g the imagination
nowadays that a banker is the very type of the unimaginative man, and
the faintest suspicion of genius is enough to render a financier an
object of suspicion to the money market. But it is conceivable in the
odd freaks of things that we may yet see the advent of the
Poet-Capitalist. It is almost impossible to say what new opportunities
the possession of fabulous resources might not add to the fancy of a
dreamer or to the speculations of a philanthropist. It is not till after
a little thought that we realize how materially the course of human
progress is obstructed by sheer want of money at critical moments, or
how easily the sum of human happiness might be increased by the sudden
descent of a golden shower on the right people at the right time.

There are dreams which men have been dreaming for generation after
generation which require nothing for their realization but the
appearance of such a capitalist as we have imagined. To take what may
seem perhaps an odd instance, just because it is an odd instance, let us
remember what a wonderful amount of hope and anticipation has been
thrown by a great religious party into the restoration of the Jews.
Rightly or wrongly, it is the one theme which sends a throb of
excitement through the life of quiet parsonages and kindles a new fire
even in the dreariest May meetings at Exeter Hall. But in point of
actual fact there is not the slightest necessity to await any great
spiritual revolution for the accomplishment of such a dream if its
accomplishment were really desirable. A league of Evangelical bankers
who fully believed in the prophecies they are so fond of quoting could
turn the wildest fancies of Dr. Cumming into sober earnest with very
little trouble indeed. Any emigration agent would undertake the
transport of Houndsditch bodily to Joppa; the bare limestone uplands of
Judaea could be covered again with terraces of olive and vine at
precisely the same cost of money and industry as is still required to
keep up the cultivation of the Riviera; and Mr. Fergusson would furnish
for a due consideration plans and estimates for a restoration of the
Temple on Zion. We are not suggesting such a scheme as an opportunity
for investing money to any great profit, but it is odd to live in a
world of wealthy people who believe firmly that its realization would
make this world into a little heaven below and yet never seem to feel
that they have the means of bringing it about