w Diogenes,
and are going to victimize me with a discourse _a la Seneca_, on the
contempt of riches.

F. Heaven preserve me from that! For riches, don't you see, are not a
little more or a little less money. They are bread for the hungry,
clothes for the naked, fuel to warm you, oil to lengthen the day, a
career open to your son, a certain portion for your daughter, a day of
rest after fatigue, a cordial for the faint, a little assistance slipped
into the hand of a poor man, a shelter from the storm, a diversion for a
brain worn by thought, the incomparable pleasure of making those happy
who are dear to us. Riches are instruction, independence, dignity,
confidence, charity; they are progress, and civilization. Riches are the
admirable civilizing result of two admirable agents, more civilizing
even than riches themselves--labour and exchange.

B. Well! now you seem to be singing the praises of riches, when, a
moment ago, you were loading them with imprecations!

F. Why, don't you see that it was only the whim of an economist? I cry
out against money, just because everybody confounds it, as you did just
now, with riches, and that this confusion is the cause of errors and
calamities without number. I cry out against it because its function in
society is not understood, and very difficult to explain. I cry out
against it, because it jumbles all ideas, causes the means to be taken
for the end, the obstacle for the cause, the alpha for the omega;
because its presence in the world, though in itself beneficial, has,
nevertheless, introduced a fatal notion, a perversion of principles, a
contradictory theory, which, in a multitude of forms, has impoverished
mankind and deluged the earth with blood. I cry out against it, because
I feel that I am incapable of contending against the error to which it
has given birth, otherwise than by a long and fastidious dissertation to
which no one would listen. Oh! if I could only find a patient and
benevolent listener!

B. Well, it shall not be said that for want of a victim you remain in
the state of irritation in which you now are. I am listening; speak,
lecture, do not restrain yourself in any way.

F. You promise to take an interest?

B. I promise to have patience.

F. That is not much.

B. It is all that I can give. Begin, and explain to me, at first, how
a mistake on the subject of cash, if mistake there be, is to be found at
the root of all economical errors?

F. Well, now, i