Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my least favorite writers. I am not ashamed to admit this. However, recently, one of his works has caught my eye. It is a re-imagining of classic Greek myths entitled A Wonder Book For Girls And Boys. I downloaded the book and began to leaf through the cyber pages on my eBook reader. I came across a story entitled The Golden Touch, in which a king named Midas begged the gods to grant him the power to turn anything he touched to gold, and it blew my mind. The Greeks wrote this?!? The relevance of the story astounded me. The following is a brief excerpt The Golden Touch:
"Whether Midas slept as usual that night, the story does not say. Asleep or awake, however, his mind was probably in the state of a child's, to whom a beautiful new plaything has been promised in the morning. At any rate, day had hardly peeped over the hills, when King Midas was broad awake, and, stretching his arms out of bed, began to touch the objects that were within reach. He was anxious to prove whether the Golden Touch had really come....the earliest sunbeam shown through the window and gilded the ceiling over his head. It seemed to Midas that this bright yellow sunbeam was reflected in rather a singular way on the white covering of the bed. Looking more closely, what was his astonishment and delight, when he found that this linen fabric had been transmuted to what seemed a woven texture of the purest and brightest gold! The Golden Touch had come to him, with the first sunbeam!
"Midas started up, in a kind of joyful frenzy, and ran about the room, grasping at everything that happened to be in his way. He seized one of the bedposts, and it became immediately a fluted golden pillar. He pulled aside a window-curtain, in order to admit a clear spectacle of the wonders which he was performing; and the tassel grew heavy in his hand -- a mass of gold. He took up a book from the table. At his first touch, it assumed the appearance of such a splendidly-bound and gilt-edged volume as one so often meets with, now-a-days; but, on running his fingers through the leaves, behold! it was a bundle of thin gold plates, in which all the wisdom of the book had grown illegible. He hurriedly put on his clothes, and was enraptured to see himself in a magnificent suit of gold cloth, which retained its flexibility and softness, although it burdened him a little with its weight. He drew out his handkerchief, which [his daughter] had hemmed for him. That was likewise gold, with the dear child's neat and pretty stitches running all along the border, in gold thread!"
At this point in the story, Midas goes downstairs for his breakfast. However, everything that he touches turns to gold, consequently, he is presented with an inedible golden feast. At the sight of his gilded meal and the sound of his growling stomach, King Midas breaks into tears. His daughter hears him crying and runs to give her father a hug........only to be turned into a golden statue. Midas is horrified at the destruction his greed has caused. However the gods grant Midas the power to reverse his gift once he renounces his greedy ways. He does so and reclaims his daughter from her metallic fate and they live happily ever after, right?
Well, maybe not exactly. You see, I believe that Midas resides in our own country today. No, I'm not talking about the mythological king, or the actual historical king from the 8th century BC. I'm talking about the spirit of Midas, the desire to get ahead and stay ahead, to maximize our intake and minimize our output. The kind of spirit that drives us to spend billions of dollars a year on cars. The kind of spirit that drives us to spend billions of dollars a year on houses. The kind of spirit that drives us to spend little or nothing in a year to feed orphans in Africa.
Consider what we are teaching younger generations through this lifestyle. They are learning that possessions are more important than people, temporary pleasures more important than relationships, and material lust more important than love. Leading Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau once said, "It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly." In other words, the pursuit of a possession-filled life leads to the neglect of true life. When little kids would rather spend money at Best Buy than play basketball with their friends, or count their money like a greedy Scrooge than play a family game, there is something deeply wrong. The children are not the only ones at fault though. Dictionary.com defines greed in this way: excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions. That sounds like a pretty accurate description of America to me. When the general population is more concerned with how to get a pay raise rather than how to provide clean water and basic amenities in third-world countries, we witness the adult stages of modern childhood's temporal disease.
As a concerned citizen who barely recognizes the country around me, I urge you to stand with me. Let's turn the ship around, plot a new course, change the game-plan, something, anything to get our society back on track. I fear for the future of our temporary treasure-seekers and I am afraid it might be too late. In Midas We Trust the greedy souls sing; I just hope it's not the swan song of our nation. Let us look to the Greeks. They were able to foresee the tragedy caused by an off-center set of values. Why can't we?
PS -- You can download Hawthorne's book here: http://books.google.com/books?id=25woAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=a+wonder+book+for+girls+and+boys&hl=en&ei=F5vxTYeIOYGgtwex4YHmAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
It can legally be given away for free because the copyright has expired. Great stuff, huh? :)
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