The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

and continually fluctuating. Consequently all the
snobbish emotions become more restless than they
are where the social order is fixed, and although
money in itself may not suffice to make people
grand, it is difficult to be grand without money.
Moreover, money made is the accepted measure of
brains. A man who makes a lot of money is a
clever fellow; a man who does not, is not. Nobody
likes to be thought a fool. Therefore, when the
market is in ticklish condition, a man feels the way
young people feel during an examination.
I think it should be admitted that an element of
genuine though irrational fear as to the
consequences of ruin frequently enters into a
businessman’s anxieties. Arnold Bennett’s
Clayhanger, however rich he became, continued to
be afraid of dying in the workhouse. I have no
doubt that those who have suffered greatly through
poverty in their childhood, are haunted by terrors
lest their children should suffer similarly, and feel
that it is hardly possible to build up enough
millions as a bulwark against this disaster. Such