Yet The Fact Is
Patent Enough, If We Once Think It Over, From The Mere Consideration
Of The Respect With Which We So Often Treat Those Who Are Richer Than
Ourselves.
We observe men for the most part (admitting, however,
some few abnormal exceptions) to be deeply impressed by the superior
organisation of those who have money.
It is wrong to attribute this
respect to any unworthy motive, for the feeling is strictly
legitimate and springs from some of the very highest impulses of our
nature. It is the same sort of affectionate reverence which a dog
feels for man, and is not infrequently manifested in a similar
manner.
We admit that these last sentences are open to question, and we
should hardly like to commit ourselves irrecoverably to the
sentiments they express; but we will say this much for certain,
namely, that the rich man is the true hundred-handed Gyges of the
poets. He alone possesses the full complement of limbs who stands at
the summit of opulence, and we may assert with strictly scientific
accuracy that the Rothschilds are the most astonishing organisms that
the world has ever yet seen. For to the nerves or tissues, or
whatever it be that answers to the helm of a rich man's desires,
there is a whole army of limbs seen and unseen attachable; he may be
reckoned by his horse-power, by the number of foot-pounds which he
has money enough to set in motion. Who, then, will deny that a man
whose will represents the motive power of a thousand horses is a
being very different from the one who is equivalent but to the power
of a single one?
Henceforward, then, instead of saying that a man is hard up, let us
say that his organisation is at a low ebb, or, if we wish him well,
let us hope that he will grow plenty of limbs. It must be remembered
that we are dealing with physical organisations only. We do not say
that the thousand-horse man is better than a one-horse man, we only
say that he is more highly organised and should be recognised as
being so by the scientific leaders of the period. A man's will,
truth, endurance, are part of him also, and may, as in the case of
the late Mr. Cobden, have in themselves a power equivalent to all the
horse-power which they can influence; but were we to go into this
part of the question we should never have done, and we are compelled
reluctantly to leave our dream in its present fragmentary condition.
A NOTE ON "THE TEMPEST"
Act III, Scene I
The following brief essay was contributed by Butler to a small
miscellany entitled LITERARY FOUNDLINGS: VERSE AND PROSE, COLLECTED
IN CANTERBURY, N.Z., which was published at Christ Church on the
occasion of a bazaar held there in March, 1864, in aid of the funds
of the Christ Church Orphan Asylum, and offered for sale during the
progress of the bazaar.
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