There is that glorious epicurean paradox uttered by my friend the historian,1 in one of his flashing moments: “Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.” To this must certainly be added that other saying of one of the wittiest of men:2 “Good Americans when they die go to Paris.”
ATTRIBUTION:
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
Note 1. John Lothrop Motley. Said Scopas of Thessaly, “We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.”—Plutarch: On the Love of Wealth. [back]
