DESCARTES
(56.) If thoughts, books, and their authors were depending on the rich and on those who have made a large fortune, they would all be exiled, and that without appeal. Such men act superciliously and lord it over the learned! They keep their dignity with those poor wretches whose merit has not advanced or enriched them, and who still think and write sensibly! We must confess that at present the rich predominate, but the future will be for the virtuous and ingenious. Homer lives still and will ever flourish, whilst the tax-gatherers and publicans are no more and are utterly forgotten, and their native country and their very names are unknown at present. Were there any farmers of the revenue in Greece? What has become of all those important personages who despised Homer, who were careful to avoid him, who never bowed to him, or, if they did so, never called him “Sir,” who did not think him worthy of being admitted to their tables, who looked on him as a man who was not rich and had written a book? What will become of the Fauconnets?[297] Will their names be transmitted to posterity as the name of Descartes was, who, though born a Frenchman, died in Sweden?[298]
(57.) The same amount of pride which makes a man treat haughtily his inferiors, makes him cringe servilely to those above him. It is the very nature of this vice, which is neither based on personal merit nor on virtue, but on riches, posts, influence, and useless knowledge, to render a man as supercilious to those who are below him as to over-value those who are of a loftier rank than they themselves are.
(58.) There are some sordid minds, formed of slime and filth, to whom interest and gain are what glory and virtue are to superior souls; they feel no other pleasure but to acquire money and never to lose it; they are covetous and are always wanting ten per cent.;[299] they only occupy themselves with their creditors; always dread the lowering or calling in of certain monies;[300] and are absorbed and immerged in contracts, deeds, and parchments. Such people are neither relatives, friends, citizens, Christians, nor perhaps men; they have money.
(59.) Let us first except those noble and courageous minds, if there are any yet on this earth, who assist those who are in want, contrive to do good, whom no necessities, nor inequality of rank or fortune, nor intrigues can separate from those they have once chosen for their friends; and after having made this remark, let us boldly state a lamentable truth, which makes us miserable to think about, namely, that there is not a person in this world, however intimately connected with us by social ties or by friendship, who likes us, enjoys our society, has a great many times offered us his services, and sometimes even rendered us one, who, when swayed by his own interests, would not feel inwardly disposed to break with us and become our enemy.
(60.) Whilst Orontes[301] is increasing in years, in wealth, and in income, a girl born in a certain family flourishes, grows up, becomes very handsome, and enters on her sixteenth year. Orontes, who is then fifty, of inferior birth, without intelligence and the smallest merit, has to be entreated to marry that young, handsome, and witty girl, and is preferred to all his rivals.
(61.) Marriage, which ought to be a source of all felicity, is often to a man a heavy burden which crushes him through want of fortune. For his wifeʼs and childrenʼs sake he is sorely tempted to commit fraud, to tell falsehoods, and obtain illicit gains. It must be a dreadful situation for any man to have to choose between roguery and indigence.
To marry a widow means, in plain language,[302] to make oneʼs fortune, though this is not always the case.[303]