THE FORTUNES OF THE POOR
“_The whole interest of history lies in the fortunes of the poor._”
To the present-day reader Emerson is least satisfactory when he touches
upon what we call the problem of poverty. We have in mind the condition
of thousands of persons who through no fault of their own are condemned
to live in city slums. They are, we believe, victims of social
misadjustment. They can be redeemed only by social effort.
When we hear Emerson saying that the whole interest of history lies in
the fortunes of the poor, we expect to hear him say something bearing
upon our problem. How does he propose to abolish poverty? We are
disappointed. Poverty, he tells us, is not so bad after all. Indeed it
has many advantages. Sometimes he rises into a strain that reminds us
of Saint Francis of Assisi.
We can only understand Emerson and Saint Francis when we define the
terms they used. When Francis sang the praises of my lady Poverty he
was not thinking of the condition of those who lived in the hideous
slums of great cities. He had in mind the poverty of the Italian
peasants whose fortunes he was glad to share. They were poor in this
world’s goods, but rich in spiritual resources. They lived in the open
air, they listened to the song of birds, and they were happy in human
companionship.
The poverty which Emerson praised was the poverty of the well-born
New England youth. It was a life without luxury, but with endless
opportunity. There was a stimulating of necessity acting upon natural
ambition. The poor man’s son could aspire to any station in society.
The way was open to him. If he had health he was to be congratulated as
one of the children of good fortune. This was a theme of which he never
tired.
“The poor man’s son is educated. There is many a humble house in every
city, in every town, where talent and taste, and sometimes genius,
dwell with poverty and labour. Who has not seen, and who can see
unmoved, under a low roof, the eager, blushing boys discharging as
they can their household chores, and hastening into the sitting-room
to the study of to-morrow’s merciless lesson, yet stealing time
to read one chapter more of the novel hardly smuggled into the
tolerance of father and mother,--atoning for the same by some pages
of Plutarch or Goldsmith; the warm sympathy with which they kindle
each other in school-yard, or in barn or woodshed, with scraps of
poetry or song, with phrases of the last oration, or mimicry of the
orator; the youthful criticism, on Sunday, of the sermons; the school
declamation faithfully rehearsed at home, sometimes to the fatigue,
sometimes to the admiration of sisters; the first solitary joys of
literary vanity, when the translation or the theme has been completed,
sitting alone near the top of the house; the cautious comparison of
the attractive advertisement of the arrival of Macready, Booth, or
Kemble, or of the discourse of a well-known speaker, with the expense
of the entertainment; the affectionate delight with which they greet
the return of each one after the early separations which school or
business require; the foresight with which, during such absences, they
hive the honey which opportunity offers, for the ear and imagination
of the others; and the unrestrained glee with which they disburden
themselves of their early mental treasures when the holidays bring
them again together? What is the hoop that holds them staunch? It is
the iron band of poverty, of necessity, of austerity, which, excluding
them from the sensual enjoyments which make other boys too early old,
has directed their activity in safe and right channels, and made
them, despite themselves, reverers of the grand, the beautiful, and
the good. Ah! short-sighted students of books, of Nature, and of man!
too happy, could they know their advantages. They pine for freedom
from that mild parental yoke; they sigh for fine clothes, for rides,
for the theater, and premature freedom and dissipation, which others
possess. Woe to them, if their wishes were crowned! The angels that
dwell with them, and are weaving laurels of life for their youthful
brows, are Toil, and Want, and Truth, and Mutual Faith.”
In the last fifty years there have been vast social changes. Even in
America we have begun to feel the pressure of population on the means
of subsistence. The young man can not obtain a farm by the simple
device of going West. And yet America is still a land of opportunity.
It is still “a poor man’s country” even though the poor man has to be
more alert than formerly in order to win success.
It is still true that inherited wealth is not necessary for the
attainment of the most desirable things. One may be born poor and yet
be a child of good fortune.
“In America, the necessity of clearing the forest, laying out town and
street, and building every house and barn and fence, then church and
town-house, exhausted such means as the Pilgrims brought, and made the
whole population poor; and the like necessity is still found in each
new settlement in the Territories. These needs gave their character
to the public debates in every village and state. I have been often
impressed at our country town-meetings with the accumulated virility,
in each village, of five or six or eight or ten men, who speak so
well, and so easily handle the affairs of the town. I often hear the
business of a little town (with which I am most familiar) discussed
with a clearness and thoroughness, and with a generosity, too, that
would have satisfied me had it been in one of the larger capitals. I
am sure each one of my readers has a parallel experience. And every
one knows that in every town or city is always to be found a certain
number of public-spirited men, who perform, unpaid, a great amount
of hard work in the interest of the churches, of schools, of public
grounds, works of taste and refinement. And as in civil duties, so in
social power and duties. Our gentlemen of the old school, that is,
of the school of Washington, Adams, and Hamilton, were bred after
English types, and that style of breeding furnished fine examples in
the last generation; but, though some of us have seen such, I doubt
they are all gone. But nature is not poorer to-day. With all our
haste, and slipshod ways, and flippant self-assertion, I have seen
examples of new grace and power in address that honour the country. It
was my fortune not long ago, with my eyes directed on this subject, to
fall in with an American to be proud of. I said never was such force,
good meaning, good sense, good action, combined with such domestic
lovely behaviour, such modesty and persistent preference for others.
Wherever he moved he was the benefactor. It is of course that he
should ride well, shoot well, sail well, keep house well, administer
affairs well, but he was the best talker, also, in the company; what
with a perpetual practical wisdom, with an eye always to the working
of the thing, what with the multitude and distinction of his facts
(and one detected continually that he had a hand in everything that
has been done), and in the temperance with which he parried all
offence, and opened the eyes of the person he talked with without
contradicting him. Yet I said to myself, How little this man suspects,
with his sympathy for men and his respect for lettered and scientific
people, that he is not likely, in any company, to meet a man superior
to himself. And I think this is a good country, that can bear such a
creature as he is.”