But this is not the experience of every one. “Moralists,” Sydney Smith remarks, “tell you of the evils of wealth and station, and the happiness of poverty. I have been very poor the greater part of my life and have borne it, I believe, as well as most people; but I can safely say I have been happier for every guinea I have earned.”
Doctor Johnson, in addition to alleging that “Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable and others extremely difficult,” maintains that “poverty takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability to resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to be avoided.” Burns is stronger still in his denunciation, exclaiming, “Poverty, thou half-sister of death, thou cousin-german of hell, where shall I find force of execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits?” But in striking contrast to these, is that remarkable passage in George Sand’s ‘Consuelo,’ in which every known blessing and virtue is attributed to “the goddess—the good goddess—of poverty.”
Samuel Smiles is of opinion that “nothing sharpens a man’s wits like poverty. Hence many of the greatest men have originally been poor men. Poverty often purifies and braces a man’s morals. To spirited people difficult tasks are usually the most delightful ones. If we may rely upon the testimony of history, men are brave, truthful, and magnanimous, not in proportion to their wealth, but in proportion to the smallness of their means.”
With this I agree to a certain extent; but I claim for impecuniosity certain charms and characteristics not associated with poverty. To me the former conveys the idea of a temporary shortness of funds; the latter of a chronic state of want.
I should also have preferred to say, “Nothing sharpens a man’s wits like impecuniosity,” for to many minds poverty, pur et simple, has been simply crushing.
A volume might be filled with the different opinions that have been expressed on this subject, and as there is abundant proof that many who have become great in science, literature, and art, have found insufficient means a stimulus to exertion, it must be conceded that poverty is a splendid thing for those who are equal to fighting against it.
Although impecuniosity has been most extensively experienced by actors, authors, and artists, many of the mighty in law, medicine, and the army and navy, have furnished instances of its universality, but comparatively few cases are to be found connected with commerce. Of course it may be urged that the struggles of business men are, with few exceptions, unrecorded; but still I think their experience on this subject is rather of “the trials of poverty.”
The history of George Moore furnishes an interesting instance of the early struggles of a literally “commercial” man. When he came to London in 1825, he was possessed of a most modest amount of money; and on the day following his arrival in London he made application after application for employment without success, being sometimes received with laughter on account of his country-cut clothes and Cumberland dialect. At the establishment of Messrs. Meeking in Holborn, he was asked if he wanted a porter’s situation. So broken-hearted was he at his many rebuffs, that he could not send a letter home, it was so blotted with tears.
At last he was engaged by Mr. Ray, of Soho Square, at a salary of £30 a year, and bargained with a man driving a pony-cart to convey the box containing all his personal effects. They had not proceeded far when Moore missed the man: pony, cart, and trunk had vanished.
The poor fellow sat down on a doorstep almost broken-hearted at his misfortune.