Page:The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man.djvu/122

114 There is John Marlow, of the house of Marlow, Minter, & Co.—why, he would give half his fortune to be able to eat those nuts you are eating, Miner, and go to bed and sleep as you will after them. Look at Morris Finley—his face looks to me like an account-book, written over with dollars and cents, as if he had coined his soul into them. And there is Robson, of the house of Robson & Co.—I remember his hair as black, glossy, and thick as your John's, and his colour as pure red and white; now, he has a scratch on the top of his head—his eyes buried in unwholesome fat—his skin mottled, and he lives between his counting-house and Broadway, in continual dread of an apoplexy. How many Pearl-street merchants over five-and-thirty are dyspeptics?"

"But, mercy on us, Aikin! you don't suppose money is infected with dyspepsy?"

"No; but I do suppose that those who make it an end, and not a means, pay the penalty of their folly. I do suppose that the labour and anxiety of mind attending the accumulation and care of it, and the animal indulgences it procures, are a very common means of destroying the health. Now, Miner, have we not a greater chance for health, which we all allow to be the first of earthly blessings, than the rich? Then, we have some advantages for the education of our children which they cannot get. You may say, necessity is a rough schoolmaster, but his lessons are best taught. The rich cannot buy books, or hire masters, that will teach their children as thoroughly as ours are taught by circumstances, industry, ingenuity, frugality, and self-denial. Besides, are not our little