In Utopia, gold and silver are held in reproach. They are not considered to be as useful as iron. Consequently, the Utopians load down their slaves with gold and silver ornaments and pearls.[X-16] In this connection the description of the visit of a group of ambassadors to Amaurote is amusing. The ambassadors from an adjoining country were dressed in gorgeous apparel like the very gods. They came to Amaurote wearing chains of gold and displaying peacock feathers. The citizens of Amaurote, coming out to meet the guests, rushed past the ambassadors and saluted the plainly dressed slaves of the ambassadors. They mistook the ambassadors for fools and knaves. Even the little children of Amaurote, when they saw the jewelry of the ambassadors, looked at their mothers and said: “See, how great a lubber doth wear pearls and precious stones, as if he were still a little child.”[X-17] After being in Amaurote a short time, the ambassadors perceived how foolish it was to set emphasis on the doubtful glistenings of trifling stones. They recognized that it is foolish to consider oneself nobler than other selves because one can wear clothes that are spun from finer wool than the clothes of other persons. After all, whether the wool is coarse or fine, it may have come from the self-same sheep. An individual does not become a god by wearing precious stones. The more the individual burdens himself with heavy stones and gorgeous apparel, the more insignificant he is. Although in Utopia no man is wealthy, yet in a sense, all men are wealthy. All live joyfully, without worrying, and without fearing that they or their children will fall into poverty. Amaurote is a gigantic household, wherein the more able take a personal interest in the less able and in the unfortunate. No one lives in idleness and no one lives by virtue of any form of unnecessary economic enterprise. Rich men are not permitted by either private fraud or common law to snatch away from the poor man some portion, great or small, of his daily earnings. There are no idle rich, conniving how they may keep their unearned wealth or how they may grind down the poor in order to get more wealth. Since the love of money is unknown in Amaurote, other passions are also absent. Since the people do not love money, they have lost the desire to perpetrate the money crimes, such as fraud, theft, murder, treason. Likewise, pride which measures its satisfaction, not in terms of its own merits, _per se_, but by comparison with the poverty of human beings, is destroyed. The Utopians have conquered materialism. They are not subject to the death grapples which are caused by the love of money. Luxuries have been suppressed and the leisure class has been eliminated. Social extremes are unknown.