and every one concerned, until the onlooker was
ready to exclaim, "If this is the price of diamonds and rubies and pink
pearls, and rich and rare gems in general, let one escape the tyranny of
purple and fine linen, and take simplicity and its accompanying peace of
mind." After a certain limit of ordinary comfort, great possessions seem
to enslave rather than to liberate. If the price of costly jewels is
peace of mind, as well as a cheque of imposing figures, then, indeed,
let one keep his peace of mind, and go without the necklace. It is often
curious to see how little imagination goes into the spending of colossal
fortunes. The possessors simply build more houses than they can live in;
each one has more space and more impedimenta than he knows what to do
with, and the multiplication of all these possessions results in
perpetual anxieties, and fret, and worry, until one would prefer a crust
and a garret, and his spiritual freedom, to any such life as that
entailed by the golden shower of fortune.

"Are you rich? rich enough to help somebody?" There is the test. The
diamond and ruby necklace, whose chief use seems to be to incite
anxieties, would give some aspiring youth or maiden a college course.
The costly ring left carelessly on the bureau, tempting theft, would
give a gifted young girl just the study in a musical conservatory