When he sees the
value the intelligent and the well-to-do set upon material things, and
their small regard for intellectual things and the pleasures of the mind,
why should he not most passionately desire those things which his more
fortunate neighbors put foremost? It is not the sight of a Peter Cooper
and his wealth that discontents him, nor the intellectual pursuits of the
scholar who uses the leisure his fortune gives him for the higher
pleasures of the mind. But when society daily dins upon his senses the
lesson that not manhood and high thinking and a contented spirit are the
most desirable things, whether one is rich or poor, is he to be blamed
for having a wrong notion of what will or should satisfy him? What the
well-to-do, the prosperous, are seen to value most in life will be the
things most desired by the less fortunate in accumulation. It is not so
much the accumulation of money that is mischievous in this country, for
the most stupid can see that fortunes are constantly shifting hands, but
it is the use that is made of the leisure and opportunity that money
brings.
Another observation, which makes men discontented with very slow
accumulation, is that apparently, in the public estimation it does not
make much difference whether a man acquires wealth justly or unjustly.
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