THE LOVE of MONEY 56 Classic Stories About GREED
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THE LOVE OF MONEY 56 Classic Stories about GREED Susan Ives, Editor i Illustrations On the back cover, left to right: King Midas with his daughter, A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls by Nathaniel Hawthorne; illustrated by Walter Crane (1893) The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg, The Æsop for Children, by Æsop, illustrated by Milo Winter (1919) The Fox and the Grapes, Fables De La Fontaine, illustrated by Felix Lorioux Section illustrations all depict Æsop’s story, The Fox and the Crane. p. 1 From The Baby’s Own Æsop, verse fables by W.J. Linton, Illustrated by Walter Crane (1887) p. 77 From Æsop’s Fables with His Life, by Thomas Philipott , illustrated by F. Barlow. (1666) p. 243 From Æsopus Moralisatus, Johannes and Albertus Alvisius (1497) Previous page: Pieter Bruegel The Elder, The Seven Deadly Sins: Avarice (1556) peaceCENTER Books 1443 S. St. Mary’s San Antonio, Texas 78210 210.224.HOPE www.salsa.net/peace/ebooks © Copyright 2009, peaceCENTER Books. All Rights Reserved. ISBN 1449563554 EAN-13 9781449563554 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Once Upon a Time 1. Avaricious and Envious, Æsop — 3 2. The Dog and His Reflection, Æsop — 3 3. The Travelers and The Purse, Æsop — 4 4. The Fox and the Grapes, Æsop — 4 5. The Miser, Æsop — 5 6. The Wolf and the Crane, Æsop —5 7. The Goose With the Golden Eggs, Æsop — 6 8. The Hen Who Laid Golden Eggs, La Fontaine — 6 9. The Boy and the Filberts, Æsop — 7 10. Mercury and the Workman, Traditional — 7 11. Story of the Blind Baba-Abdalla, Arabian Nights — 8 12. The Story of Kenkebe, Xhosa Folk Tale, Georg McCall Theal — 13 13. Br’er Rabbit Pretends To Be Poisoned, Uncle Remus — 17 14. The Bullock’s Balls, Folk Tale from India — 19 15. The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Norwegian Folk Tale — 21 16. The Wonderful Pear-Tree, Chinese Fairy Tale — 23 17. The Fisherman and His Wife, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm — 25 18. The Priest With The Greedy Eyes, Russian Folk Tale — 31 19. A Bird Steals Iyawos Baby, Nigerian Folk Tale — 35 20. How The Tortoise Became Bald, Nigerian Folk Tale — 37 21. Raven Returns the Water, Native American Folk Tale — 38 22. The Greedy Fisherman, Indonesian Folk Tale — 39 23. The Gold Colt and the Fire Dragon Shirt, Han Folktale — 41 24. Pilandok in the Kingdom of Maranaw Sea, Filipino Folk Tale — 45 25. The Tongue-Cut Sparrow, Japanese Folk Tale — 47 26. The Last Wish, Indian Folk Tale — 49 27. Avarice Punished, James Moullin Lainé — 50 28. A Sufi Story - Nasrudin — 50 29. The Faces of Greed, Traditional Sufi Story — 51 30. The Emperor and the Beggar, Traditional — 53 31. Story Of A Sheikh Who Became King, Traditional — 54 32. Story Of An Ambitious Cat, Traditional — 54 33. The Little Stepmother, Thuringian Folk Take — 55 34. King Midas and the Golden Touch, Nathaniel Hawthorne — 56 35. Filial Piety - Traditional — 68 36. Ambitious Violet, Kahlil Gibran — 70 iii The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil 37. How Much Land Does a Man Need?, Leo Tolstoy — 75 38. Gooseberries, Anton Chekhov — 89 39. The Devil and Tom Walker, Washington Irving — 99 40. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, Mark Twain — 109 41. Very Poor, T.S. Arthur — 147 42. Will It Pay?, Mary Roberts Rinehart — 155 43. The Name Day, Saki (H.H. Munro) — 165 44. A Family, Guy de Maupassant — 171 45. The Necklace, Guy de Maupassant — 177 46. Bertha, Guy de Maupassant — 185 47. A Spirit of Avarice, W.W. Jacobs — 193 48. The Soul Of Nicholas Snyders, Or The Miser Of Zandam, Jerome K. Jerome — 203 49. The Other Side of the Hedge, E.M. Forester — 217 50. The Rocking Horse Winner, D.H. Lawrence — 235 Love is Patient, Love is Kind 51. The Wise Woman’s Stone, Traditional — 239 52. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens — 241 53. The Selfish Giant, Oscar Wilde — 300 54. The Other Wise Man, Henry Van Dyke — 305 55. Salt of the Earth, George Gissing — 323 56. The Gift Of The Magi, by O. Henry — 331 iv Introduction “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” 1 Timothy 6:10 “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not any man’s greed.” Mohandas K. Gandhi “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good! Greed is right! Greed works! Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” Gordon Gekko, “Wall Street” There aren’t any pigs in this book. That was a surprise: after all, a synonym for greed is “piggishness.” Yet, in 37 fable, folk and fairy tales you will encounter neither pig nor swine; in the in the 19 short stories, neither pork nor pork barrel. You will find wolves and foxes, which gives us our first clue to what our writers think about greed. The piggy kind of greed is thoughtless and gut-driven: unconscious, mindless, emotional, selfish impulses. Piggishness is a lack of control—not knowing when enough is enough, not knowing when to stop. Pig-greed consumes. It devours. Gluttony, another name for pig-greed, is not very complicated —childish, in fact—which is why it is not often the theme of the world’s great literature. The wolf-greed and fox-greed are different: sly, ruthless, predatory, shrewd, calculating, amoral. Wolf-greed and fox-greed are mindful—they know exactly what they are doing but do not care. Wolf-fox greed schemes and plots for more: more money, more stuff, more secrets, more status, more power. It enjoys the heartbreak and mayhem it causes. Oscar Wilde was thinking about this wolf-fox greed when he wrote, “There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.” Fox-greed and wolf-greed hoard and withhold. They can turn into miserliness. Wolf-fox greed leads to other evils: lying, cheating, stealing—even murder. Gluttons are often the victims of a predators’ schemes — pigs will swallow anything. Wolves are predators; pigs are prey. The wolf-fox greed is often referred to as avarice. Avarice is very interesting indeed, and hence the theme of much of the world’s greatest literature. Built into the definition of greed is the assertion that it is bad: v “excessive desire to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves; reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth.” But buried in the definition is also the suggestion of a continuum—a scale of desire that starts somewhere with acceptable needs, reasonable acquisitiveness and suitable desire for wealth. At the other end of the line are greed, avarice and gluttony. As I’ve been collecting these 56 classic stories about greed I’ve been asking everyone, “What’s the opposite of greed?” Logically, the opposite of excessive or reprehensible desire is the total absence of desire. That is the answer you would get from a Buddhist, to whom greed and desire are inseparable: they lead to evil and bind us to suffering. Buddhists have no scale of desire: just greed. Most of my friends, however, answered that the opposite of greed is generosity. This is more in keeping with a Western tradition, in which greed is a deed rather than an abstract ideal. The ascetic path of rigorous self-denial is not prominent in the Abrahamic faiths. My conclusion is that the opposite of gluttony—pig-greed, or mindless consumption—is mindfulness. We see this in the “cures” for gluttony: dieters are advised to journal what they eat; spendthrifts to devise a budget. We can request an “energy audit” or calculate our carbon footprint as an antidote for gobbling up too much of the earth’s resources. The opposite of thoughtless consumption it to think. The opposite of avarice—the wolf-fox greed—is, I propose, love. Perhaps more precise words are the Latin caritas or the Greek agape, both meaning esteem or affection—love—for our fellow humans. When we care for others, we do not scheme to cheat them of their wealth and property. We don’t hoard: we share. We trust in the bounty of the universe to provide for everyone and every thing. The Gordon Gekko character in the film “Wall Street” fails to acknowledge the continuum of desire that on one hand is total abnegation—what we might recognize as sainthood—and unmitigated greed on the other, with a vast middle that is that can tip either way. There is no balance point in “Wall Street.” It’s all or nothing. “If you want a friend,” Gekko advises, “get a dog.” So much for caritas. This is in keeping with the Western business model: the modern corporation is treated as a person under law, but a person whose only legal motive is profit for its shareholders. Perhaps it is too much to ask corporations and other institutions to balance desire with love, but it is within reason to expect them to balance desire with justice. The question of whether greed is necessary for the economy— for capitalism—is perhaps best left to economists: Can our economic system exist without greed, without insatiable and reprehensible desire? I humbly propose that the new breed of successful socially responsible entrepreneurs suggest that it is possible; that there exists a point vi between unmitigated greed and selfless love where there is balance. A binary choice of greedy/not greedy is, in many ways, easier to work with than a calibrated scale of desire, tempered by love and justice.