At length, an accumulation of money comes into the children's hands. They have before been restricted in their expenditure; now they become lavish. They have been educated in no better tastes. They spend extravagantly. They will not be drudges in business as their father was. They will be "gentlemen," and spend their money "like gentlemen." And very soon the money takes wings and flies away. Many are the instances in which families have been raised to wealth in the first generation, launched into ruinous expense in the second, and disappeared in the third,--being again reduced to poverty. Hence the Lancashire proverb, "Twice clogs, once boots." The first man wore clogs, and accumulated a "a power o' money;" his rich son spent it; and the third generation took up the clogs again. A candidate for parliamentary honours, when speaking from the hustings, was asked if he had plenty brass. "Plenty brass?" said he; "ay, I've lots o' brass!--I stink o' brass!" The same social transformations are known in Scotland. The proverb there is, "The grandsire digs, the father bigs, the son thigs,"[1]--that is, the grandfather worked hard and made a fortune, the father built a fine house, and the son, "an unthrifty son of Linne," when land and goods were gone and spent, took to thieving. Merchants are sometimes princes to-day and beggars to-morrow; and so long as the genius for speculation is exercised by a mercantile family, the talent which gave them landed property may eventually deprive them of it. [Footnote 1: _Dublin University Magazine_.] To be happy in old age--at a time when men should leave for ever the toil, anxiety, and worry of money-making--they must, during youth and middle life, have kept their minds healthily active. They must familiarize themselves with knowledge, and take an interest in all that has been done, and is doing, to make the world wiser and better from age to age. There is enough leisure in most men's lives to enable them to interest themselves in biography and history. They may also acquire considerable knowledge of science, or of some ennobling pursuit different from that by which money is made. Mere amusement will not do. No man can grow happy upon amusement. The mere man of pleasure is a miserable creature,--especially in old age. The mere drudge in business is little better. Whereas the study of literature, philosophy, and science is full of tranquil pleasure, down to the end of life. If the rich old man has no enjoyment apart from money-making, his old age becomes miserable. He goes on grinding and grinding in the same rut, perhaps growing richer and richer. What matters it? He cannot eat his gold. He cannot spend it. His money, instead of being beneficial to him, becomes a curse. He is the slave of avarice, the meanest of sins. He is spoken of as a despicable creature. He becomes base, even in his own estimation.