The Crushing Burden of Interest
No blister draws sharper than interest does. Of all industries none is comparable with that of interest. It works all day and night, in fair weather and foul. It has no sound in its footsteps, but travels fast. It gnaws at a man's substance with invisible teeth. It binds industry with its film, as a fly is bound in a spider's web. Debts roll a man over and over, binding hand and foot, letting him hang upon the fatal mesh until the long-legged interest devours him. There is but one thing on a farm like it, and that is the Canada thistle, which swarms new plants every time you break roots, whose blossoms are prolific, and every flower the father of a million seeds; every leaf is an awl, every branch a spear, and every flower like a platoon of bayonets, and a field of them like an armed host. The whole plant is a torment and vegetable curse. And yet a farmer had better make his bed of Canada thistles than attempt to be at ease on interest.