The scholar shames us by his bifold[678] life.  Whilst something higher than prudence is active, he is admirable; when common sense is wanted, he is an encumbrance.  Yesterday, Caesar[679] was not so great; to-day, Job[680] not so miserable.  Yesterday, radiant with the light of an ideal world in which he lives, the first of men, and now oppressed by wants and by sickness, for which he must thank himself, none is so poor to do him reverence.  He resembles the opium eaters whom travellers describe as frequenting the bazaars of Constantinople, who skulk about all day, the most pitiful drivellers, yellow, emaciated, ragged, sneaking; then at evening, when the bazaars are open, they slink to the opium-shop, swallow their morsel and become tranquil, glorious and great.  And who has not seen the tragedy of imprudent genius struggling for years with paltry pecuniary difficulties, at last sinking, chilled, exhausted and fruitless, like a giant slaughtered by pins?

Is it not better that a man should accept the first pains and mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his own labor and self-denial?  Health, bread, climate, social position, have their importance, and he will give them their due.  Let him esteem Nature a perpetual counsellor, and her perfections the exact measure of our deviations.  Let him make the night night, and the day day.  Let him control the habit of expense.  Let him see that as much wisdom may be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom may be drawn from it.  The laws of the world are written out for him on every piece of money in his hand.  There is nothing he will not be the better for knowing, were it only the wisdom of Poor Richard,[681] or the State-street[682] prudence of buying by the acre to sell by the foot; or the thrift of the agriculturist, to stick[683] in a tree between whiles, because it will grow whilst he sleeps; or the prudence which consists in husbanding little strokes of the tool, little portions of time, particles of stock and small gains.  The eye of prudence may never shut.  Iron, if kept at the ironmonger’s, will rust; beer, if not brewed in the right state of the atmosphere, will sour; timber of ships will rot at sea, or if laid up high and dry, will strain, warp and dry-rot.  Money, if kept by us, yields no rent and is liable to loss; if invested, is liable to depreciation of the particular kind of stock.  Strike, says the smith, the iron is white.  Keep the rake, says the haymaker, as nigh the scythe as you can, and the cart as nigh the rake.  Our Yankee trade is reputed to be very much on the extreme of this prudence.  It saves itself by its activity.  It takes bank notes,—­good, bad, clean, ragged, and saves itself by the speed with which it passes them off.  Iron cannot rust, nor beer sour, nor timber rot, nor calicoes go out of fashion, nor money stocks depreciate, in the few swift moments in which the Yankee suffers any one of them to remain in his possession.  In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.