e. It is useful, by enabling
you to supply the wants of others. To give food, and clothing, and
shelter, is to give life, to annihilate temptation, to unshackle virtue,
and propagate felicity. How shall property be gained?

You may set your understanding or your hands at work. You may weave
stockings, or write poems, and exchange them for money; but these are
tardy and meagre schemes. The means are disproportioned to the end, and
I will not suffer you to pursue them. My justice will supply your wants.

But dependance on the justice of others is a precarious condition. To be
the object is a less ennobling state than to be the bestower of benefit.
Doubtless you desire to be vested with competence and riches, and
to hold them by virtue of the law, and not at the will of a
benefactor...... He paused as if waiting for my assent to his positions.
I readily expressed my concurrence, and my desire to pursue any means
compatible with honesty. He resumed.

There are various means, besides labour, violence, or fraud. It is right
to select the easiest within your reach. It happens that the easiest is
at hand. A revenue of some thousands a year, a stately mansion in
the city, and another in Kildare, old and faithful domestics, and
magnificent furniture, are good things. Will you have them?

A gift like that, replied I, will be attended by momentous conditions. I
cannot decide upon its value, until I know these conditions.

The sole condition is your consent to receive them. Not even the airy
obligation of gratitude will be created by acceptance. On the contrary,
by accepting them, you will confer the highest benefit upon another.

I do not comprehend you. Something surely must be given in return.

Nothing. It may seem strange that, in accepting the absolute controul of
so much property, you subject yourself to no conditions; that no claims
of gratitude or service will accrue; but the wonder is greater still.
The law equitably enough fetters the gift with no restraints, with
respect to you that receive it; but not so with regard to the unhappy
being who bestows it. That being must part, not only with property
but liberty. In accepting the property, you must consent to enjoy the
services of the present possessor. They cannot be disjoined.

Of the true nature and extent of the gift, you should be fully apprized.
Be aware, therefore, that, together with this property, you will
receive absolute power over the liberty and person of