Owen Feltham says--"The poverty of a poor man is the least part of his
misery. In all the storms of fortune, he is the first that must stand
the shock of extremity. Poor men are perpetual sentinels, watching in
the depth of night against the incessant assaults of want; while the
rich lie strowd in secure reposes, and compassed with a large abundance.
If the land be ruffetted with a bloodless famine, are not the poor the
first that sacrifice their lives to hunger? If war thunders in the
trembling country's lap, are not the poor those that are exposed to the
enemy's sword and outrage? If the plague, like a loaded sponge, flies,
sprinkling poison through a populous kingdom, the poor are the fruit
that are shaken from the burdened tree; while the rich, furnished with
the helps of fortune, have means to wind out themselves, and turn these
sad indurances on the poor, that cannot avoid them. Like salt-marshes,
that lie low, they are sure, whenever the sea of this world rages, to be
first under, and embarrened with a fretting care. Who like the poor are
harrowed with oppression, ever subject to the imperious taxes, and the
gripes of mightiness? Continual care checks the spirit; continual labour
checks the body; and continual insultation both. He is like one rolled
in a vessel full of pikes--which way soever he turns, he something finds
that pricks him. Yet, besides all these, there is another transcendent
misery--and this is, that maketh men contemptible. As if the poor man
were but fortune's dwarf, made lower than the rest of men, to be laughed
at. The philosopher (though he were the same mind and the same man), in
his squalid rags, could not find admission, when better robes procured
both an open door and reverence. Though outward things can add nothing
to our essential worth, yet, when we are judged on, by the help of
others' outward senses, they much conduce to our value or disesteem.
A diamond set in brass would be taken for a crystal, though it be not
so; whereas a crystal set in gold will by many be thought a diamond.
A poor man wise shall be thought a fool, though he have nothing to
condemn him but his being poor. Poverty is a gulf, wherein all good
parts are swallowed;--it is a reproach, which clouds the lustre of the
purest virtue. Certainly, extreme poverty is worse than abundance. We
may be good in plenty, if we will; in biting penury we cannot, though we
would. In one, the danger is casual; in the other, it is necessitating.
The best is that which partakes of both, and consists of neither.
He that hath too little wants feathers to fly withal; he that hath too
much, is but cumbered with too large a tail. If a flood of wealth could
profit us, it would be good to swim in such a sea; but it can neither
lengthen our lives, nor inrich us after the end. There is not in the
world such another object of pity as the pinched state; which no man
being secured from, I wonder at the tyrant's braves and contempt.
Questionless, I will rather with charity help him that is miserable, as
I may be, than despise him that is poor, as I would not be. They have
flinty and steeled hearts that can add calamities to him that is already
but one entire mass."