"I suppose I might," I said, "but do you think I'd be any better off or happier with fifty thousand a year than I am now? You see, I like all these surroundings better than any other place I ever knew. That old green hill over there with the oak on it is an intimate friend of mine. I have a good corn-field in which every year I work miracles. I've a cow and a horse and a few pigs. I have a comfortable home. My appetite is perfect, and I have plenty of food to gratify it. I sleep every night like a boy, for I haven't a trouble in this world to disturb me. I enjoy the mornings here in the country; and the evenings are pleasant. Some of my neighbors have come to be my good friends. I like them and I am pretty sure they like me. Inside the house there I have the best books ever written and I have time in the evenings to read them--I mean _really_ read them. Now the question is, would I be any better off, or any happier, if I had fifty thousand a year?" John Starkweather laughed. "Well, sir," he said, "I see I've made the acquaintance of a philosopher." "Let us say," I continued, "that you are willing to invest twenty years of your life in a million dollars." ("Merely an illustration," said John Starkweather.) "You have it where you can put it in the bank and take it out again, or you can give it form in houses, yachts, and other things. Now twenty years of my life--to me--is worth more than a million dollars. I simply can't afford to sell it for that. I prefer to invest it, as somebody or other has said, unearned in life. I've always had a liking for intangible properties." "See here," said John Starkweather, "you are taking a narrow view of life. You are making your own pleasure the only standard. Shouldn't a man make the most of the talents given him? Hasn't he a duty to society?" "Now you are shifting your ground," I said, "from the question of personal satisfaction to that of duty. That concerns me, too. Let me ask you: Isn't it important to society that this piece of earth be plowed and cultivated?" "Yes, but--" "Isn't it honest and useful work?" "Of course." "Isn't it important that it shall not only be done, but well done?" "Certainly." "It takes all there is in a good man," I said, "to be a good farmer." "But the point is," he argued, "might not the same faculties applied to other things yield better and bigger results?"