Throw your purse into the Seine, only
reserving a hundred sous, to take an action from the Bank of Exchange.
F. If I cry out against money, is it likely I should tolerate its
deceitful substitute?
B. Then I have only one more guess to make. You are a new Diogenes,
and are going to victimize me with a discourse _a la Seneca_, on the
contempt of riches.
F. Heaven preserve me from that! For riches, don't you see, are not a
little more or a little less money. They are bread for the hungry,
clothes for the naked, fuel to warm you, oil to lengthen the day, a
career open to your son, a certain portion for your daughter, a day of
rest after fatigue, a cordial for the faint, a little assistance slipped
into the hand of a poor man, a shelter from the storm, a diversion for a
brain worn by thought, the incomparable pleasure of making those happy
who are dear to us. Riches are instruction, independence, dignity,
confidence, charity; they are progress, and civilization. Riches are the
admirable civilizing result of two admirable agents, more civilizing
even than riches themselves--labour and exchange.
B. Well! now you seem to be singing the praises of riches, when, a
moment ago, you were loading them with imprecations!
F. Why, don't you see that it was only the whim of an economist? I cry
out against money, just because everybody confounds it, as you did just
now, with riches, and that this confusion is the cause of errors and
calamities without number.
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