University of Virginia Library

45. CHAPTER XLV.

Various as are the characteristics of mankind,
there are yet some traits in which all agree; and
one of the most striking of these is a propensity to
be ungrateful to our best friends. We are not entirely
incapable of gratitude. There are some occasions
that call forth warm emotions which must
be referred to this virtue. But this fact weakens
not our position. It is not to our best friends that
we are grateful. It is to those who humor our
whims or gratify our passions, not to those who
give us unpalatable advice, who remind us of our
besetting sin, or endeavor to rectify our estimate of
our own abilities.

For instance—who loves poverty? who courts
poverty? who sings the praises of this great teacher?
Who tells of the cures it has performed—the eyes
it has opened? Who calls upon his friends to
rejoice with him when his merchandise is shipwrecked,
or his house burned? Who gives a ball
to celebrate his removal from a marble mansion in
Carroll Place to a two-story tenement in Twenty-fifth

Street? Who carries his head the higher for a
patched coat or a bad hat?

Is it necessary to prove that poverty is a friend?
Let us consider for a moment. What is the most
desirable kind of knowledge? Self-knowledge of
course. This is emphatically the boon of poverty.
Who tells the rich man of his faults? He struts
through the world wrapped as it were in a golden
mantle, which the darts of wholesome truth can
never penetrate. He may have a thousand faults
and failings that every body sees but himself; yet
in the wretchedness of his prosperity no voice is
found to whisper in his ear the startling words that
should arouse him to self-examination—to repentance—to
amendment—to restitution.

Let the poor man rejoice in the contrast. Has
he any glaring sin unrebuked? Nay—has he one
single foible, however unobtrusive, which is not
ferreted out for him by the faithful scent of friendship?
Can he plead unconsciousness as an apology
for any—even the least—fault? If he but stumble,
does he not find five hundred friends, each
capable of the noblest self-sacrifice for the sake of
enlightening his mind as to the nature and consequences
of his error? If he grow not perfect he
will have himself to blame.

This finding out one's friends is no small incidental
advantage of a low estate. Much has
been said of “fair weather friends”—but I fancy
the expression is generally misapplied. It refers,

undoubtedly, to those who smile when they ought
to frown—who try to cheer us under misfortune,
instead of aiding us by their hints and suggestions
in drawing lessons from it. Such friends should
be shunned, certainly even though it cost some
struggles of our weaker nature. They interpose
between the scholar and the teacher.

Economy, that first of virtues, should be the
precious lesson of poverty. Instead of this, the
rich are generally the most eminent professors of
the art—or science, which is it? With such
striking examples before his eyes, how is it that
the poor man will allow himself to spend his means
with so little attention to their just distribution and
sure increase? It is not for want of good advice,
certainly, for that pours upon him from every
quarter; neither can he be in any doubt as to the
comfort bestowed by the mere sense of possession;
for if he has himself never tried it, he may see its
outward signs every day in the very walk of his
rich neighbor. He will tell you, perhaps, that the
little he has is barely sufficient for the purchase of
ordinary comforts. Comforts! here we come at the
ground of the error. A poor man has no business
with comforts. He should take advantage of his
position to study self-denial, and leave comforts to
those who have nothing better.

Humility too—but this is too obvious to be
dwelt upon for a single moment. A poor man unhumbled
would be an anomaly indeed. Yet there

be some who slight their opportunities even in this
respect; who cling to their own opinions, maintain
their right to think for themselves, and decline
walking by the light of other people's wisdom.
Poor men sometimes build houses, and little shabby
inconvenient places they make of them. But will
they thank an opulent friend for his kind suggestion
of improvements which might have been made
in the plan or its execution? Far from it! on the
contrary, nothing is more common than the reply
—impatiently enough given too, sometimes,—“I
could not afford any thing so expensive”—or,
“This suits better with the circumstances of my
family”—and this too in the very face of the
assurance that such a sum is a mere trifle when
one is building! Blind perversity!

How much is the world of art indebted to poverty
benign! How many things had been left
undone if all the world had been rich! While we
are stupidly basking in the sunshine of prosperity,
nobody ever breathes a syllable to remind us that
we are wasting ourselves—that we have dormant
abilities—buried talents—which ought to be
thrown into the public treasury. Even as weeping
skies, we are told, are requisite, in order to “bring
the full spirit of fragrancy out” of the flower, so
do the storms of adversity alone discover to admiring
friendship the power (to help ourselves)
which might have lain unsuspected and unpraised
forever, if we had needed no aid. What monuments

of genius had been lost to the world if the
rich and powerful had cruelly placed their originators
above want, instead of keeping them as near
starvation as possible, for the benevolent purpose of
bringing out their powers! Do we not put out
the eyes of singing-birds?

There is not a more baleful passion, among those
which man encourages to torment him, than envy.
To feel that their condition may sometimes awaken
this cruel serpent in the bosoms of their fellow-creatures
must be among the constant trials of the
wealthy. We have shown that pity would be the
more rational feeling, since the poor are the true
objects of envy—yet, if there be an earthly ill
from which the gracious presence of poverty secures
us entirely, it is this. The most sublime
virtues may be brought into action by adversity
without attracting a moment's notice. A poet may
fast and freeze in his garret, until his disencumbered
brain become the theatre of visions more unearthly
than Dante's, yet he runs no risk of being besieged
by rich men, clamorous to purchase his privilege.
The honest debtor may step lightly as he reflects
that long years of self-sacrificing effort are about
to be rewarded by the consciousness of a complete
satisfaction of all claims, but nobody will long for
his threadbare coat, even with the accompaniment
of the proud heart beating beneath it. Envy follows
not the poor.

