[56]
The generous, on the other hand, are those who
employ their own means to ransom captives from
brigands, or who assume their friends' debts or help
in providing dowries for their daughters, or assist
them in acquiring property or increasing what they
have. And so I wonder what Theophrastus could
have been thinking about when he wrote his book
on “Wealth.” It contains much that is fine; but
his position is absurd, when he praises at great length
the magnificent appointments of the popular games,
and it is in the means for indulging in such expenditures that he finds the highest privilege of wealth.
But to me the privilege it gives for the exercise of
generosity, of which I have given a few illustrations,
seems far higher and far more certain.
How much more true and pertinent are Aristotle's
words, as he rebukes us for not being amazed at this
extravagant waste of money, all to win the favour of
[p. 229]
the populace. “If people in time of siege,” he says,
“are required to pay a mina for a pint of water, this
seems to us at first beyond belief, and all are amazed;
but, when they think about it, they make allowances
for it on the plea of necessity. But in the matter of
this enormous waste and unlimited expenditure we
are not very greatly astonished, and that, too, though
by it no extreme need is relieved, no dignity is enhanced, and the very gratification of the populace is
but for a brief, passing moment; such pleasure as it
is, too, is confined to the most frivolous, and even in
these the very memory of their enjoyment dies as
soon as the moment of gratification is past.”
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