Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/123

Rh What the flesh wants, Mr. Glueckselig has it all. He seems to have been born beneath a lucky planet. He began poor, and now is rich. He is cautious, and never loses; far-sighted, and lays out his plans with masterly skill; administrative, and executes admirably. His life for twenty years has been what, in the streets, they call a “splendid success.” He is an “eminent citizen,” high on the assessors' books, and in the opinion of the newspaper where he advertises. I know him very well; he has a most successful walk, and I know that all his ventures prosper when I see him afar off. He has a “high, prosperous voice,” and somewhat loftily utters his opinion on all matters, whereof he has thought nothing. But his poor relations he never recollects; his prosperous acquaintances never speak of them to him. His house is a show-box of his estate—a house of the flesh, where the confectioner, the upholsterer, and the vintner have done their best. His wife is a show-woman, yet meant for a better purpose, poor thing! His children are show-children—“babes in the wood” of civilization—left more hopeless than those other babes described in the ballad, for, look wistful as they may, they shall never see “the man approaching from the town.” His religion is only decorum; he has the richest of Bibles, the costliest pew; his real God is the dollar, and a sacrament of copper, of silver, and of gold binds him down to earth—a threefold cord, which his soul has now not force enough to snap. He has no elevation of character. Blameless in his mercantile business, his word is good; no man doubts it; his judgment is admirable, his plans never miscarry; he is “respectable,” and no more. He is all of this world, and, if there were no soul, and no heaven, and no absolute justice, and no great manhood, he would be the model man. No great sentiment throbs in his bosom, no lofty idea is welcomed beneath his roof; his daughter must sit on the door-step to read the one great book printed in her life-time. His hands turn not the machinery of noble deeds. “Let the poor take care of themselves,” says he, “as I also have taken care of myself.” “The negroes ought to be slaves; it is good enough for them.” He sneers at the “law of God,” which is above the covetousness of the market and the statutes of the politician and the customs of the par-