Of the Love of Wealth (6-10)

But some perhaps may plead on their behalf, that these men keep and hoard up their wealth for their children and heirs,—to whom they part with nothing whilst they are alive; but, like those mice that live in mines and pick up and eat the golden sands and ore, you cannot come by any of that gold, till you anatomize them to find it after they are dead. But to what end, I pray, would they leave such a deal of money and a great estate to their children and heirs? That they forsooth may preserve it also for others, and those others in like manner shall hand it down to their children (just like those earthen pipes the potters make for a water-course, which retain none of the water themselves, but one pipe only conveys it to the next), till some informing false accuser or tyrant appears and cuts off, this keeper in trust, and when his breath is stopped, derives and diverts the course of his wealth into another channel; or, as they say, till some one that is the most wicked of the race devours and consumes all that those who went before him had preserved. For not only, as Euripides says,

Children from slaves derived and baser blood

Prove prodigal and lewd, none come to good;

but it is as true of the children of the parsimonious; as Diogenes wittily abused this sort of men, when he said that it was better to be a certain Megarian’s ram than his son. For, under the pretence of training them up and instructing them, they undo and pervert them, implanting in them their own love of money and meanness of spirit, and erecting as it were a fortress for the securing their inheritance in the minds of their heirs.

For the instructions and lessons they give them are such as these: Gain as much and spend as little as may be; value yourself according to what you are worth. But certainly this is not to instruct, but to contract and sew them up, just like a purse, the better to conceal and keep what is put into it. The purse indeed becomes foul and musty after money is put up in it; but the children of the covetous, before they are enriched by their parents, are replenished with covetous desires which they derive from them. And indeed they pay them a deserved reward for their instructions, not loving them because they shall receive a great estate from them, but hating them because they have it not so soon as they fain would. For being taught to admire nothing but wealth, nor knowing any other end of living but to get a great estate, they account the life of their parents to be a hindrance to that of their own, and fancy so much time is taken from their own age as is added to theirs. Wherefore, whilst their parents are yet living, they secretly always steal their pleasures; and what they bestow upon their friends or spend upon their lusts, and even what they give to their teachers, is fetched as it were from another’s estate, not from their own.

But when their parents are dead and they are once possessed of their keys and seals, then their way of living is of another fashion, and they put on another face and

aspect, grave, severe, and morose. You hear no more of their former pastimes, nor of exercises with the ball and in wrestling, nor of the Academy or the Lyceum: but they are wholly taken up in examining the servants, looking over writings, in debating matters with those that receive or owe them money. Their hurry of business and thoughtfulness will not give them leave to dine, and they are forced to make the night their time of bathing; the gymnastic schools in which they were educated and the water of Dirce are neglected. If any man ask him, Will you not go and hear the philosopher? How can I, says he, now that my father is dead? I am not at leisure. O miserable wretch! What has thy father left thee to be compared with what he has taken from thee, thy leisure and thy liberty? And yet it is not so much he that hath done it, as the wealth that flows round thee and overpowers thee, which, like the women Hesiod speaks of,

Thee without firebrands burns, and unawares

Resigns thee up to dotage and gray hairs,

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bringing on thy soul those cares—like untimely wrinkles and old age—that spring from covetous desires and multiplicity of business, that shrivel up all thy vigor and gayety, all sense of honor, all kindness and humanity within thee.

But some will say, Do you not see rich men live splendidly and spend high? To whom we answer: Dost thou not hear what Aristotle says, that some there are that do not use wealth, and some that abuse it? For neither sort do what is fit and becoming; but what the one sort possess does neither advantage nor adorn them, and what the other sort have does both hurt and dishonor them.

But let us further consider, What is the use of riches, for which men so much admire theme? Is it the enjoyment of what suffices nature? Alas! in this respect the

wealthy have no advantage of those that are of a meaner fortune; but wealth (as Theophrastus says) is really no wealth and need not be coveted, if Callias, the richest man of Athens, and Ismenias, the wealthiest of Thebes, made use but of the same things that Socrates and Epaminondas did. For as Agathon sent away the music from the room where he feasted to the women’s apartment, contenting himself with the discourses of his guests, so you would reject and send away the purple beds and the high prized tables and all other superfluous things, should you see that the rich make use of the same things with the poor.

I do not mean thou shouldst presently

Hang up the rudder in the smoke at ease,

And let the mules’ and oxen’s labor cease;

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but much rather the impertinent labor of goldsmiths, turners, perfumers, and cooks, when thou resolvest wisely and soberly to banish all useless things.

But if the things that suffice nature lie in common among those that have and those that want riches,—if rich men pride themselves only in things superfluous, and thou art ready to praise Scopas of Thessaly, who, when one begged somewhat of him he had in his house, as a superfluous thing he had no use for, made answer, But we rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things,—if your case be thus, have a care you do not seem like one that magnifies and prefers a pomp and public show at a festival before life itself.

Our country’s feast of Bacchus was in old time celebrated in a more homely manner, though with great mirth and jollity. One carried in procession a vessel of wine and a branch of a vine, afterwards followed one leading a goat, another followed him bearing a basket of dried figs, and after all came a phallus. But all these are now despised

and out of date, the procession being made with golden vessels and costly garments, driving of chariots and persons in masquerade. And just thus the things that are necessary and useful in riches are swallowed up by those that are unprofitable and superfluous.

The most of us commit the mistake of Telemachus. For he through inexperience, or rather want of good taste, when he saw Nestor’s house furnished with beds and tables, garments and carpets, and well stored with sweet and pleasant wine, did not look upon him as so happy a man in being thus well provided with things necessary and useful; but when he beheld the ivory, gold, and amber in Menelaus’s house, he cried out in amazement:—

Such, and not nobler, in the realms above,

My wonder dictates is the dome of Jove.

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Whereas Socrates or Diogenes would have said rather:—

What vain, vexatious, useless things I’ve seen,

And good for nothing but to move one’s spleen.

Thou fool, what is it thou sayest? When thou oughtest to have stripped thy wife of her purple and gaudy attire, that she might cease to live luxuriously and to run mad after strangers and their fashions, instead of this, dost thou adorn and beautify thy house, that it may appear like a theatre or a stage to all comers?

The happiness riches pretend to is such that it depends upon spectators and witnesses; else it would signify nothing at all. But it is quite otherwise when we consider temperance or philosophy, or such knowledge of the Gods as is requisite. For these, though unknown to all other mortals, communicate a peculiar light and great splendor within the soul, and cause a joy that dwells with it as an inmate, whilst it enjoys the chiefest good, though neither Gods nor men may be privy to it. Such a thing is truth, virtue, or the beauty of geometrical and astrological sciences;

and do riches, with their bravery and necklaces and all that gaudery that pleases girls, deserve to be compared with any of these? When nobody observes and looks on, riches are truly blind and deprived of light. For if a rich man makes a meal with his wife or familiars alone, he makes no stir about magnificent tables to eat on or golden cups to drink in, but uses those that come next to hand; and his wife, without any gold or purple to adorn her, presents herself in a plain dress. But when he makes a feast,—that is, when the pomp and theatre is to be fitted and prepared, and the scene of riches is to enter,—

Then from the ships, with costly goods full fraught,

The trevets and the caldrons straight are brought;

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then they provide lamps, and much ado is made about the drinking-cups, they put the cup-bearers into a new dress, they bring forth whatever is made of gold and silver or set with precious stones, thus plainly declaring that they would be looked upon by all for rich men. But even though he should eat his meal alone, he wants hilarity of mind and that contentment which alone makes a feast.