Inasmuch as ostentation is the trade mark of vulgarity, and a rich man cannot spend his money without at least appearing ostentatious. The revival of the spinning and silk-weaving industries in England would be a far nobler and more beneficial help to the country and to the many thousands of people, than any number of Free Libraries, yet no millionaire comes forward to offer the needful assistance towards this deserving end. But perhaps a hundred looms set going, with their workers all properly supported, would not be so prominently noticed in the general landscape as a hundred Free Libraries.
Apart from the manner in which certain rich men spend their wealth, there is something in an overplus of riches which is distinctly "out of drawing," and lop-sided. It is a false note in the musical scale. Just as a woman, by wearing too great a number of jewels, vulgarizes whatever personal beauty she may possess by the flagrant exhibition of valuables and bad taste together, so does a man who has no other claim upon society than that of mere wealth, appear as a kind of monstrosity and deformity in the general equality and equilibrium of Nature. When such a man's career is daily seen to be nothing more than a constant pursuit of his own selfish ends, regardless of truth, honour, high principle, and consideration for his fellow-men, he becomes even more than a man-camel with a golden hump—he is an offence and a danger to the community. If, by mere dint of cash, he is allowed to force his way everywhere—if no ruling sovereign on the face of the earth has sufficient wisdom or strength of character to draw a line against the entrance into
