Such an
accumulation of wealth is just as wise as if a man who had to walk ten
miles on a hot day should, of his own choice, carry on his back a
large sack of potatoes. A man of superior sense and feeling will not
waste his life so, unless he has in view a grand public object. On the
contrary, he will rather do as Franklin did, who, having acquired at
the age of forty-two a modest competence, sold out his thriving
business on easy terms to a younger man, and devoted the rest of his
happy life to the pursuit of knowledge and the service of his country.
But we cannot all be Franklins. In the affairs of the world
millionaires are as indispensable as philosophers; and it is fortunate
for society that some men take pleasure in heaping up enormous masses
of capital.
Having retired from business, Mr. Astor determined to fulfil the vow
of his youth, and build in Broadway a house larger and costlier than
any it could then boast. Behold the result in the Astor House, which
remains to this day one of our most solid, imposing, and respectable
structures. The ground on which the hotel stands was covered with
substantial three-story brick houses, one of which Astor himself
occupied; and it was thought at the time a wasteful and rash
proceeding to destroy them.
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