been various, among various men; I had to change them with every
change of latitude. Things that we admire in Europe are punishable in
Asia, and a vice in Paris becomes a necessity when you have passed the
Azores. There are no such things as hard-and-fast rules; there are only
conventions adapted to the climate. Fling a man headlong into one social
melting pot after another, and convictions and forms and moral systems
become so many meaningless words to him. The one thing that always
remains, the one sure instinct that nature has implanted in us, is the
instinct of self-interest. If you had lived as long as I have, you would
know that there is but one concrete reality invariable enough to be
worth caring about, and that is--GOLD. Gold represents every form of
human power. I have traveled. I found out that there were either hills
or plains everywhere: the plains are monotonous, the hills a weariness;
consequently, place may be left out of the question. As to manners; man
is man all the world over. The same battle between the poor and the rich
is going on everywhere; it is inevitable everywhere; consequently, it is
better to exploit than to be exploited. Everywhere you find the man of
thews and sinews who toils, and the lymphatic man who torments himself;
and pleasures are everywhere the same, for when all sensations are
exhausted, all that survives is Vanity--Vanity is the abiding substance
of us, the _I_ in us. Vanity is only to be satisfied by gold in floods.
Our dreams need time and physical means and painstaking thought before
they can be realized. Well, gold contains all things in embryo; gold
realizes all things for us.

"'None but fools and invalids can find pleasure in shuffling cards all
evening long to find out whether they shall win a few pence at the end.
None but driveling idiots could spend time in inquiring into all that
is happening around them, whether Madame Such-an-One slept single on
her couch or in company, whether she has more blood than lymph, more
temperament than virtue. None but the dupes, who fondly imagine that
they are useful to their like, can interest themselves in laying down
rules for political guidance amid events which neither they nor any one
else foresees, nor ever will foresee. None but simpletons can delight
in talking about stage players and repeating their sayings; making the
daily promenade of a caged animal over a rather larger area; dressing
for others, eating for others, pridin