Various

“ I called a hansom from the rank just opposite to me, and jumped in, after giving my directions to so much of the driver as I could make out between his hat and his collar.
I felt tired, hungry, and depressed, so that I was glad to drop off to sleep, and forget weariness and worry for a little while; and I remained unconscious of bad pavement and rattling rain, blurred glass and misty lights, until the stoppage of the cab roused me. Thinking that I had arrived at my journey’s end, and wondering why the glass was not raised, I smote lustily on the roof with my umbrella. ”

“ Everybody wants exactly what is “in his line,” and won’t see that he might get on well enough in another line till he found room again in his own.’
‘Human nature has a weakness for wanting the things it likes best, and that it’s most in the way of doing,’ said Uncle Dick, pressing down the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe with a careful movement of the left hand’s little finger.
‘But human nature need not starve because it cannot get what it likes best,’ retorted Philip warmly. ”

“ It is true that a nation may form a currency of anything, but only a currency of the precious metal can be of universal circulation; and that is simply because the metal is precious.
Now, when Bonamy Price said that gold is only wealth in the same sense as a cart is—namely, as a vehicle for fetching that which we desire, he said merely what could be said of wheat or cotton, or any other product of nature and labour usually esteemed wealth. You cannot eat gold, nor can you clothe yourself with wheat ”

“ But that merciful dispensation of providence which prevents us from seeing ourselves as others see us, frequently so far affects an author’s judgment of his own writings, that it has become almost a commonplace of criticism that the greatest of writers occasionally prefer their own least worthy works. They are apt to measure the value of what they have done not by its intrinsic merit, but by the difficulty of doing it ”

“ She approved of everything he said; and she, too, was seeing great possibilities in this new Golconda.
‘The world,’ quoth Philip, ‘is big enough for us all; and there is work enough for everybody who is willing to work. It is not work which fails, but workers. We have classified and divided our labour until we have fallen into a social system of caste as rigid as that of the Hindu, but without his excuse. Men won’t turn their hands to whatever may be offered nowadays. They clamour that they starve for want of a job, when they mean that they cannot get the job which pleases them best. ”

“ Again, if it be true, as Jevons says, that gold is one of the last things to be regarded as wealth, and the labour expended in its production almost a dead loss, and therefore a wrong to the human race, the world should be very much poorer for all the enormous production of the last half-century. On the contrary, the world has gone on increasing in the appliances of wealth, in conditions of comfort, and in diffusion of education. ”

“ Strange as it may seem, there are people—few though they may be—who never saw a snake in India. I was lately solemnly assured by a friend who had spent three years in the Mofussil, frequently camping out, that he had never once seen one dead or alive. At one bungalow where I resided a few years—a bungalow admirably situated, and well raised from the ground—I killed, or saw killed, during three months of one monsoon rains, between eighty and ninety poisonous snakes on the premises, of which more than one-third were either in the rooms or the veranda. ”

“ Against the plea for a dual standard there is a great deal to be urged. The question, however, is too wide to be entered upon at this stage, and we will content ourselves with stating one great objection to bi-metallism, and that is, that it would be inoperative unless its adoption were universal; and that so deeply is gold rooted in the affections of mankind, the universal adoption of silver also, is practically hopeless. Into the world of commerce, into the arena of industry, into the storehouses of wealth, ‘’tis Gold which buys admittance.’ ”

“ We might multiply quotations all tending to show that while a certain class of philosophers admit a limited value in gold as a{210} metal, they claim that it loses the value immediately it is transformed into a coin.
This contention is not tenable in reason. It is directly against the concentrated faith of the ages. Gold is desirable for the sake of its own special virtues, and it becomes additionally valuable when employed as the medium of exchange among nations. It is because of the universal desire of nations to possess it, that it enjoys its supremacy as money. ”

“ Macaulay also may be ranked among the writers who have formed correct judgments of their own works. ‘I have written,’ he wrote with great candour, to Macvey Napier, ‘several things on historical, political, and moral questions, of which, on the fullest reconsideration, I am not ashamed, and by which I should be willing to be estimated. But I have never written a page of criticism on poetry or the fine arts which I would not burn if I had the power. ”

“ The fable of Midas, whose touch transformed even his food into gold, testifies that the ancients felt the limits, while they adored the virtues of the wonderful metal. Since the morning of the world, gold has been the chief object of desire of mankind ”

“ Moreover, severe criticism often tempts an author to praise some neglected work of his above what he is conscious to be its real deserts; just as, when her chickens are attacked by the kite, the fond hen rushes straightway to defend the one which seems most in danger. ”

“ Abundance begets cheapness, and rarity the reverse. That is most valuable which involves the greatest amount of effort to acquire. But we must not jump from this to the conclusion that were gold to become as plentiful as iron, and be as easily obtained, it would recede in value to the equivalent of iron, bulk for bulk. Gold has an intrinsic value superior to that of all other metals because it has useful properties possessed by none other. ”

