For Money.—Chapters I-IV [pp. 25-39]

For Money.
FOR MONEY.
I.
IT is undeniable that the golden calf is
the sole idol of the nineteenth century. In
the vanishing of our ideals, we cling frantically to something tangible, and money has
become our standard and our God. We forgive insults to honor and family for money
damages; we go to war because we hold
bonds; we worship the money getters and despise the money losers, for the man that
makes money is good, but the man that
keeps it is better. A heart sickness for our
lost ideals may rise feebly, sometimes; then
we drug it with gold, and the troublesome
pang is stilled.
The poor we have always with us, and
they are divided into two great classes: those
who deify a man with money, for the love
of it; and those to whom a rich man is a
devil, for the hate of it, which is the love of
it turned wrong side out, because gold has
passed them by. Let Plutus come wooing,
and they would not repulse.
Mrs. Lennard belonged to the latter class.
She was the faded, overworked, overstrung
wife of the Episcopal clergyman in the little
town with the soft Spanish saint's name,
across the water from the city. As the second wife, she had tried to do her duty to
the two boys and the baby girl left by her
predecessor; but when six of her own, of
whom two scarcely lived to see the light, successively appeared to keep them company,
her overtaxed nerves frequently gave way,
and she sought to give them relief by railing
at those to whom it was not a matter nearly
of life and death that Frances' dress should
be too worn out to make over for Juliaor Susy.
Being a clergyman's wife, she held, as often
is the case, to the uttermost letter of her form
of church government; but the vital principles of her faith did not seem to afford her
much satisfaction or consolation, and the
necessity of acknowledging the authority of
the Church was with her apparently greater
than the necessity of acknowledging the
Head of that church.
The thing in life that she lived for and
worshiped, was her eldest child, Louise.
Louise's beauty, her eyes, her hands, her
playing, her cleverness, were held up before
the other children with such judiciousness
and sincerity that they fell into line, and
with all their hearts adored their sister. She
took all their incense very sweetly, though
as a matter of course; and the one thing
that kept her unselfish was the intensity of
her devotion to her sister Frances, two years
younger than herself, and suffering since
early childhood with a painful form of heartdisease.
The two eldest boys, Gilbert and Harry,
young men now, had left their small employments at the East when their father was
called to California, and for three months of
their stay had as yet, contrary to their too
sanguine expectations, found nothing in
place of them. About this time, Gilbert,
who had a lively imagination and a taste for
scribbling, began to drift into newspaper
work, and finding the life exciting and the
work regularly paid for, announced in the
course of a few weeks that he had accepted
a regular position on one of the city dailies.
"My son," exclaimed his father, "rather
than have you do such a thing, I -"
"Gilbert, how could you without consulting us!" interupted his step-mother, coming
to her husband's relief, as she saw him floundering for an alternative.
"You needn't be distressed, mother," he
answered gayly. Gilbert was never long
cast down, and at present was elated with
his success. "I'm very proud of it myself.
All the Harvard fellows go into journalism.
It's a grand profession, and it is to be the
coming one."
"And you can run to fires, and have all
the theater tickets you want!" exclaimed
1886.]
25