WEALTH
Who shall tell what did befall, Far away in time, when once, Over the lifeless ball, Hung idle stars and suns?
What god the element obeyed?
Wings of what wind the lichen bore, Wafting the puny seeds of power, Which, lodged in rock, the rock abrade?
And well the primal pioneer Knew the strong task to it assigned Patient through Heaven's enormous year To build in matter home for mind.
From air the creeping centuries drew The matted thicket low and wide, This must the leaves of ages strew The granite slab to clothe and hide, Ere wheat can wave its golden pride.
What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled (In dizzy aeons dim and mute The reeling brain can ill compute)Copper and iron, lead, and gold?
What oldest star the fame can save Of races perishing to pave The planet with a floor of lime?
Dust is their pyramid and mole:
Who saw what ferns and palms were pressed Under the tumbling mountain's breast, |P988In the safe herbal of the coal?
But when the quarried means were piled, All is waste and worthless, till Arrives the wise selecting will, And, out of slime and chaos, Wit Draws the threads of fair and fit.
Then temples rose, and towns, and marts, The shop of toil, the hall of arts;Then flew the sail across the seas To feed the North from tropic trees;The storm-wind wove, the torrent span, Where they were bid the rivers ran;New slaves fulfilled the poet's dream, Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam.
Then docks were built, and crops were stored, And ingots added to the hoard.
But, though light-headed man forget, Remembering Matter pays her debt:
Still, through her motes and masses, draw Electric thrills and ties of Law, Which bind the strengths of Nature wild To the conscience of a child.
_Wealth_
As soon as a stranger is introduced into any compations which all wish to have answered, is, How does that man get his living? And with reason. He is no whole man until he knows how to earn a blameless livelihood. Society is barbarous, until every industrious man can get his living without dishonest customs.
Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He fails to make his place good in the world, unless he not only pays his debt, but also adds something to the common wealth. Nor can he do justice to his genius, without making some larger demand on the world than a bare subsistence. He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich.
Wealth has its source in applications of the mind to nature, from the rudest strokes of spade and axe, up to the last secrets of art. Intimate ties subsist between thought and all production;because a better order is equivalent to vast amounts of brute labor.
The forces and the resistances are Nature's, but the mind acts in bringing things from where they abound to where they are wanted; in wise combining; in directing the practice of the useful arts, and in the creation of finer values, by fine art, by eloquence, by song, or the reproductions of memory. Wealth is in applications of mind to nature; and the art of getting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in a better order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot. One man has stronger arms, or longer legs; another sees by the course of streams, and growth of markets, where land will be wanted, makes a clearing to the river, goes to sleep, wakes up rich.
Steam is no stronger now, than it was a hundred years ago; but is put to better use. A clever fellow was acquainted with the expansive force of steam; he also saw the wealth of wheat and grass rotting in Michigan. Then he cunningly screws on the steam-pipe to the wheat-crop. Puff now, O Steam! The steam puffs and expands as before, but this time it is dragging all Michigan at its back to hungry New York and hungry England. Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may well call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle: and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted.
Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that _a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile_, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.
When the farmer's peaches are taken from under the tree, and carried into town, they have a new look, and a hundredfold value over the fruit which grew on the same bough, and lies fulsomely on the ground. The craft of the merchant is this bringing a thing from where it abounds, to where it is costly.
Wealth begins in a tight roof that keeps the rain and wind out;in a good pump that yields you plenty of sweet water; in two suits of clothes, so to change your dress when you are wet; in dry sticks to burn; in a good double-wick lamp; and three meals; in a horse, or a locomotive, to cross the land; in a boat to cross the sea; in tools to work with; in books to read; and so, in giving, on all sides, by tools and auxiliaries, the greatest possible extension to our powers, as if it added feet, and hands, and eyes, and blood, length to the day, and knowledge, and good-will.
Wealth begins with these articles of necessity. And here we must recite the iron law which Nature thunders in these northern climates. First, she requires that each man should feed himself.
