There is a point in that questionable jest.  Materialism! curse of our age!  Who can seriously speak about the broad diffusion of happiness in a country where contentment is measured according to how many kinds of sauces we can taste?  My people is by far not the most material.  We are not much given to the cupidity of becoming rich.  We know the word “enough.”  The simplicity of our manners makes us easily contented in our material relations; we like rather to be free than to be rich; we look for an honourable profit, that we may have upon what to live; but we don’t like to live for the sake of profit; augmentation of property and of wealth with us is not the aim of our life—­we prefer tranquil, independent mediocrity to the incessant excitement and incessant toil of cupidity and gain.  Such is the character of my nation; and yet I have known a countryman of mine who blew out his brains because he had no means more to eat daily pates de foi gras and drink champagne.  Well, that was no Hungarian character, but, though somewhat eccentrically, he characterized the leading feature of our century.

Indeed, are your richest money-kings happier than Fabricius was, when he preferred his seven acres of land, worked by his own hands, to the treasures of an empire?  Are the ladies of to-day, adorned with all the gorgeous splendour of wealth, of jewels, and of art, happier than those ladies of ancient Rome have been, to whom it was forbidden to wear silk and jewelry, or drive in a carriage through the streets of Rome?  Are the ladies of to-day happier in their splendid parlours, than the Portias and the Cornelias have been in the homely retirement of their modest nurseries?  Nay; all that boundless thirst of wealth, which is the ruling spirit of our age, and the moving power of enterprising energy, all this hunting after treasures, and all its happiest results, have they made men nobler, better, and happier?  Have they improved their soul, or even their body and their health, at least so much that the richest of men could eat and digest two dinners instead of one?  Or has the insatiable thirst of material gain originated a purer patriotism? has it made mankind more devoted to their country, more ready to sacrifice for public interest?  If that were the case, then I would gladly confess the error of my doubts, and take the pretended larger amount of happiness for a guarantee of the future of the commonwealth.  But, ladies and gentlemen! a single word—­the manner in which we use it, distorting its original meaning, often characterizes a whole century.  You all know the word “idiot;” almost every living language has adopted it, and all languages attach to it the idea that an “idiot” is a poor, ignorant, useless wretch, nearly insane.  Well, “idiot” is a word of Greek extraction, and meant with the Greek a man who cared nothing for the public interest, but was all devoted to the selfish pursuit of private profit, whatever might have been