 like, were just those who
were most likely to be misled by their own fancied accomplishments, and to be
made unduly suspicious by their licentious desire for greater present return,
which was at the root of nine-tenths of the opposition; by their vanity, which
would prompt them to affect superiority to the prejudices of the vulgar; and by
the stings of their own conscience, which was constantly upbraiding them in the
most cruel manner on account of their bodies, which were generally diseased.
    Let a person's intellect (she continued) be never so sound, unless his body
is in absolute health, he can form no judgment worth having on matters of this
kind. The body is everything; it need not perhaps be such a strong body (she
said this because she saw that I was thinking of the old and infirm-looking
folks whom I had seen in the bank), but it must be in perfect health; in this
case, the less active strength it had the more free would be the working of the
intellect, and therefore the sounder the conclusion. The people, then, whom I
had seen at the bank were in reality the very ones whose opinions were most
worth having; they declared its advantages to be incalculable, and even
professed to consider the immediate return to be far larger than they were
entitled to; and so she ran on, nor did she leave off till we had got back to
the house.
    She might say what she pleased, but her manner carried no conviction, and
later on I saw signs of general indifference to these banks that were not to be
mistaken. Their supporters often denied it, but the denial was generally so
couched as to add another proof of its existence. In commercial panics, and in
times of general distress, the people as a mass did not so much as even think of
turning to these banks. A few might do so, some from habit and early training,
some from the instinct that prompts us to catch at any straw when we think
ourselves drowning, but few from a genuine belief that the Musical Banks could
save them from financial ruin, if they were unable to meet their engagements in
the other kind of currency.
    In conversation with one of the Musical Bank managers I ventured to hint
this as plainly as politeness would allow. He said that it had been more or less
true till lately; but that now they had put fresh stained glass windows into all
the banks in the country, and repaired the buildings, and enlarged the organs;
the presidents, moreover, had taken to riding in omnibuses and
