But there is no authority for that view
anywhere. It is nowhere in the Bible. It is true that we
might do a vast amount of good if we were wealthy, but it is
also highly improbable; not many do; and the art of growing
rich is not only quite distinct from that of doing good, but
the practice of the one does not at all train a man for
practising the other. "Money might be of great service to
me," writes Thoreau; "but the difficulty now is that I do not
improve my opportunities, and therefore I am not prepared to
have my opportunities increased." It is a mere illusion
that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be
satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse.
It is as difficult to be generous, or anything else, except
perhaps a member of Parliament, on thirty thousand as on two
hundred a year.
Now Thoreau's tastes were well defined. He loved to be free,
to be master of his times and seasons, to indulge the mind
rather than the body; he preferred long rambles to rich
dinners, his own reflections to the consideration of society,
and an easy, calm, unfettered, active life among green trees
to dull toiling at the counter of a bank. And such being his
inclination he determined to gratify it. A poor man must
save off something; he determined to save off his livelihood.
"When a man has attained those things which are necessary to
life," he writes, "there is another alternative than to
obtain the superfluities; HE MAY ADVENTURE ON LIFE NOW, his
vacation from humbler toil having commenced.
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