At one time in his varied career Mark Twain was not only poor, but he
did not make a practice of associating with millionaires. The paragraph
which follows is taken from an open letter to Commodore Vanderbilt. One
paragraph of the "Open Letter" is worth embalming here:
Poor Vanderbilt! How I pity you: and this is honest. You are an old man,
and ought to have some rest, and yet you have to struggle, and deny
yourself, and rob yourself of restful sleep and peace of mind, because
you need money so badly. I always feel for a man who is so poverty
ridden as you. Don't misunderstand me, Vanderbilt. I know you own
seventy millions: but then you know and I know that it isn't what man
has that constitutes wealth. No--it is to be satisfied with what one
has; that is wealth. As long as one sorely needs a certain additional
amount, that man isn't rich. Seventy times seventy millions can't make
him rich, as long as his poor heart is breaking for more. I am just
about rich enough to buy the least valuable horse in your stable,
perhaps, but I cannot sincerely and honestly take an oath that I need
any more now. And so I am rich. But you, you have got seventy millions
and you need five hundred millions, and are really suffering for it.
Your poverty is something appalling. I tell you truly that I do not
believe I could live twenty-four hours with the awful weight of four
hundred and thirty millions of abject want crushing down upon me. I
should die under it. My soul is so wrought upon by your helpless
pauperism that if you came to me now, I would freely put ten cents in
your tin cup, if you carry one, and say, "God pity you, poor
unfortunate."