Curiosities of Impecuniosity

by H. G. Somerville

I turn to another country and to incidents enveloped in a brighter and pleasanter atmosphere. Readers of the older French literature are familiar with the notes, verses, and dramas of Alexis Piron. The Burgundian bon-vivant knew many adventures and much impecuniosity; but notwithstanding Fortune’s buffets he retained “a revenue of good spirits,” and when turned fifty years of age he participated in a bit of romance.

One evening after supper he went to the shop of a grocer, Gallet, a song-writer and boon companion. A female entered the shop and asked for some coffee and matches. Gallet was away, so the poet undertook to serve the lady, saying to her, “Is that all you want?” The grocer entering added, “Mademoiselle ought to have a husband in the bargain.” “Excellent,” said Piron, “if the damsel will take up with any kind of wood for her arrow.” A blush suffused the lady’s cheeks, and she departed without making rejoinder.

Next morning she visited the poet. “Monsieur,” said she with trepidation, “we are two children of Burgundy. I have long wanted to see a man of so much wit, and having learned yesterday that it was you with whom I had to do in M. Gallet’s shop, I have come to-day without ceremony to pay you a visit. How weary you must grow here! I was very much afraid of finding some handsome lady from the theatre, but, heaven be praised!”—with a glance at the extreme poverty of his surroundings—“you live like a Trappist. Have you never thought of making an end of this?” Said Piron: “I leave the care of that to la Camarde; but if you please, what do you mean?” “I wish to say, have you ever thought of marriage?” “Not much. Mademoiselle, pray sit down while I light the fire.” “You don’t know, Monsieur Piron! it will make you laugh.” “So much the worse.” “I shall speak plainly. If your heart, has the same sentiment as mine”—the poet was wonder-stricken, and looked at the lady in silence—“in a word, Monsieur Piron, I come to offer you my hand and heart, not forgetting my life-annuity of two thousand livres.”

The poet controlled his merry temper, and was touched when he thought what a compassionate friend had been vouchsafed to him. He saw the woman’s eyes moist with tears, and he embraced her. “I leave to you,” said he, “all the preparations for the wedding. Gallet will write the epithalamium.” “You will make me, Monsieur Piron, the happiest person in the world I did not hope for so happy a conclusion, for—I do not wish to conceal anything from you—I am fifty-five!” “Well,” said Piron, with a slight shrug, “we have over a hundred years between us. We would have done well to have met sooner.”

This marriage took place amid festivity. The old maid had a good heart and an amiable temper. She proved a faithful sister, friend, and servant to Piron. He had aromatic coffee in the morning, the beverage being all the more palatable, as it was accompanied by the maker’s cheerful gossip in the chimney-corner. Madame Piron expressed herself enthusiastically about her husband’s writings, and Piron felt no longer alone, was able to refuse going out to dinner in bad weather, and had a crown in his pocket when he sauntered in the sunshine. He was well off enough to occasionally give alms, and at last he could receive friends at his hearth. This episode in the life of Piron is one of the brightest romances of impecuniosity.

Scarcely less happy is an anecdote of Quin the actor, who, if he said many spiteful things, was not incapable of a generous action. James Thomson, another of the brotherhood of genius, found himself immured in a sponging-house. In his dolorous and solitary condition he was one evening surprised by a visit from Quin. They cracked a bottle, and as the night wore away a choice supper was served by one of the attendants of the prison. Thomson, a sensitive nervous man, partook of the dishes with indifferent appetite, for his thoughts wandered to the payment of the bill. Another bottle of claret was drunk, and the visitor rose to depart. “Mr. Thomson,” said Quin, “before I go, let me say that there is an account between us.” Thomson was alarmed, and stammered out that he was unaware of any obligations. “They are mine,” replied Quin. “I have received so much delight from the writings of James Thomson, that I consider myself his debtor at least for a hundred pounds.” Saying this, he placed a note for that amount on the table, shook the astonished poet by the hand, and bowed himself out.

