ulfilment of her intention, that a provident person
shall always be richer than a spendthrift; and an ingenious one more
comfortable than a fool. But, indeed, the adjustment of the possession
of the products of industry depends more on their nature than their
quantity, and on wise determination therefore of the aims of industry.

A nation which desires true wealth, desires it moderately, and can
therefore distribute it with kindness, and possess it with pleasure; but
one which desires false wealth, desires it immoderately, and can neither
dispense it with justice, nor enjoy it in peace.

Therefore, needing, constantly in my present work, to refer to the
definitions of true and false wealth given in the following Essays, I
republish them with careful revisal. They were written abroad; partly at
Milan, partly during a winter residence on the south-eastern slope of
the Mont Saleve, near Geneva; and sent to London in as legible MS. as I
could write; but I never revised the press sheets, and have been
obliged, accordingly, now to amend the text here and there, or correct
it in unimportant particulars. Wherever any modification has involved
change in the sense, it is enclosed in square brackets; and what few
explanatory comments I have felt it necessary to add, have been
indicated in the same manner. No explanatory comments, I regret to
perceive, will suffice to remedy the mischief of my affected
concentration of language, into the habit of which I fell by thinking
too long over particular passages, in many and many a solitary walk
towards the mountains of Bonneville or Annecy. But I never intended the
book for anything else than a dictionary of reference, and that for
earnest readers; who will, I have good hope, if they find what they
want in it, forgive the affectedly curt expressions.

The Essays, as originally published, were, as I have just stated, four
in number. I have now, more conveniently, divided the whole into six
chapters; and (as I purpose throughout this edition of my works)
numbered the paragraphs.

I inscribed the first volume of this series to the friend who aided me
in chief sorrow. Let me inscribe the second to the friend and guide who
has urged me to all chief labour, THOMAS CARLYLE.

* * * * *

I would that some better means were in my power of showing reverence to
the man who alone, of all our masters of literature, has written,
without thought of himself, what he kn