Yet when a man is very fond of his money it is not easy for him at
all times to be very fond of his children also. The two are like God
and Mammon. Lord Macaulay has a passage in which he contrasts the
pleasures which a man may derive from books with the inconveniences to
which he may be put by his acquaintances. "Plato," he says, "is
never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. Demosthenes never comes
unseasonably. Dante never stays too long. No difference of political
opinion can alienate Cicero. No heresy can excite the horror of
Bossuet." I daresay I might differ from Lord Macaulay in my estimate
of some of the writers he has named, but there can be no disputing his
main proposition, namely, that we need have no more trouble from any
of them than we have a mind to, whereas our friends are not always
so easily disposed of. George Pontifex felt this as regards his
children and his money. His money was never naughty; his money never
made noise or litter, and did not spill things on the tablecloth at
meal times, or leave the door open when it went out. His dividends did
not quarrel among themselves, nor was he under any uneasiness lest his
mortgages should become extravagant on reaching manhood and run him up
debts which sooner or later he should have to pay.
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