I will conclude the selections of romantic impecuniosity with the case of Thomas De Quincey, who, according to some authorities, being afraid of an oral examination at Oxford College, left the university by stealth and wandered away, his stock of money being scant and his whereabouts quite unknown to his friends. He wandered about Denbighshire, Merionethshire, and Carnarvonshire. Lodging at some place, De Quincey took affront at something said by a landlady, and abruptly left his quarters. In his “Confessions of an Opium Eater” he says,—

“This leaving the lodgings turned out a very unfortunate occurrence for me, because living henceforward at inns, I was drained of my money very rapidly. In a fortnight I was reduced to short allowance, that is I could allow myself only one meal a day. From the keen appetite produced by constant exercise and mountain air acting on a youthful stomach I soon began to suffer greatly on this slender regimen, for the single meal which I could venture to order was coffee or tea. This, however, was at length withdrawn, and afterwards so long as I remained in Wales I subsisted either on blackberries, hips, haws, etc., or on the usual hospitalities which I now and then received for such little services as I had an opportunity of rendering. Sometimes I wrote letters of business for cottagers who happened to have relations in Liverpool or London. More often I wrote love-letters to their sweethearts for young women who had lived as servants in Shrewsbury or any other towns on the English border. On all such occasions I gave great satisfaction to my humble friends, and was generally treated with hospitality; and once in particular near the village of Llan-y-styndw (or some such name), in a sequestered part of Merionethshire, I was entertained for upwards of three days by a family of young people with an affectionate and fraternal kindness that left an impression upon my heart not yet impaired. The family consisted at that time of four sisters and three brothers, all grown up, and all remarkable for elegance and delicacy of manners. So much beauty and so much native good breeding and refinement I do not remember to have seen before or since, in any cottage, except once or twice in Westmoreland and Devonshire. They spoke English, an accomplishment not often met with in so many members of one family, especially in villages remote from the high road. There I wrote, in my first introduction, a letter about prize-money for one of the brothers, who had served on board an English man-of-war, and more privately, two love-letters for two of the sisters. They were both interesting-looking girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the midst of their confusion and blushes whilst dictating, or rather giving me general instructions, it did not require any great penetration to discover that what they wished was “that their letters should be as kind as was consistent with proper maidenly pride.” I continued so to temper my expressions as to reconcile the gratification of both feelings, and they were as much pleased with the way in which I expressed their thoughts as, in their simplicity, they were astonished at my having so readily discovered them. The reception one meets with from the women of a family generally determines the tenor of one’s whole entertainment. In this case I had discharged my confidential duties as secretary so much to the general satisfaction, perhaps also amusing them with my conversation, that I was pressed to stay with a cordiality which I had little inclination to resist. I slept with the brothers, the only unoccupied bed standing in the apartment of the young women; but in all other points they treated me with a respect not usually paid to purses as light as mine, as if my scholarship were sufficient evidence that I was of gentle blood.”

Farther on he says,—

“The only friend I had in this strange poverty of mine on first coming to London was a young woman. She was one of that unhappy class who belong to the outcasts and pariahs of our female population. For many weeks I had walked at night with this poor friendless girl up and down Oxford Street, or had rested with her on steps, or under the shelter of porticoes. One night when we were pacing slowly along Oxford Street, and after a day when I had felt unusually ill and faint, I requested her to turn off with me into Soho Square. Thither we went, and we sat down on the steps of a house which to this hour I never pass without a pang of grief and an inner act of homage to the spirit of the unhappy girl in memory of the noble act she performed. Suddenly as we sat I grew much worse: I had been leaning my head against her bosom. I sank from her arms and fell backwards on the steps. Uttering a cry of terror, but without a moment’s delay, she ran off into Oxford Street, and in less time than could be imagined returned to me with a glass of port wine and spices that acted upon my empty stomach, which at that time would have rejected all solid food, with an instantaneous power of restoration, and for this glass the generous girl without a murmur paid out of her own humble purse, at a time, be it remembered, when she had scarcely wherewithal to purchase the bare necessaries of life, and when she could have no reason to expect that I should ever be able to reimburse her.”