Further it cannot be seriously controverted that money, circulating in small sums in the hands of the mass of the people and devoted for the most part to the purchase of the necessaries of life, is infinitely more conducive to productive expenditure than money hoarded in large quantities to be administered by a small class for their own advantage. Chapter VII The deceptive process of the growth of riches--The relaxation of effort--The love of ease--The power of convention--The disadvantages of abundance--Surfeit--Difficulties in a rich man’s life--Waste of talent and capacity--England as a nation deeply infected with the belief in money. There is no more misleading and deceptive process than the gradual growth of riches. As a man’s income increases, fresh obligations arise which have all the appearance of necessities, and in satisfying these a still further crop springs up, demands his attention, and occupies more of his time. Little by little his standard changes; stage by stage, almost imperceptibly, what he once regarded as a pure luxury becomes to him an imperative necessity, and all unconscious, he spends his energy in the struggle to keep himself on a level with those among whom he desires to be classed. This is all very well with people whose means range above the limit, but when we reach those who are on the border line, when we come to the ranks of those whose existence is overshadowed by the constant and wearing anxiety as to whether their small incomes will go far enough, there is an element of profound tragedy in their efforts to keep up appearances and to maintain an outward show of having money while necessities, unseen but very pressing, are sacrificed--the service of doctors and nurses in illness very likely denied, and all the small accessories that go to make life in the home pleasanter cut off. We are not aware of the large number of people thus situated, because their brave attempts to delude us are often successful. Those we know of have perhaps seen better days, being through no fault of their own thrown into penury, and they may be making pathetic and painful endeavours to keep up a show not, indeed, of affluence, but, anyhow, of respectability. As a writer[15] recently said with great truth: “There is little sympathy felt in the world of rhetoric for the silent sufferings of the genteel poor, yet there is no class that deserves a more charitable commiseration.” Their incomes may not be in themselves excessively small, but the expense of conforming to the various little conventions to which they have been accustomed and the strain of trying to keep up to a level slightly above their natural standard eat away too much of their meagre store. Their gentility has softened them, or their middle-class respectability prevents them from openly ranking themselves among the poor. They know, too, that a change in circumstances may deprive them of their former “friends.”