SECT. IX.
XXX. If we were to compare the anxieties incident to the one and the other state, as we have done the pleasures, we should find, that by much the greatest load of the first, would rest on the shoulders of the rich; either from the greater sensibility of the subjects, or from the greater magnitude, or multitude of their cares. The rich are of a delicate texture, liable to be moved and disturbed with every blast, or made of sonorous metal, which complains loudly at the gentlest touch. They may be compared to a well at Chiapa, a Province in New Spain, from which, by throwing in a small stone, you raise a horrible tempest. Hence the furious perturbations which in the opulent, are produced by slight causes. The Sultan Mahomed the Second, was seized with such a barbarous rage upon missing a melon out of his garden, that he ordered the stomachs of fourteen pages to be opened, to discover who had eaten it. And Otho Antonio, Duke of Urbino, ordered one of his servants to be burnt alive, for having neglected to wake him at the time he had appointed.
XXXI. The toils of the great are also more in number, than those of the poor. The larger the bulk of a man, the fairer mark he is for his enemy to hit; and the greater the amplitude of his fortune, the larger the space is exposed to the wounds of adversity. The rich are high towers, the poor humble cottages, and the ray of lightning, oftner discharges its fury on the tower, than on the cottage. One of the greatest temporal evils that can befal a man, is a broken constitution, as the greatest temporal blessing, is a robust state of health. And there is no doubt, but that with equal stamina, a poor man is more healthy than a rich one, because the last injures his health by his excesses, and the other, preserves his by his sobriety. Of what avail are all a great man’s riches to him, when he is oppressed by a fit of the gout? (and the gout, by the way, is a distemper which seldom attacks the poor.) I say what is he the better for them, if they cannot procure him a remedy for the evil, nor even obtain him the least ease or relief? While the fit lasts, he suffers pain; and when it is over, he endures the terrors and apprehensions of fresh attacks. Solomon pronounced the following sentence, which is applicable to all the rich: Quid prodest possessori, nisi quod cernat divitias oculis suis? Of what other use are riches to a man who possesses vast treasures, than to feast his eyes with the sight of them. But the sentence is more strongly applicable, to an opulent man of a bad constitution, who is constantly ailing.
XXXII. A great man has more cares, and consequently more to vex him, than an humble one. More people are envious of him, and consequently he has more enemies. He is desirous of aggrandizing his fortune still more, and grieves at every little obstacle he meets with; which he considers as a steep rock in the way of his pursuits. From those below him, he expects more homage; and one only, as in the case of Mordecai and Haman, refusing to bend the knee to him, is sufficient to make him unhappy. He is anxious to be upon an equality with his superiors, and when he sees any one, whom he looks upon as his equal, or his inferior, step before him, he can hardly contain himself. There was a famous painter, named Francis of France, rich, both in possessions and fame. When this man was at Bolognia, he saw a figure of Saint Cecilia, which had been painted by Raphael of Urbino, for a church in that city; and seeing, and being sensible, how much he was outdone in the use of the pencil, by that incomparable artist, it so affected him, that he fell sick and died in a few days. It cannot be said with truth, that ever a poor man died from such a cause, or of such an affection.
XXXIII. Fears and apprehensions, in which are contained the most severe martyrdom of life; because by means of them, people endure all future, and all possible evils, have their very nests in the hearts of the great. He who is oppressed with evils, is always grieving; he who is possessed of goods, is always fearing: and what is more afflicting than perpetual terror? The dangers which threaten a great man, are in proportion to the possible cases, of others enriching themselves by despoiling, or murdering him; and though these are many, in his imagination they are still more; so that riches are acquired by toil, and preserved by anxiety. The inhabitants of Macasar, an Island in the Indian Sea, have a custom of drawing some of their teeth, and putting gold or silver ones in the place of them, which practice, cannot fail to be troublesome and hurtful to them. Can any thing favour stronger of barbarism, than the suffering a voluntary pain, only to gain an inconvenience? Those fall into the same mistake, who pant for, and are anxious in their pursuit after riches. They draw their teeth, that is, they undergo great suffering in order to acquire more wealth; and in the room of those they have parted with, they get teeth of gold and silver, yes, but these are teeth, which in the end, will feed on, and gnaw their own hearts. It is very remarkable, that in the age of gold and silver, (according to the description given, and the division made of the four ages by the poets,) there was no gold or silver to be met with, but these metals made their appearance in the age of iron. Thus Ovid, speaking of this age:
———— Itum est in viscera terræ
Quasque recondiderat, Stygiisque admoverat umbris
Effodiuntur opes irritamenta malorum.
