dulging it would be for the capitalist at once to spend all his
fortune on himself, which might actually, in many cases, be quite the
rightest as well as the pleasantest thing to do, if he had just tastes
and worthy passions. But, whether for himself only, or through the
hands, and for the sake, of others also, the law of wise life is, that
the maker of the money shall also be the spender of it, and spend it,
approximately, all, before he dies; so that his true ambition as an
economist should be, to die, not as rich, but as poor, as possible,[88]
calculating the ebb tide of possession in true and calm proportion to
the ebb tide of life. Which law, checking the wing of accumulative
desire in the mid-volley,[89] and leading to peace of possession and
fulness of fruition in old age, is also wholesome, in that by the
freedom of gift, together with present help and counsel, it at once
endears and dignifies age in the sight of youth, which then no longer
strips the bodies of the dead, but receives the grace of the living. Its
chief use would (or will be, for men are indeed capable of attaining to
this much use of their reason), that some temperance and measure will be
put to the acquisitiveness of commerce.[90] For as things stand, a man
holds it his duty to be temperate in his food, and of his body, but for
no duty to be temperate in his riches, and of his mind. He sees that he
ought not to waste his youth and his flesh for luxury; but he will waste
his age, and his soul, for money, and think he does no wrong, nor know
the _delirium tremens_ of the intellect for disease. But the law of life
is, that a man should fix the sum he desires to make annually, as the
food he desires to eat daily; and stay when he has reached the limit,
refusing increase of business, and leaving it to others, so obtaining
due freedom of time for better thoughts.[91] How the gluttony of
business is punished, a bill of health for the principals of the richest
city houses, issued annually, would show in a sufficiently impressive
manner.

154. I know, of course, that these statements will be received by the
modern merchant as an active border rider of the sixteenth century would
have heard of its being proper for men of the Marches to get their
living by the spade, instead of the spur. But my business is only to
state veracities and necessities; I neither look for the acceptance of
the one, nor hope for the nearness of the other. Near or distant, the
day