Oh! blind and wanting wit to choose,
Who house the chaff and burn the grain;
Who hug the wealth ye cannot use,
And lack the riches all may gain.
WILLIAM WATSON.
Poverty is the want of much, avarice the want of everything.
A poor man was met by a stranger while scoffing at the wealthy for not enjoying themselves. The stranger gave him a purse, in which he was always to find a ducat. As fast as he took one out another was to drop in, but he was not to begin to spend his fortune until he had thrown away the purse. He takes ducat after ducat out, but continually procrastinates and puts off the hour of enjoyment until he has got "a little more," and dies at last counting his millions.
A beggar was once met by Fortune, who promised to fill his wallet with gold, as much as he might please, on condition that whatever touched the ground should turn at once to dust. The beggar opens his wallet, asks for more and yet more, until the bag bursts. The gold falls to the ground, and all is lost.
When the steamer Central America was about to sink, the stewardess, having collected all the gold she could from the staterooms, and tied it in her apron, jumped for the last boat leaving the steamer. She missed her aim and fell into the water, the gold carrying her down head first.
In the year 1843 a rich miser lived in Padua, who was so mean and sordid that he would never give a cent to any person or object, and he was so afraid of the banks that he would not deposit with them, but would sit up nights with sword and pistol by him to guard his idol hoard. When his health gave way from anxiety and watching he built an underground treasure-chamber, so arranged that if any burglar ever entered, he would step upon a spring which would precipitate him into a subterranean river, where he could neither escape nor be heard. One night the miser went to his chest to see that all was right, when his foot touched the spring of the trap, and he was hurled into the deep, hidden stream.
"One would think," said Boswell, "that the proprietor of all this (Keddlestone, the seat of Lord Scarsfield) must be happy." "Nay, sir," said Johnson, "all this excludes but one evil, poverty."
John Duncan, the illegitimate child of a Scottish weaver, was ignorant, near-sighted, bent, a miserable apology for a human being, and at last a pauper. If he went upon the street he would sometimes be stoned by other boys. The farmer, for whom he watched cattle, was cruel to him, and after a rainy day would send him cold and wet to sleep on a miserable bed in a dark outhouse. Here he would empty the water from his shoes, and wring out his wet clothes and sleep as best he might. But the boy had a desire to learn to read, and when, a little later, he was put to weaving, he persuaded a schoolgirl, twelve years old, to teach him. He was sixteen when he learned the alphabet, after which his progress was quite rapid. He was very fond of plants, and worked overtime for several months to earn five shillings to buy a book on botany. He became a good botanist, and such was his interest in the study that at the age of eighty he walked twelve miles to obtain a new specimen. A man whom he met became interested at finding such a well-stored mind in such a miserable body, poorly clad, and published an account of his career. Many readers sent him money, but he saved it, and left it in his will to found eight scholarships and offer prizes for the encouragement of the study of natural science by the poor. His small but valuable library was left for a similar use.
Franklin said money never made a man happy yet; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. A great bank account can never make a man rich. It is the mind that makes the body rich. No man is rich, however much money or land he may possess, who has a poor heart. If that is poor, he is poor indeed, though he own and rule kingdoms. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.
Who would not choose to be a millionaire of deeds with a Lincoln, a Grant, a Florence Nightingale, a Childs; a millionaire of ideas with Emerson, with Lowell, with Shakespeare, with Wordsworth; a millionaire of statesmanship with a Gladstone, a Bright, a Sumner, a Washington?
Some men are rich in health, in constant cheerfulness, in a mercurial temperament which floats them over troubles and trials enough to sink a shipload of ordinary men. Others are rich in disposition, family, and friends. There are some men so amiable that everybody loves them; some so cheerful that they carry an atmosphere of jollity about them. Some are rich in integrity and character.
One of the first great lessons of life is to learn the true estimate of values. As the youth starts out in his career, all sorts of wares will be imposed upon him, and all kinds of temptations will be used to induce him to buy. His success will depend very largely upon his ability to estimate properly, not the apparent but the real value of everything presented to him. Vulgar Wealth will flaunt her banner before his eyes, and claim supremacy over everything else. A thousand different schemes will be thrust into his face with their claims for superiority. Every occupation and vocation will present its charms in turn, and offer its inducements. The youth who would succeed must not allow himself to be deceived by appearances, but must place the emphasis of life where it belongs.
No man, it is said, can read the works of John Ruskin without learning that his sources of pleasure are well-nigh infinite. There is not a flower, nor a cloud, nor a tree, nor a mountain, nor a star; not a bird that fans the air, nor a creature that walks the earth; not a glimpse of sea or sky or meadow-greenery; not a work of worthy art in the domains of painting, sculpture, poetry, and architecture; not a thought of God as the Great Spirit presiding over and informing all things, that is not to him a source of the sweetest pleasure. The whole world of matter and of spirit and the long record of human art are open to him as the never-failing fountains of his delight. In these pure realms he seeks his daily food and has his daily life.
There is now and then a man who sees beauty and true riches everywhere, and "worships the splendor of God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny."
Phillips Brooks, Thoreau, Garrison, Emerson, Beecher, Agassiz, were rich without money. They saw the splendor in the flower, the glory in the grass, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. They knew that the man who owns the landscape is seldom the one who pays the taxes on it. They sucked in power and wealth at first hands from the meadows, fields, and flowers, birds, brooks, mountains, and forest, as the bee sucks honey from the flowers. Every natural object seemed to bring them a special message from the great Author of the beautiful. To these rare souls every natural object was touched with power and beauty; and their thirsty souls drank it in as a traveler on a desert drinks in the god-sent water of the oasis. To extract power and real wealth from men and things seemed to be their mission, and to pour it out again in refreshing showers upon a thirsty humanity. They believed that man's most important food does not enter by the mouth. They knew that man could not live by estates, dollars, and bread alone, and that if he could he would only be an animal. They believed that the higher life demands a higher food. They believed in man's unlimited power of expansion, and that this growth demands a more highly organized food product than that which merely sustains animal life. They saw a finer nutriment in the landscape, in the meadows, than could be ground into flour, and which escaped the loaf. They felt a sentiment in natural objects which pointed upward, ever upward to the Author, and which was capable of feeding and expanding the higher life until it should grow into a finer sympathy and fellowship with the Author of the beautiful. They believed that the Creation thunders the ten commandments, and that all Nature is tugging at the terms of every contract to make it just. They could feel this finer sentiment, this soul lifter, this man inspirer, in the growing grain, in the waving corn, in the golden harvest. They saw it reflected in every brook, in every star, in every flower, in every dewdrop. They believed that Nature together with human nature were man's great schoolmasters, that if rightly used they would carve his rough life into beauty and touch his rude manner with grace.
"More servants wait on man than he'll take notice of." But if he would enjoy Nature he must come to it from a higher level than the yardstick. He must bring a spirit as grand and sublime as that by which the thing itself exists.
We all live on far lower levels than we need to do. We linger in the misty and oppressive valleys,