Moreover, Montevarchi's
avarice was on a grand scale, and it was not so much the
possession of more money for himself that he coveted, as the
aggrandisement of his children and grandchildren. The patriarchal
system often produces this result. He would scarcely have known
what to do with a greater fortune than he possessed, but he looked
forward with a wild delight to seeing his descendants masters of
so much wealth. The fact that he could not hope to enjoy his
satisfaction very long did not detract from its reality or
magnitude. The miser is generally long-lived, and does not begin
to anticipate death until the catastrophe is near at hand. Even
then it is a compensation to him to feel that the heirs of his
body are to be made glorious by what he has accumulated, and his
only fear is that they will squander what he has spent his
strength in amassing. He educates his children to be thrifty and
rejoices when they spend no money, readily believing them to be as
careful as himself, and seldom reflecting that, if he furnished
them with the means, their true disposition might turn out to be
very different. It is so intensely painful to him to think of
wealth being wasted that he cultivates the belief in the
thriftiness of those who must profit by his death.
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