And
he permits these things, and continues to permit them, for he cannot
help them, and he is a slave. Out of his ideas he may weave cunning
theories, beautiful ideals; but he is working with ropes of sand. At
the slightest stress, the last least bit of cohesion flits away, and
each idea flies apart from its fellows, while all clamour that he do
this thing, or think this thing, in the ancient and time-honoured
way. He is only a clay-born; so he bends his neck. He knows further
that the clay-born are a pitiful, pitiless majority, and that he may
do nothing which they do not do.
It is only in some way such as this that we may understand and
explain the dignity which attaches itself to dollars. In the watches
of the night, we may assure ourselves that there is no such dignity;
but jostling with our fellows in the white light of day, we find that
it does exist, and that we ourselves measure ourselves by the dollars
we happen to possess. They give us confidence and carriage and
dignity--ay, a personal dignity which goes down deeper than the
garments with which we hide our nakedness.
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