The Master Passion, Gain

I would like to pass on soft platitudes to my children; to tell them that the race is not always to the swift, or that it is better to have loved and lost, or that effort is more important than outcome. But I do them no service by hiding the cruelty of the world from them. They will be told, at an early age, that the world is about gain; about trampling the other fellow; about what happens, not what ought to happen. It saddens me that humanity can generate no nobler wisdom than this, but it saddens me more to think that my children shall be crushed and conquered by those who possess a superior understanding of the world.

But gain, powerful as it is, is yet subordinate to love, grows from love. I gain on behalf of my children. I enlarge my purse only to enlarge theirs. Poverty is the only only unforgivable vice. Poverty cannot be apologized for or safely eulogized. It is the stark sum of judgment, the absence of license, the absence of movement, death. Be harsh and masterful, but do not be poor. Be halt and cock-eyed, but do not bounce a check. Money blows a warm wind over love -- so put money in your purse, my babies.

There will be no reckoning of how I broke my back for you. There will be only the bills, the tuition payments, the mortgage, the health insurance, the cost of the funeral, the cost of insemination, and how much money God is asking for on the television. You will be glad never to face starvation, and glad that I put you beyond starvation. This is no airy, abstract love but the root and concrete of all feeling. This is the gain that I will you.