The thoughts are not given in
the bullion lump, but are well refined, and having passed through the
engraver's hands, they shine with the true polish, ring with the true
sound. In terse, pregnant, and somewhat oracular diction, we are here
instructed how to avoid the evils contingent upon bold commercial
enterprise--how to guard against excesses of the accumulative
instinct--how to exercise a thoroughly conscientious mode of
regulating expenditure, eschewing prodigality, that vice of a weak
nature, as avarice is of a strong one--how to be generous in giving;
'for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice, waste, on the
contrary, comes always by self-indulgence'--how to withstand
solicitations for loans, when the loans are to accommodate weak men in
sacrificing the future to the present. The essay on _Humility and
Independence_ is equally good, and pleasantly demonstrates the
proposition, that Humility is the true mother of Independence; and
that Pride, which is so often supposed to stand to her in that
relation, is in reality the step-mother by whom is wrought the very
destruction and ruin of Independence.
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