Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money--he
never knows. He doesn’t make it to do anything with it. He gets
it only that he may get it. “What will you make of what you
have got?” you ask. “Well, I’ll get more,” he says. Just as, at
cricket, you get more runs. There’s no use in the runs, but to
get more of them than other people is the game. And there’s no
use in the money, but to have more of it than other people is
the game. So all that great foul city of London there--rattling,
growling, smoking, stinking--a ghastly heap of fermenting
brickwork, pouring out poison at every pore--you fancy it is a
city of work? Not a street of it! It is a great city of play;
very nasty play, and very hard play, but still play. It is only
Lord’s cricket-ground without the turf--a huge billiard-table
without the cloth, and with pockets as deep as the bottomless
pit; but mainly a billiard-table, after all.--JOHN
RUSKIN.
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