Society has no conscience, and whatever it has as a substitute is usually stimulated only by motives of personal vengeance.  It is easier to gloss over an offense than to make ourselves disagreeable and perhaps unpopular.

We have not even the public spirit to have a thief arrested and appear against him in court if he has taken from us only a small amount of money.  It is too much trouble.  Only when our pride is hurt do we call loudly on justice and honor.

Even revenge is out of fashion.  It requires too much effort.  Few of us have enough principle to make ourselves uncomfortable in attempting to show disapproval toward wrongdoers.  Were this not so, the wicked would not be still flourishing like green bay trees.  So long as one steals enough he can easily buy our forgiveness.  Honesty is not the best policy—­except in trifles.

CHAPTER VI

MY FUTURE

When I began to pen these wandering confessions—­or whatever they may properly be called—­it was with the rather hazy purpose of endeavoring to ascertain why it was that I, universally conceded to be a successful man, was not happy.  As I reread what I have written I realize that, instead of being a successful man in any way, I am an abject failure.

The preceding pages need no comment.  The facts speak for themselves.  I had everything in my favor at the start.  I had youth, health, natural ability, a good wife, friends and opportunity; but I blindly accepted the standards of the men I saw about me and devoted my energies to the achievement of the single object that was theirs—­the getting of money.

Thirty years have gone by.  I have been a leader in the race and I have secured a prize.  But at what cost?  I am old—­a bundle of undesirable habits; my health is impaired; my wife has become a frivolous and extravagant woman; I have no real friends:  my children are strangers to me, and I have no home.  I have no interest in my family, my social acquaintances, or in the affairs of the city or nation.  I take no sincere pleasure in art or books or outdoor life.  The only genuine satisfaction that is mine is in the first fifteen-minutes’ flush after my afternoon cocktail and the preliminary course or two of my dinner.  I have nothing to look forward to.  No matter how much money I make, there is no use to which I can put it that will increase my happiness.

From a material standpoint I have achieved everything I can possibly desire.  No king or emperor ever approximated the actual luxury of my daily life.  No one ever accomplished more apparent work with less actual personal effort.  I am a master at the exploitation of intellectual labor.