purse is empty. I invite those who love
contrasts and unforeseen situations, to attempt to live without money
three days, and far from their friends and acquaintances--in short, far
from the society in which they are somebody. They will gain more
experience in forty-eight hours than in a year otherwise. Alas for some
people! they have this experience thrust upon them, and when veritable
ruin descends around their heads, it is useless to remain in their own
country, among the companions of their youth, their former colleagues,
even those indebted to them. People affect to know them no longer. With
what bitterness do they comment on the creed of money:--With gold one
may have what he will; without it, impossible to have anything! They
become pariahs, lepers, whom everyone shuns. Flies swarm round cadavers,
men round gold. Take away the gold, nobody is there. Oh, it has caused
tears to flow, this creed of gain! bitter tears, tears of blood, even
from those very eyes which once adored the golden calf.

And with it all, this creed is false, quite false. I shall not advance
to the attack with hackneyed tales of the rich man astray in a desert,
who cannot get even a drop of water for his gold; or the decrepit
millionaire who would give half he has to buy from a stalwart fellow
without a cent, his twenty years and his lusty health. No more shall I
attempt to prove that one cannot buy happiness. So many people who have
money and so many more who have not would smile at this truth as the
hardest ridden of saws. But I shall appeal to the common experience of
each of you, to make you put your finger on the clumsy lie hidden
beneath an axiom that all the world goes about repeating.

Fill your purse to the best of your means, and let us set out for one of
the watering-places of which there are so many. I mean some little town
formerly unknown and full of simple folk, respectful and hospitable,
among whom it was good to be, and cost little. Fame with her hundred
trumpets has announced them to the world, and shown them how they can
profit from their situation, their climate, their personality. You start
out, on the faith of Dame Rumor, flattering yourself that with your
money you are going to find a quiet place to rest, and, far from the
world of civilization and convention, weave a bit of poetry into the
warp of your days.

The beginning is good. Nature's setting and some patriarchal costumes,
slow to disappear, delight you. But as