What a labor is that of the care of a great estate!

How piteously rich men groan under their
burdens, and how they will sometimes be heard
to wish they had not a dollar in the world! This
shows their wisdom; and it must be confessed too
that they usually exhibit the influence of the most
exalted benevolence in not even attempting to
throw any part of the weight upon others. They
might often relieve themselves in this way, if it
were not for fear of increasing the cares of their
neighbors.

How very convenient it is to need neither locks
nor bolts! to lie down in peace, undisturbed by
fear of the midnight robber! to walk the streets
without the least solicitude about pockets! to be
able to take out one's purse without danger of exciting
any body's cupidity!

The rich philosophize in words; the poor must
do it in deeds, which is more dignified. The millionaire
sighs when he tells you that it is long
since wealth has been competent to purchase him a
single pleasure. The poor man congratulates himself
as he finds his tastes and habits becoming more
and more suited to his circumstances. It might be
possible for the rich man to buy pleasure by trying,
on a small scale, the game of equalization;—but
it may be feared that this would spoil the poor
man's philosophy—so it must be better as it is.

But I must own this discussion to be somewhat
erratic; and I can only hope to be excused on the
ground of the increased interest felt in the subject

matter of our digression since the change in the
times. The philosophy of poverty is the study of
the day.

As for Lewis Arden's poverty, it was not only
inconvenient on the ordinary accounts, just as
other men's poverty is inconvenient, but it took a
shape of aggravated cruelty in his eyes, (Lewis
was no philosopher—least of all a Stoic,) from the
fact that it arose in great part from the indulgence
of unhappy temper, and thus helped to make
broader the chilling line of separation between
himself and the object of his affections;—his
father's adversary being an inmate at Mr. Beamer's,
and a person of much influence in the family.

Not that all intercourse between the Ardens and
the Beamers was suspended by this unhappy course
of litigation. Such a thing was never heard of in
these parts. But this had been productive of too
much angry feeling, and Lewis Arden was too
decidedly on the poor side to allow of his urging
his suit—at least so whispered a not dishonorable
pride. William Beamer was a bachelor, and had
saved an amount of property rather unusual in the
country; and this, he had declared, was to be divided
among the children of his brother. So Candace
was an heiress—every where an object of a
certain degree of importance, shilling calico to the
contrary notwithstanding.

Miss Duncan's efforts to estrange Candace from
her lover may have been instigated directly or

indirectly by William Beamer. He may have
whispered something of the obligation under which
the whole family would be laid by such a result, or
she may have whispered to herself that a bold
bachelor like William was a very proper person for
a damsel of five and twenty to oblige. The cause
may be doubtful—the efforts were obvious enough.

Though Miss Duncan had spoken so disparagingly
of the rich brown curls, she lost no opportunity
of instilling into the willing ears of Candace
the idea that nothing but dress was wanting to
maker her “a real beauty—handsome enough for
a clock-picter!”

“If your folk's people would only give you sich
things as you'd oughter have, there a'n't a girl in
this deestrict that could hold a candle to you!
Those girls that's took for clocks wouldn't be
nothing wonderful if it warn't for their bein' fixed
up so! I declare it is a shame that you shouldn't
have things suitable! your nose is kept to the
grindstone, and so! that's all about it!”

So vehement was Miss Duncan's metaphorical
style that Candace put her hand to her nose instinctively.
But the young lady, not noticing this,
went on in the same strain, dwelling much upon
the view that where one is kept down to the
ground, one is obliged to keep company with low
people.

“I don't keep company with any body,” said
poor Candace, turning very red.

“Well! I declare! look o' there now! how people
does talk! Every body says you used to keep
company with that there Arden boy! I said I
knew you'd be above that! Them Ardens is as
poor as drownded rats, and as proud as Lucifer!
And Lewis Arden has said that you was too cheap
for him! I wouldn't bear that, any how!”

Candace was thunderstruck. With all the newly-raised
flutter of vanity in her little heart, there had
not yet been a serious thought of breaking with
poor Lewis—but what element of woman's nature
does not rise against this especial form of disparagement?
The simple maiden was transformed in
a moment. She said not a word, but her eyes
flashed, her cheek burned with natural indignation,
and the tempter saw her work as good as done.

“You won't tell any one, will you?” she said;
“you'll get me into trouble if you do. I only
mentioned it out of friendship to you.”

There was no need to extort a promise. Candace
could as soon have died as mention the odious
subject. Her mind was a whirl of wounded pride,
new-born vanity, and a desire to act with the spirit
which she saw that her adviser expected, and withal,
a deep-rooted confidence in her lover's truth, which
could scarcely be shaken even by such testimony.

She had promptly denied the imputation of
“keeping company” with Lewis, and with truth;
for be it known that the term has with us a sort of
technical sense, which it would be difficult for me

to explain. Suffice it to say that it implies a
regular Sunday evening visit from the gentleman;
and that it is considered only part of the etiquette
of “keeping company” if the sitting is prolonged
far into the small hours, or even until daylight.
This mode of courtship has the parental sanction,
and is doubtless kept up in all modesty and good
faith; yet some of us have been inclined to think
that such a relic of the dark ages ought hardly to
maintain a place under the light of the nineteenth
century.