In “The Fol­ly of Brown — By A Gen­er­al Agent,” the nar­ra­tor recounts his expe­ri­ences with a man named Brown, a sim­ple farmer who unex­pect­ed­ly came into a for­tune of two hun­dred thou­sand. Despite this wind­fall, Brown’s demeanor and lifestyle remain unchanged, embody­ing the essence of a clown – not in the the­atri­cal sense but reflect­ing a lack of sophis­ti­ca­tion and edu­ca­tion. The new­found wealth leaves Brown unfazed, his igno­rance evi­dent as he con­tin­ues to live a sim­ple life, unin­ter­est­ed in the lux­u­ries or soci­etal changes mon­ey could offer.

The nar­ra­tor, a self-pro­claimed gen­er­al agent, sees an oppor­tu­ni­ty in Brown’s naiveté and attempts to per­suade him to invest his mon­ey into var­i­ous com­pa­nies the nar­ra­tor has formed. These com­pa­nies, pur­port­ed­ly cre­at­ed with the inten­tion of aid­ing Brown in mak­ing sound invest­ments, appear to serve the inter­ests of their pro­mot­er more than their investors. Brown, how­ev­er, remains stead­fast­ly attached to his mon­ey, polite­ly refus­ing the offers made by the nar­ra­tor despite the lat­ter’s insis­tent propo­si­tions which are masked under a guise of help­ing Brown man­age his wealth effec­tive­ly.

In a dis­play of stub­born sim­plic­i­ty, Brown rejects the agen­t’s offer to take him under his wing, show­ing no inter­est in learn­ing how to spend his for­tune “wise­ly.” The agent mock­ing­ly admires Brown’s refusal, inter­pret­ing it as a lack of trust and wis­dom, unable to com­pre­hend why Brown would decline his advice and offers. Brown’s rejec­tions are con­sis­tent, por­trayed with a grin that sug­gests a mix of con­tent­ment with his cur­rent state and skep­ti­cism towards the agen­t’s motives.

This bal­lad humor­ous­ly explores themes of inno­cence, skep­ti­cism, and the per­ceived rela­tion­ship between wealth and wis­dom. Brown’s char­ac­ter, while ridiculed by the nar­ra­tor for his unso­phis­ti­cat­ed out­look and mis­trust of “phil­an­throp­py,” arguably show­cas­es a pru­dent wari­ness towards those who seek to exploit his for­tune under the guise of assis­tance. The irony lies in the nar­ra­tor’s inabil­i­ty to rec­og­nize the wis­dom in Brown’s sim­plic­i­ty and cau­tious approach to his new­found wealth.