" I was indignant, and began explaining to my English
friend that we never used such an absurd phrase. "Are you sure?"
he asked. "Why, certainly," I said, and stopped, catching the
twinkle in his eye.
It is very much the same thing with money. We do not notice how
often it slips into the conversation. "Out of the fullness of the
heart the mouth speaketh." Talk to an American of a painter and
the charm of his work. He will be sure to ask, "Do his pictures
sell well?" and will lose all interest if you say he can't sell
them at all. As if that had anything to do with it!
Remembering the well-known anecdote of Schopenhauer and the gold
piece which he used to put beside his plate at the TABLE D'HOTE,
where he ate, surrounded by the young officers of the German army,
and which was to be given to the poor the first time he heard any
conversation that was not about promotion or women, I have been
tempted to try the experiment in our clubs, changing the subjects
to stocks and sport, and feel confident that my contributions to
charity would not ruin me.
All this has had the result of making our men dull companions;
after dinner, or at a country house, if the subject they love is
tabooed, they talk of nothing! It is sad for a rich man (unless
his mind has remained entirely between the leaves of his ledger) to
realize that money really buys very little, and above a certain
amount can give no satisfaction in proportion to its bulk, beyond
that delight which comes from a sense of possession.
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