"
"It is the superfluity of the rich which makes bread for the poor."
Here, certainly, is a striking contradiction between the moral and the
social idea. How many eminent spirits, after having made the assertion,
repose in peace. It is a thing I never could understand, for it seems to
me that nothing can be more distressing than to discover two opposite
tendencies in mankind. Why, it comes to degradation at each of the
extremes: economy brings it to misery; prodigality plunges it into moral
degradation. Happily, these vulgar maxims exhibit economy and luxury in
a false light, taking account, as they do, of those immediate
consequences _which are seen_, and not of the remote ones, _which are
not seen_. Let us see if we can rectify this incomplete view of the
case.
Mondor and his brother Aristus, after dividing the parental inheritance,
have each an income of 50,000 francs. Mondor practises the fashionable
philanthropy. He is what is called a squanderer of money. He renews his
furniture several times a year; changes his equipages every month.
People talk of his ingenious contrivances to bring them sooner to an
end: in short, he surpasses the fast livers of Balzac and Alexander
Dumas.
Thus everybody is singing his praises. It is, "Tell us about Mondor!
Mondor for ever! He is the benefactor of the workman; a blessing to the
people.
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