The Pleasant Aspects of the Current Scarcity

subject certainly possesses must compensate for what it lacks in scientific and aesthetic interest.

The lecture, however, found a reception more favorable than I had expected, so that a member of the Museum Society, whom I highly esteem, requested that I have the essay printed, partly because he considered it a meritorious act to make the view of the current scarcity presented therein more widely known, and partly because he believed that, through the sale of this small publication, a sum might perhaps be collected to support many of the poor who are most harshly pressed by the scarcity. Since he also offered in a magnanimous manner to bear all the costs of printing, I gave away the manuscript in order to contribute my part to the execution of this noble purpose.