Three cruel vengeances pursue These miserable wretches who Hoard up their worthless wealth: great toil Is theirs to win it; then their spoil They fear to lose; and lastly, grieve Most bitterly that they must leave Their hoards behind them. Cursed they die Who living, lived but wretchedly; For no man, if he lack of love. Hath peace below or joy above. If those who heap up wealth would show Fair love to others, they would go Through life beloved, and thus would reign Sweet happy days. If they were fain, Who hold so much of good to shower around Their bounty unto those they found In need thereof, and nobly lent Their money, free from measurement Of usury (yet gave it not To idle gangrel men), I wot That then throughout the land were seen No pauper carl or starveling quean. But lust of wealth doth so abase Man's heart, that even love's sweet grace Bows down before it; men but love Their neighbors that their love may prove A profit, and both bought and sold Are friendships at the price of gold. Nay, shameless women set to hire Their bodies, heedless of hell-fire; It is after reading a passage like this in a book written in the Thirteenth Century that one feels the full truth of that expression of the greatest of American critics, James Russell Lowell, which so often comes back to mind with regard to the works of this century, that to read a classic is like reading a commentary on the morning paper. When this principle is {218} applied the other way, I suppose it may be said, that when a book written in the long ago sounds as if it were the utterance of some one aroused by the evils round him in our modern life, then it springs from so close to the heart of nature that it is destined to live and have an influence far beyond its own time. The Romance of the Rose, written seven centuries ago, now promises to have renewed youth in the awakening of interest in our Gothic ancestors and their accomplishments, before the over-praised renaissance came to trouble the stream of thought and writing. Other passages serve to show how completely the old-time poet realized all the abuses of the desire for wealth, and how much it makes men waste their lives over unessentials, instead of trying to make existence worth while for themselves and others. Here is an arraignment of the strenuous life of business every line of which is as true for us as it was for the poet's generation: