of our Reason, he obtains little pleasure in the simple operations of goodness and intelligence; he hath no gladdening, loving offspring from his head or his heart. Yet, offspring he has! One brood. Out of his head there springs, as out of that of the Apostate Angel, a thing teeming with attractive graces, and its name is Sin. Our epic poet has told the marvellous tale, and how thence issue Death and the hell-hounds, all. Oh, yes, he holds his head as highly as though he would touch the stars, that Business Man of yours. In his prosperous condition he apes not, nay, disclaims all Humility. It could not more strongly be reprobated by the Pagan, who finds not the word in the Latin or Greek tongue, but invented by Christianity's great apostle. Faugh! it makes one sick to witness the vulgarity of his pride; how the shopkeeper lifts his chin above the artisan, the merchant above the shopkeeper— the financier lording it over all: each proud of his caste, as though the pride was born in their blood. None prouder than they. It is consoling to know that they are providing fuel and flame .; that it is impossible for one of them to attain the satisfaction and success they long and strive for. The effulgent Phoenix of their expectations will never exist. You laugh! I often hear that sound, when warning is given or there is condemnation of evil doing, as well as when there are bad jokes and worse stories. But a little whisper in your ear. In times before Christianity was framed, whilst it was in its ante-natal state, with dim throbs stirring in the womb of Judaism, even so long ago, it was said by one who bore a more than saintly name, that,-A fool lifteth up his voice with laughter, but a wise man doth scarce smile a little; and to make certain signs plain to the simple, he declared that,-A man's attire, and excessive laughter, and gait, show what he is. Be satisfied, then, that these sounds affect me as little as they do my arguments: the beatitudes never come by laughter: I only see the signs of the inner sardonic laugh, which denote the spasms of the poisoned soul. I can spare curses. I need act no Timon in these late days. Who among you has not been meteor-struck in Business, and shown the effects all his life afterwards? More than this, you are curses to yourselves, and each to himself. You burn towards each other with that most fierce, most pitiless, and inextinguishable passion, Envy, which Voltaire truly makes the strongest of our social forces. It "Admits nor Mercy's touch nor Reason's ray," and in itself bears its doom. Wish not ill to the envious man, I would urge, with the Persian; for the unfortunate wretch is a calamity to himself. And yet, how I loath to see you fawn upon each other when purpose requires it. Oh, these kissing Judases of the exchange and the counter! The shop-window will show its wares, the casket its jewels, but these creatures the contents of the mind-never, although, they are plainly selling its better part. And as for the friends they brag of, I would deny them altogether. But I do not deny that they have greater friendships. I find their nomenclature in the Parsee Catechism, set forth with greatest particularity. Amongst them are pride, slander, avarice, disrespect, shamelessness, hot temper, theft, revenge, in short, any other wickedness or iniquity. These are the friends found in the office, the market, the street, and by them Business Men prosper. Nay, I am not wrong; with your own judgment you are judged. You talk down your own misdoings as peccadilloes, wee sins whose sting is sweet and brings no retribution; the most ancient prophet, the prophet before the Flood, marked your ways and cried,-He who steals a trifle, steals with the same. desire (as though it was great), only with less power. After that, will you speak to me of your intelligence and goodness? You boast of what you accomplish with your impoverished brains. You are a pack of peddling imitators. Look round the land; examine the nations; read your commercial history! What do the millions do but light their little tapers at the flame of some chance success? One scheme, by accident, goes right, and your exchanges and alleys heave thereat with agitation like ant-hills. A prospectus allures the public; before waiting for the success of the adventure, a thousand others through the bounds of the kingdom,-On the wings of mighty winds, go flying all abroad. But your puny efforts-sans intelligence, sans truth— have been assessed long ago in Sartor Resartus :-With Stupidity and sound Digestion man may front much. What, in these dull, unimaginative days, are the terrors of conscience to the diseases of the liver?-Aye, it's well there should be a sharp knife sometimes applied to that gadding vine of cant, which thrives so luxuriantly amongst you. Nay, a thorough stroke from a rooting-up. implement of wrath: not less effective than the sentence used when a certain king asked a religious man,-Do you ever think of me? to which he answered,-Yes, whenever I forget God! Your nodding head tells me that you will be as little awed as you can be convinced. I believe it. Phillpot Plaucut, being brisk and hale, fell dead as he was paying an old debt; which, said Rabelais, causes, perhaps, many not to pay theirs, for fear of a like accident. And that is exactly the way you keep your score with the virtues. The Business Man defers to the last day: takes the utmost limit of the three days' grace upon his bills. I would rather Jean Paul than I should apply this :-He will never part with his evil habits until he is on his death-bed, alongside which is pushed a confessional, much as children are made to go to stool before they are put to bed. I grant that so far as we may speak of the great and good, you do come from the same source. But in India it has been heard that,-The earth is the best of mothers, fulfilling the desires of all her children: She nourishes the wise and good; but, also,-Of her milk have the serpentlike men drunk, and it has been to them venom. So with you all. Hereby, I have obtained the word that shall close the parable. The earth gave you birth; you are not contented that it supports you; you fight for portions of it; grovelling, you lick its dust every day; you never rest, nor any rest do you give to it, until it recalls you again to its bosom. The fowl that revels in the dirt of the highway, on its death is served up with silver and fine linen and much ostentation; but your covenant with earth is, that after all your braggart speech and pretensions, you will be thrust into blackness, and shut out from the sight of your fellows. Much less are ye than the barn-yard fowl. III. "The evil in our nature we can act ARCANGELO. -Festus. So far at this hour, Onocrotalos, no farther. I welcome an attack such as thy churlish spirit can make. Speaking with certain voice, every sentence sharp as with Attic salt, I am delighted to hear you as now you would be heard. Such enemies (we may even have them as partners) are serviceable: they save us worlds of trouble; for they will tell us more of our faults. than we should discern by lying in ambush on ourselves for nine years. And, in truth, though this our adversary comes as from the cave of Trophonius, and cannot wreathe a smile over any aspect of Business, he is correct in much, has good reason for his snarling, woebegone countenance; for Business "has suffered many things of many physicians." There are those who restrict their activities to the compass of one or two rules or apothegms; who at the sight of money, lower the head like the beam of the scales, which stoops, although it be made of iron; who certainly obtain their object; "Never failure followed ill intent. And base success still sealed each fatal plot : "— but this is at the expense of atrophy of soul and heart. These, however, cannot be included in the list of true Business Men: they blind themselves to its very nature: they do not discern the simplest laws by which they work. Said Seneca,-As if any man could be sufficiently instructed in the parts of Life, without comprehending the whole sum, and scope of it. Which language fitly applies to Business, which is a truc epitome of Life. Mean and perverse views, I am aware, are not without a proper and unclean authority. There have been preceptors from of old, laying down a parcel of scoundrel maxims, rigidly enforcing schemes of wretched worldly phrases; but these can no more be said to constitute Business than can Cortés, with his lust of gold and consecrated human sacrifices, be given as an illustration of Paul's knight-errantry; or holding to one wife, and adhering to St. Athanasius's Creed, be affirmed to be the all-in-all of Christ-likeness. No! we will not yoke together the ox and the ass. Although there be books popular at this hour, giving the lives of men as examples of Life and Conduct, and commending the dirt and deceit which they cannot conceal of their gettings and doings; although they meekly seek our approbation "In sordid robes of false humility," they shall not get our acknowledgment as being true |