Poor, did I call myself? Is it not true wealth to have
all I want without paying for it? Is it not true wealth, royal
wealth, to have some twenty gentlemen and noblemen, nay, even royal
personages, planting and improving for me? Is it not more than royal
wealth to have sun and frost, Gulf-stream and south-westers, laws of
geology, phytology, physiology, and other ologies--in a word, the
whole universe and the powers thereof, day and night, paving,
planting, roofing, lighting, colouring my winter-garden for me,
without my even having the trouble to rub a magic ring and tell the
genii to go to work?
Yes. I am very rich, as every man may be who will. In the doings of
our little country neighbourhood I find tragedy and comedy, too
fantastic, sometimes too sad, to be written down. In the words of
those whose talk is of bullocks, I find the materials of all possible
metaphysic, and long weekly that I had time to work them out. In
fifteen miles of moorland I find the materials of all possible
physical science, and long that I had time to work out one smallest
segment of that great sphere.
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