Points of Friction
is an unlikeness of time and circumstance, not of the inherent qualities of the soul. The multiplication of assets, the destruction of trade-rivalry, formed—apparently—no part of the original apostolic programme. If the tent-maker of Tarsus coveted wealth, he certainly went the wrong way about getting it. If there was that in his spirit which corresponded to the modern instinct for accumulation, he did great injustice to his talents, wasting his incomparable energy on labours which—from his own showing—left him too often homeless, and naked, and hungry. Even the tent-making, by which he earned his bread, appears to have been valuable to him for the same reason that the blade-bone of mutton was valuable to Andrew Marvell,—not so much because it filled his stomach, as because it insured his independence.
"L'amour d'argent a passé en dogme de morale publique," wrote George Sand,
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