Do you see that other youngster striving against a wolf with
a lead pencil for weapon? It is your second son. Well, they are males,
these two, and must manfully expect what they get. But do you see
these four creatures with their hands cut off, thrust out into the
infested desert? They are your wife and your daughters. You cut their
hands off. You did it so kindly and persuasively. And that chiefly is
why you are a scoundrel. ...
"You educated all these women in a false and abominable doctrine. You
made them believe, and you forced them to act up to the belief, that
money was a magic thing, and that they had a magic power over it. All
they had to do was to press a certain button, or to employ a certain
pretty tone, and money would flow forth like water from the rock of
Moses. And so far as they were concerned money actually did behave in
this convenient fashion.
"But all the time you were deceiving them by a conjuring-trick, just
as priests of strange cults deceive their votaries.... And further,
you taught them that money had but one use--to be spent. You
may--though by a fluke--have left a quantity of money to your widow,
but her sole skill is to spend it. She has heard that there is such a
thing as investing money.
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