But why do I talk of myself, who through the contagion of fashion and of the times, am perhaps a little infected with the fault of the age? In the memory of our fathers, Manius Manilius (not to mention continually the Curii and the Luscinii) at length became poor; for he had only a little house at Carani and a farm near Labicum. Now are we, because we have greater possessions, richer men? I wish we were. But the amount of wealth is not defined by the valuation of the census, but by habit and mode of life; not to be greedy is wealth; not to be extravagant is revenue. Above all things, to be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches. If therefore they who are the most skilful valuers of property highly estimate fields and certain sites, because such estates are the least liable to injury, how much more valuable is virtue, which never can be wrested, never can be filched from us, which can not be lost by fire or by shipwreck, and which is not alienated by the convulsions of tempest or of time, with which those who are endowed alone are rich, for they alone possess resources which are profitable and eternal; and they are the only men who, being contented with what they possess, think it sufficient, which is the criterion of riches: they hanker after nothing, they are in need of nothing, they feel the want of nothing, and they require nothing. As to the unsatiable and avaricious part of mankind, as they have possessions liable to uncertainty, and at the mercy of chance, they who are forever thirsting after more, and of whom there never was a man for whom what he had sufficed; they are so far from being wealthy and rich, that they are to be regarded as necessitous and beggared. SERIES OF Interlinear Translations Have long been the Standard and are now the Best 'Translated and Most Complete Series of Interlinears published. 12mo., well bound in Half Leather. Price reduced to $1.50 each. Postpaid to any address. Latin Interlinear Translations: VIRGIL-BY HART AND OSBORNE. CÆSAR-By HAMILTON AND CLARK, HORACE BY STIRLING, NUTTALL AND CLARK, CICERO-By HAMILTON AND CLARK. SALLUST-By HAMILTON AND CLARK. OVID-BY GEORGE W. HEILIG. JUVENAL-By HAMILTON AND CLARK. CORNELIUS NEPOS By HAMILTON AND UNDERWOOD. Greek Interlinear Translations: HOMER'S ILIAD-By THOMAS CLARK, XENOPHON'S ANABASIS-BY HAMILTON AND CLARK, GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN-BY GEORGE W. HEILIG. S. Austin Allibone, the distinguished author, writes: "There is a growing disapprobation, both in Great Britain and America, of the disproportionate length of time devoted by the youthful student to the acquisition of the dead languages: and therefore nothing will tend so effectually to the preservation of the Greek and Latin grammars as their judicious union (the fruit of an intelligent compromise) with the Interlinear Classics." DAVID MCKAY, Publisher, Philadelphia. Fermerly published by Charles De Silver & Sons. |