Merchants are sometimes princes
to-day and beggars to-morrow; and so long as the genius for speculation
is exercised by a mercantile family, the talent which gave them landed
property may eventually deprive them of it.
[Footnote 1: _Dublin University Magazine_.]
To be happy in old age--at a time when men should leave for ever the
toil, anxiety, and worry of money-making--they must, during youth and
middle life, have kept their minds healthily active. They must
familiarize themselves with knowledge, and take an interest in all that
has been done, and is doing, to make the world wiser and better from age
to age. There is enough leisure in most men's lives to enable them to
interest themselves in biography and history. They may also acquire
considerable knowledge of science, or of some ennobling pursuit
different from that by which money is made. Mere amusement will not do.
No man can grow happy upon amusement. The mere man of pleasure is a
miserable creature,--especially in old age. The mere drudge in business
is little better. Whereas the study of literature, philosophy, and
science is full of tranquil pleasure, down to the end of life. If the
rich old man has no enjoyment apart from money-making, his old age
becomes miserable. He goes on grinding and grinding in the same rut,
perhaps growing richer and richer.
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