Scott felt, what every sensitive nature must feel, that poverty is a much lighter burden to bear than debt. There is nothing ignominious about poverty. It may even serve as a healthy stimulus to great spirits. "Under gold mountains and thrones," said Jean Paul, "lie buried many spiritual giants." Richter even held that poverty was to be welcomed, so that it came not too late in life. And doubtless Scott's burden was all the heavier to bear, because it came upon him in his declining years.
Shakespeare was originally a poor man: "It is a question," says Carlyle, "whether, had not want, discomfort, and distress warrants been busy at Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare had not lived killing calves or combing wool! "To Milton's and Dryden's narrow means we probably owe the best part of their works.
Johnson was a very poor man, and a very brave one. He never knew what wealth was. His mind was always greater than his fortune; and it is the mind that makes the man rich or poor, happy or miserable. Johnson's gruff and bluff exterior covered a manly and noble nature. He had early known poverty and debt, and wished himself clear of both. When at college, his feet appeared through his shoes, but he was too poor to buy new ones. His head was full of learning, but his pockets were empty. How he struggled through distress and difficulty during his first years in London the reader can learn from his "Life." He bedded and boarded for fourpence-halfpenny a day, and when too poor to pay for a bed, he wandered with Savage whole nights in the streets.[1] He struggled on manfully, never whining at his lot, but trying to make the best of it.
[Footnote 1: "He said a man might live in a garret at eighteen-pence a week; few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was easy to say, 'Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending threepence in a coffee house, he might be for some hours every day in very good company; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without supper. On clean-shirt day he went abroad and paid visits." BOSWELL—Life of Johnson.]
These early sorrows and struggles of Johnson left their scars upon his nature; but they also enlarged and enriched his experience, as well as widened his range of human sympathy. Even when in his greatest distress he had room in his heart for others whose necessities were greater than his own; and he was never wanting in his help to those who needed it, or were poorer than himself.
From his sad experience, no one could speak with greater authority on the subject of debt than Johnson. "Do not accustom yourself," he wrote to Boswell, "to consider debt only an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity. Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt. Whatever you have, spend less. Frugality is not only the basis of quiet, but of beneficence." To Simpson, the barrister, he wrote, "Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon, of loud noise, but little danger. You must therefore be enabled to discharge petty debts, that you may have leisure, with security to struggle with the rest." "Sir," said he to the patient and receptive Boswell, "get as much peace of mind as you can, and keep within your income, and you won't go far wrong."
Men who live by their wits, their talents, or their genius, have, somehow or other, acquired the character of being improvident. Charles Nodier, writing about a distinguished genius, said of him—"In the life of intelligence and art, he was an angel; in the common practical life of every day, he was a child." The same might be said of many great writers and artists. The greatest of them have been so devoted—heart and soul—to their special work, that they have not cared to think how the efforts of their genius might be converted into pounds, shillings, and pence. Had they placed the money consideration first, probably the world would not have inherited the products of their genius. Milton would not have laboured for so many years at his "Paradise Lost," merely for the sake of the five pounds for which he sold the first edition to the publisher. Nor would Schiller have gone on toiling for twenty years up to the topmost pinnacles of thought, merely for the sake of the bare means of living which he earned by his work.
At the same time, men of genius should not disregard the common rules of arithmetic. If they spend more than they earn, they will run into debt. Nor will complaining of the harshness of the world keep them out of it. They have to stand or fall on their merits as men, and if they are not provident they will suffer the same consequences as others. Thackeray, in painting the character of Captain Shandon, in his "Pendennis," gave considerable offence to the literary profession; yet he only spoke the truth. "If a lawyer," said he, "or a soldier, or a parson, outruns his income, and does not pay his bills, he must go to gaol; and an author must go too."
Literary men are not neglected because they are literary men. But they have no right to expect that society will overlook their social offences because they are literary men. It is necessary for the world's sake, as well as for their own sake, that literary men and artists should take care to "provide against the evil day" like other people. "Imagination and art," says Madame de Staël, "have need to look after their own comfort and happiness in this world." The world ought to help them generously; all good men ought to help them; but what is better than all, they ought to help themselves.