And such a physician's
earnings are merely typical of those of an entire class of devoted
professional men.
We do well to remind ourselves that the great body of wealth in the
country has been built up slowly and honestly by the most laborious means,
and accumulated and transmitted by self-sacrificing thrift. A rich person
in nine cases out of ten is merely a capable, careful, saving person,
often, too, a person who conducts a difficult calling with a fine sense of
personal honor and a high standard of social obligation. We are too much
dazzled by the occasional apparition of the lawyer who has got rich by
steering guilty clients past the legal reefs, of the surgeon who plays
equally on the fears and the purses of his patients, of the sensational
clergyman who has made full coinage of his charlatanism. All these types
exist, and all are highly exceptional. Most rich persons are
self-respecting, have given ample value received for their wealth, and
have less reason to apologize for it than most poor folks have to
apologize for their poverty.
Furthermore: for the maintenance of certain humdrum but necessary human
virtues, we are dependent upon these middling rich. It has been frequently
remarked that a lord and a working man are likely to agree, as against a
bourgeois, in generosity, spontaneous fellowship, and all that goes to
make sporting spirit.
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