of labor perpetually. But money spent uselessly,--as upon the turf, for costly wines, or high-priced luxuries, -or money spent for vanity, and not for enjoyment, is absolutely wasted. It maintains persons whose labor, that might have been useful to the community, is of no actual benefit, either to the spenders or to mankind. When a dollar's worth of food is needlessly consumed, the community is made just a dollar poorer. When a dollar is saved, and loaned, or employed, its power to bless the community has no limit in time, for all the great operations of concentrated labor, by which at country is made a desirable one to live in, are the results of capital thus husbanded. The careless observer, however, does not see what becomes of the economist's money; he does see what becomes of the spendthrift's; and observing that it feeds a certain. amount of industry, though immeasurably less than it would have fed if saved and loaned, hastily concludes that prodigality encourages industry, and parsimony discourages it.

Another fallacy, hardly less popular than the foregoing is the hackneyed saying, "Contentment is better than riches," which graces so many copy-books, and on which so many changes have been rung by a certain class of moralists. Tell a languid, unenterprising man that you are brooding on some scheme, Californian, Australian, or otherwise, by which to better your worldly condition, and with a deprecating look and an ominous shake of the head he will croak to you the old saw, or some other hydropathic adage, to damp your zeal and fright you from your purpose, with as confident an air as if nobody had ever challenged its truthfulness. It would be interesting to know how such a sentiment gained currency in these times; for, certainly, it is

one of those sentimentalities that seem better fitted for the golden age than for the bustle and shock of this fiery, "go-ahead" period in the world's history.

To be contented,-what, indeed, is it? Is it not to be satisfied, to hope for nothing, to aspire to nothing, to strive for nothing,-in short, to rest in inglorious ease, doing nothing for your country, for your own or others' material, intellectual, or moral improvement, satisfied with the condition in which you or they are placed? Such a state of feeling may do very well where nature has fixed an inseparable and ascertained barrier,- a "thus far shalt thou go and no farther," to our wishes, or where we are troubled by ills past remedy. In such cases it is the highest philosophy not to fret or grumble, when, by all our worrying and self-teasing, we cannot help ourselves a jot or tittle, but only aggravate and intensify an affliction that is incurable. To soothe the mind down into patience is then the only resource left us, and happy is he who has schooled himself thus to meet all reverses and disappointments. But in the ordinary circumstances of life, this boasted virtue of contentment, so far from being laudable, would be an evil of the first magnitude. It would be, in fact, nothing less than a trigging of the wheels of all enterprise, a cry of "Stand still!" to the progress of the whole social world.

What is it that contrives machinery, builds and freights ships, beautifies cities, encourages the arts, writes books, and promotes the wealth, intelligence and comfort of a free and happy nation? Not contentment, certainly. Not contempt for that "competence" which millions are striving for, and which has been happily defined as three hundred a year more than you possess. Man is naturally an active, progressive being, destined

to be perpetually improving himself and his condition, and he can have no sympathy with so sleepy, passive a virtue, without violating the first law of his nature. Providence has ordered that he shall work out his own happiness, and the very means it has employed to make sure that he shall go on in the fulfillment of its designs, is that inability to content himself with what he possesses, or has done, which sentimentalists declaim against as one of the worst features in his character. It is this which feeds and clothes him, furnishes him with all the luxuries, all the elegancies and amenities of life, stimulates him to accumulate capital to produce great social ends, and incites him to strain alike for intellectual and moral improvement. It is, indeed, the glory of the world that nothing in it is stationary, or rests contented with itself, but that to whatever peak of excellence it climbs, it sees "hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise:"

Spring's real glory lies not in the meaning,
Gracious though it be, of her blue hours,
But is hidden in her tender leaning

To the summer's richer wealth of flowers.

It has been truly said, that from the polyp to the saint, there is a perpetual striving,- a divine dissatisfaction. Even the inorganic world would organize itself; the groping atoms struggle into cells; and in every geologic period there are prophetic intimations of a more lofty that is yet to be.

With the civilized man contentment is a myth. From the cradle to the grave he is forever longing and striving after something better, an indefinable something, some new object yet unattained. No doubt this feeling often takes a wrong direction, and manifests itself in

ambition, envy, grumbling, fretfulness, and other excesses; but so may every principle of our nature be perverted; and even in this unregulated state, it is far better than that contented feeling which leads a man to sit down with his hands in his breeches pockets, leaving everything to chance, and making no effort to improve his condition. But the truth is, that the man whose thoughts and energies are all needed for, and constantly employed in, efforts to reach a higher position, is the person of all men least likely to let his mind brood sulkily and discontentedly upon things either not worth attaining, or which are not so to him.

Had Milton been a contented man, would he have given to the world his grand epic? Had Shakspeare been a contented man, instead of one who "troubled deaf heaven with his bootless cries," and "cursed his fate," which led him "to make himself a motley to the view," to "gore his own thoughts," and "sell cheap what is most dear," would he have delighted the world with those matchless creations, Hamlet, Lear, and Macbeth?

Would Byron, if contented, have written Childe Harold? Would a contented man have painted the Cartoons; or, had Columbus been such, would he have discovered America? No, surely; such a benumbing, paralyzing principle as contentment and the lofty aspirations of genius cannot co-exist in the same soul. As well might you talk of a sedentary will-o-the-wisp, a brick balloon, or a lazy lightning. Depend upon it, the nonsense of contentment and a cottage is pretty in the page of the poet or novelist only, never in actual life. The virtue is one which the rich are always anxious to find in the poor, one which every man likes to see his neighbor practise, but which no one

cares to practise himself. In fact, as Mr. J. S. Mill, in his book on "Representative Government," suggests, the great mass even of seeming contentment “is real discontent, combined with indolence or self-indulgence, which, while taking no legitimate means of raising itself, delights in bringing others down to its own level.”

Look at the effects of this feeling upon nations. Was the free and fiery Spartan, or the noble Roman, famed for it? Does it characterize the English, with their "hungry heart," of which one of their poets speaks? Or do we not, in fact, find it in the highest perfection among the ignorant and degraded serfs of Russia, who, when in the most abject slavery, hardly evinced a wish for freedom? Do we not see it in the habits of the American Indians, who sneer at all the courses of industry, so long as they can gather fish from the rivers or game from the forests? Is it not a notorious trait of the peasantry of Ireland, who, if they have "murphies" enough, are content to live in idleness, though exposed to a host of what other people would call frightful evils? Does it not characterize such persons as constitute the dregs of every civilized community, who, deeply as we may deprecate the conduct of selfish and grasping men, that strive and toil for wealth and worldly aggrandizement, without any higher views, are not above such a life, but below it?

What keeps such persons down in the world, besides lack of capacity, is not a philosophical contempt of riches or honors, but thoughtlessness and improvidence, a love of sluggish torpor, and of present gratification. It is not from preferring virtue to wealth,-the goods of the mind to those of fortune,- that they take so little thought for the morrow; but from want of forethought and stern self-command. The restless,