AVARICE.
There are two sorts of avarice. One consists in a solicitude to acquire wealth for the sake of those advantages which wealth bestows, and the dread of poverty and its attendant evils; the other, in an anxiety for wealth on its own account only, and which sacrifices to the attainment of it every advantage that wealth can give. The first is the exaggeration of a quality, which when not carried to excess is praiseworthy, and is called economy. The other, when indulged in the extreme, produces the effect of a species of prodigality. Where is the great difference between the man who reduces himself to the want of the common necessaries of life, by completing a collection of books, pictures, or medals, and the man who brings himself in effect to the same situation, for the sole end of leaving a precise sum of money to his executors? What signifies whether I starve myself and my family, because I will possess a copper farthing of Otho, or will not part with a golden guinea of king George?
But if there is more folly in one, the other is more likely to be productive of vice. A man who considers wealth as the object of his passion, will hardly refrain from acts of dishonesty when strongly tempted; and yet some of these jackdaw hoarders are men of inviolable integrity.
There are remarkable instances of improvident expenditure by misers on particular occasions. The money-loving Elwes, at his first election for Berkshire, besides opening houses, giving ribbons, and incurring every expense common on those occasions, dispersed guineas and half-guineas among the populace, with a profusion as useless as unprecedented.
Perhaps there is no character so seldom to be met with, as that of a man who is strictly reasonable in the value he sets on property—who can be liberal without profusion, and economical without avarice.
ECONOMY.
A rich and parsimonious person, remarkable for having by his will preferred public charities to his relations, was fond of going to the theatre, and taking his great coat with him. But where should he leave this useful appendage during the performance? The box-keepers would expect at least sixpence; and, should he leave it at a coffee-house, he must spend threepence to obtain house-room for it. His invention supplied him with a method cheaper and equally secure. He pledged his garment every evening that he attended the play, at a pawnbrokers, near the door, for a shilling. This sum he carried back at the close of the play, added one penny to it for interest, and received his great coat again safe and sound, as it had literally been laid up in lavender.