Pretended sages announce to us, with sententious gravity, that virtue ought to be the single object of our desires; that, strengthened by it, we can support privations and misery without suffering. Useless moralists! Shall I yield faith to precepts which the experience of every day falsifies? It is only necessary, in refutation, to present a man who has broken his limb, or whose children suffer hunger. His plan is wise, who examines, with a judgment free from ambition, the amount of fortune necessary to competence in his case, viewed in all its bearings; and commences the steady pursuit of it. Having reached that measure, if his desires impel him beyond the limit which, in a more reasonable hour, he prescribed for himself, he henceforward strives to be happy by sacrificing enjoyment. He barters it for a very uncertain means of purchasing even pleasures. In this way competence becomes useless to the greater part of those who obtain it. Victims of the common folly, and still wishing a little more, they lose, in the effort to get rich, the time which they ought to spend in enjoyment. We see grasping and adroit speculators on every side; and, but rarely, men who know how to employ the resources of a moderate fortune. It is not the art of acquiring beyond competence, but of wisely spending, that we need to learn. Our business in life is to be happy; and yet, simple and obvious as this truism is, the greater number disdain or forget it. To judge from the passions and objects that we see exciting man to action, we should suppose that he was placed on the earth, not to become happy, but rich. To what purpose so many cares and studies? ‘That man,’ we are answered with a peculiar emphasis, ‘has an immense income.’ In his rare, brilliant and envied condition, if he does not vegetate under the weight of ennui, I recognise in him a man of astonishing merit.