Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/207

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Timon conducts himself as if all men on the contrary were true to the core like himself, deriving enjoyment from the happiness of others. Life to him is a poet's dream of goodness and beauty. All men are deserving of his bounty, even as he is deserving of the love and gratitude of all.

But there is more than this reasoning bounty acting upon a false estimate of man's goodness. Timon gives for the very love of giving; he scatters without motive, further than the pleasure of doing so affords.

He scatters jewels, and horses, and wealthy gifts among the rich, even as he distributes fortunes among the needy. He will have nothing back. Ventidius succeeds to the wealth of his father, and seeks to return the talents which freed him from prison, but Timon will have none of the gold.

This squandering disposition would appear to be the converse of what phrenologists denote acquisitiveness. To coin a word, it is disquisitiveness, and in some men would seem to be an innate bias of the disposition. It is to give, for the pleasure of giving; to spend, for the pleasure of spending, without esteem for the things procured in return. Probably like the opposite desire of accumulating, it is a secondary mental growth. The love of gold in itself would be as absurd as the love of iron; but after having been first esteemed for its attributes, its ability to confer pleasure and power, it becomes valued for itself, and the mere love of hoarding, without the