Famque nocens ferrum, ferroque nocentius aurum
Prodierat, prodit bellum quod pugnat utroque.
XXXIV. The age of gold passed without gold, and was therefore the Golden Age, that is fortunate and happy. In the age of iron, there was gold, and on that account, it was called the Iron Age, that is, it was harsh and toilsome.
XXXV. Lucan, in his fifth Book of the Civil War, makes a fine digression upon the happiness of the poor boatman, Amiclas, when he paints Cæsar, in the silence of the night, tapping at the door of his cabbin to awake him, and make him rise, and carry him with all possible haste to Calabria. All the world was agitated, and trembling with the movements of the civil war; and within Greece itself, which is the theatre of the war, in the very neighbourhood of the armies, a poor boatman on dried sheep skins, sleeps without fear. The strokes of the generous leader at his door awake him, without producing the least surprize in his breast; for although he was not ignorant, that the whole face of the country was covered with troops, he knew very well, there was nothing in his cabbin to invite military insults. O life of the poor, exclaims the poet, in which is contained the felicity of being exempt from outrages. O poverty! thou greatest blessing of heaven, although not recognized or justly valued by men. What palaces or what temples were there, which enjoyed the privilege of Amiclas and his cabbin, neither of which, could be made to tremble at the strokes of the robust hand of Cæsar!
———— O vita tuta facultas
Pauperis, angustique lares! O munera nondum
Intellecta divûm. Quibus hoc contingere templis;
Aut potuit muris, nullo trepidare tumultu
Cæsarea pulsante manu!
XXXVI. It is not to be wondered at, that temples and palaces should be shaken, when cottages remain secure; because in temples and palaces, riches are kept, therefore in them, there is no being free from alarms. If we compare the fortune of Amiclas, with the lives of Cæsar and Pompey, who were all contemporaries; how brilliant were theirs, how obscure was his; but if you consider them prudently, how much preferable was that of Amiclas. Those ambitious heroes, whose elevated splendor, made the world regard them as two suns, were in reality no more than parahelions, or suns in appearance only, false reflections, stamped in the inconstancy of flying clouds. How far were they from happy, each being constantly tormented with the jealousy of the other’s power.
Et jam nemo ferre potest, Cæsar ve priorem
Pompeiusve parem.
XXXVII. They contend for the Empire, hazarding in the competition, life and liberty. How each is possessed, with the fear of his rival becoming victorious; what miserable forsaken man, did fortune ever place in such a strait, that in order to better his condition, he should be obliged like Cæsar, in the dead of the night, to commit himself to the rage of a tempestuous sea? Amiclas, at the same time, knows no other cares, than those of exploring the sea, and spreading his nets to dry in the sun. Others are agitated and tossed about on the plains, and in the fields, while he is secure amidst the waves. He catches fish in the sea, while others on land fish for tempests. At the expence of a little labour, the water affords him as much as is necessary to support life; when the great fatigues of Cæsar and Pompey, serve only to precipitate on them a violent death. The din of so much martial noise, disturbs not his rest; while each of the two chiefs, finds in his own heart, a continual alarm to awaken him. He fears nobody, because no one covets his fortune; but if any body should be so prudent as to covet it, he may enjoy the same thing, without despoiling Amiclas. Cæsar and Pompey for the present, mutually fear each other. The vanquished person in future, fears all the world, and the conqueror has to fear all those who envy him.
XXXVIII. The heathen poets, feigned poverty to be a divinity, on account of the mischiefs it preserved people from, and the goods it produced; but Lucan, calls it the mother of great men; and Horace says, that to this deity, the Romans owed the virtues of a Curius, and a Camillus. Aristophanes the Greek, erred much in his description, when he represented her as a savage fury, always ready to commit acts of desperation. These extraordinary furies, are much more common among the rich, than the poor, although it is true, that they rage with the greatest violence, in such poor people as have been formerly rich; at least, during the time they are in the noviciate state of their misfortunes.