National Wealth Produces
Education And Progress, And Through Them Produces Plenty Of Food,
Good Morals, And All Else That Is Good.
It produces luxury also,
and certain evils attendant on luxury.
But I think it may be
clearly shown, and that it is universally acknowledged, that
national wealth produces individual well-being. If this be so, the
argument of my friend the Canadian is naught.
To the feeling of a refined gentleman, or of a lady whose eye loves
to rest always on the beautiful, an agricultural population that
touches its hat, eats plain victuals, and goes to church, is more
picturesque and delightful than the thronged crowd of a great city,
by which a lady and gentleman is hustled without remorse, which
never touches its hat, and perhaps also never goes to church. And
as we are always tempted to approve of that which we like, and to
think that that which is good to us is good altogether, we - the
refined gentlemen and ladies of England I mean - are very apt to
prefer the hat touchers to those who are not hat touchers. In
doing so we intend, and wish, and strive to be philanthropical. We
argue to ourselves that the dear excellent lower classes receive an
immense amount of consoling happiness from that ceremony of hat
touching, and quite pity those who, unfortunately for themselves,
know nothing about it. I would ask any such lady or gentleman
whether he or she does not feel a certain amount of commiseration
for the rudeness of the town-bred artisan who walks about with his
hands in his pockets as though he recognized a superior in no one?
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