Gore, "which render the pursuit of
wealth a bitterer as well as more pardonable struggle in England than on
the Continent, is the unequal and capricious distribution of family
property.... Country gentlemen and professional men,--nay, men without
the pretension of being gentlemen,--are scarcely less smitten with the
mania of creating 'an eldest son' to the exclusion and degradation of
their younger children; and by the individuals thus defrauded by their
nearest and dearest, is the idolatry of Mammon pursued without the least
regard to self-respect, or the rights of their fellow-creatures.
Injured, they injure in their turn. Their days are devoted to a campaign
for the recovery of their birthright. Interested marriages, shabby
bargains, and political jobbery, may be traced to the vile system of
things which converts the elder son into a Dives, and makes a Lazarus of
his brother."
But democrats have quite as great a love for riches as aristocrats; and
many austere republicans are eager to be millionaires. Forms of
government do not influence the desire for wealth. The elder Cato was a
usurer. One of his means of making money was by buying young half-fed
slaves at a low price; then, by fattening them up, and training them to
work, he sold them at an enhanced price. Brutus, when in the Isle of
Cyprus, lent his money at forty-eight per cent.
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