But after all if I spend it, I shall no longer have it, that is clear!

Have you tried? One can never know a worker’s capacity, until he has been made to work.—Whoever really wishes to stop trembling with respect before his own money, and begins to put it to his service, discovers how easy it can be to deal with! Let us forget this useless, anxious care of filling one’s purse, let us think only of emptying it usefully, and we shall find it always full for the present necessity.

I like to repeat the charming absurdity that a small girl said to her mother: “ Hurry up and spend your money while you’ve got it, because afterwards you won’t have it any longer!” We must indeed hurry to make it do service for something while we have it in hand, because otherwise it will slip away without having done anything. We must hurry to use what is lent to us to-day, tomorrow perhaps we shall have it no longer, and we shall have missed the opportunity of acquiring some beautiful or useful thing, or of doing some good action, which would be worth much more than the money we had given for them.

Besides, let us be at peace; If tomorrow a similar opportunity presents itself, the money will be there again to our advantage. There is a principle which we must bear in mind because proof has been made of it. It is what may be called ‘‘the principle of air-inlet.”