“ In theory, we exchange our coal and iron for the cotton, wheat, &c., of other countries; but as we cannot mete out the exactly equal values in ‘kind,’ we settle the difference nominally in gold, but actually in paper representing gold. But the gold must nevertheless exist, or the operation would be impossible. It is as when a man buys, let us say, five hundred tons of pig-iron in Glasgow. He does not actually receive into his hands five hundred tons of iron, but he receives a warrant which entitles him to obtain such iron when and how he pleases. ”

“ They like to know what is coming—to watch with thrills of expectation for each detail. And these details, graphically given by one who had them from the very actors in the scene, were weird and vivid. The vault at midnight—the cutting off of the finger—the ghastly terror of the ruffians, when the dead woman sat up in her coffin and blood began to flow—the familiar knock coming to the house-door in the dead of night, heard by terrified maids, who, thinking their mistress’s ghost was there, buried their faces, trembling, in their pillows. ”

“ No other material object has retained in a like degree the united devotion of man in all ages. And not merely because gold is the synonym of money. By money we mean that by which the riches of the world can be expressed and transferred. But money may exist in various forms. It may be rock-salt, as in Abyssinia; cowries and beads, as in Africa; tobacco, as formerly in Virginia. Gold is greater than money, because gold includes money, and makes money possible. Upon gold rests the whole superstructure of the wealth of the world. ”

“ There are few bungalows the thatched roof of which is not the occasional abode of one objectionable species—the sankor, or roof-snake; whilst round about, in the hollows of old trees, or beneath the flooring of the rooms, or in the garden hard by, come at intervals specimens more or less dangerous to human life. It will serve to show the nature of the danger from this source, if I relate a few of my own personal experiences during a residence of some years in Bengal. ”

“ Then he carefully produced from inside the sodden and melancholy hat a folded piece of paper and a clay-pipe. He filled the pipe from the paper, restored the latter to the hat, and put the hat on his head. Then he looked helplessly at the pipe. I guessed that the poor wretch had neither a match nor a penny to buy one. A thought seemed to strike him. He looked up suddenly at the lamp, and I saw his face for the first time. I am an observer of faces. ”

“ As regards the employment of gold, it is estimated that fifteen million pounds-worth annually is required for ornament and employment in the arts and manufactures. This, on the production of 1881, would leave only six and a half million pounds-worth for coining purposes each year.
No greater proof of the universal desire of man to possess gold could be afforded than by the heterogeneous mass of peoples who flocked to the gold-diggings. Men of every colour, of every religion, and from every clime, were drawn thither by the attraction of the yellow metal. ”

“ This is a dignity attained by no other metal. It has been urged that the government guarantee of a solvent nation stamped upon a piece of tin, or wood, or paper, will form a counter quite as valuable as gold for a medium of exchange. So it might, but the circulation would only be within certain limits. A Scotch bank-note is passed from hand to hand with even more confidence than a sovereign—in Scotland. But take one to England and observe the difficulty and often impossibility of changing it. The pound-note is worth a sovereign, but its circulating value is local. ”

“ Even with a Bank of England note, travellers on the continent occasionally experience some difficulty in effecting a satisfactory exchange. But is there a country in the most rudimentary condition of commerce, where an English sovereign, or a French napoleon, or an American eagle, cannot be at once exchanged at the price of solid gold? ”

“ Jerry chuckled with the pleasures of retrospection, as well as of anticipation, and made a great ado putting on the skid as they began to descend towards the village.
Mr Beecham listened to this gossip with the interest of an exile returned to his native land. Whilst everywhere he meets the signs of change, he also finds countless trifles which revive the past. Even the comparison of what is, with what has been, has its pleasure, although it be mingled with an element of sadness. The sweetest memories are always touched with tender regret. ”

“ Of course there is no complete analogy between an iron warrant and a paper currency, but it serves for the moment as a simple illustration. To discuss the differences would lead us beyond the design of the present paper.
Probably one great reason why gold so early in the history of the world assumed its leading position as a standard of value is, that it is found in a pure state. So also is silver, which is the nearest rival of gold. Primitive races used these metals long before the art of smelting was discovered. ”

“ I have spoken of the fondness of snakes for frogs and toads. There is a well-known cry of a very plaintive and peculiar description often heard, especially during the rains, uttered by these unfortunate frogs when being set at by a snake. ‘Beng bolta hai, kodárwand!’ (A frog is shouting) was the information frequently imparted to me by my little servant-boy Nubbee, as I lay beneath the punka enjoying my post-prandial cigar, ever ready, as he knew me to be, to kill the snake and save the frog. Out we would sally, he holding my kerosene table-lamp, and I armed with a polo-stick ”