THE MEAN MAN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 29, 16 July 1892, Page 708

THE MEAN MAN.

The mean man is one who spends no money but his own, and uses no property not belonging to him. He never borrows what he does not intend to repay. Neither is he lavish or even liberal with another’s goods. He was a mean man of whom it was said, ‘ He got rich by minding his own business.' He has no stomach for superfluities. With him enough is as good as a feast. More than suflicient is not only wasteful extravagance, but a burdensome annoyance. The mean man is content to be just. True, he gives and takes like other men, among his equals. Rut it he bestow charity, or benefactions, it is upon those who need aid and who try to help themselves. He is intolerant of drones and spendthrifts. The mean man is one who has not acquired the art of being esteemed a man of great liberality, from the circumstance of parting with a small, near advantage, in the sure expectation of reaping a large remote personal reward. He has not the adroitness to throw away one card in the game of life, in order to ensure the retaking of two while posing as a model of disinterested benevolence. He lacks the necessary imagination and recklessness to make a rogue ; and although heaitily despised by the thoughtless and the improvident, he will al ways be light fully esteemed honest ; for his motto, in all his dealings, is to owe no man anything, and to render unto every one Iris due.