Edward knew not what to say. "You are not yet used," the old man continued, "to my words and expressions, because we have never yet talked upon these matters; you do not yet know my way of thinking; and as these feelings, these views of life are still new to you, you are surprised. Believe me, my good fellow, the only thing that keeps one from going mad, is swimming silently along with the stream, letting five always pass for even, and fitting oneself to that which cannot be changed. At the same time there is also another remedy that may serve to keep one afloat. One may lay down certain fixt unshakable principles, a line of conduct from which one never swerves. Money, wealth, gain, the circulation and the flowing of property and of the precious metals toward every quarter, through every relation of life, and every region of the earth, are one of the very strangest devices the world ever hit upon. It is a creature of necessity like every thing else; and as there is nothing on which passion has seized with such force, it has bred it up to be a monster more chimerical and wild than anything the fever of a heated fancy ever dreamt of. This monster is incessantly devouring and preying on all that comes within its reach; nothing satiates it; it gnaws and crunches the bones of the destitute, and laps up their tears. That in London and Paris before a palace, where a single banquet costs a thousand pieces of gold, a poor man should die of starvation, when the hundredth part of a piece of gold might save him,--that families should perish in frantic despair,--that there should be madness and suicide in the very room where a couple of paces off gamblers are rioting in gold,--all this seems so natural to us, such a matter of course, that we no longer feel any surprise at it; and everybody takes for granted with cold-blooded apathy, that it all must be so, and cannot be otherwise. How every state pampers this money-monster!--indeed it cannot help doing so--and trains it up to be more ferocious! In many countries wealth can no longer increase except among the rich, whereby the poor will be still more impoverisht, until at length Time will cast up the dismal sum, and then draw a bloody pen across the appalling amount. When I found myself thus rich, I held it to be my duty to keep this wealth in controul, so far as man can, and to tame the wild beast. Unquestionably the creation has been doomed to woe; else war, disease, famine, pain, and passion would not run riot and lay waste so. Existence and torment are one and the same word: nevertheless every one who does not mean wantonly to play the fiend, is bound to alleviate misery wherever he can. There is no property in the sense which most people put on the word; there ought not to be any, and the attempt to keep hold of it is godless. Still worse is it to spread calamity by the influence of wealth. Thus then I administer mine, so as to help my neighbours, to find work for the poor, care and remedies