1. Hippomachus, a master of the exercises, when some were commending
a tall man that had long hands as one that promised fair to be good
at fisticuffs, replied, A fit man indeed, if the victor’s laurel were
to be hanged up aloft, and should be his that could best reach it and
take it down. We may say the same to those that esteem so extravagantly
and repute it so great a felicity to possess fair fields, stately
mansion-houses, and a great deal of money lying by them,—that they
were in the right, if happiness were to be bought and sold. You may
see indeed many persons that choose rather to be rich and at the same
time very miserable, than to part with their money and become happy.
But, alas! indolency and repose of spirit, magnanimity, constancy,
resolution, and contentment of mind,—these are not a money-purchase.
Being wealthy is not despising wealth; nor is possessing things
superfluous the same as not needing things superfluous.
2. From what other evils then can riches free us, if they deliver us
not even from an inordinate desire of them? It is true, indeed, that by
drinking men allay their thirst after drink, and by eating they satisfy
their longings after food, and he that said,
Bestow a coat, of your good will,
On poor Hipponax cold and chill
if more clothes had been heaped on than he needed, would have thrown
them off, as being ill at ease. But the love of money is not abated by
having silver and gold; neither do covetous desires cease by possessing
still more. But one may say to wealth, as to an insolent quack,
Thy physic’s nought, and makes my illness worse.
When this distemper seizes a man that wants only bread and a house to
put his head in, ordinary raiment and such victuals as come first to
hand, it fills him with eager desires after gold and silver, ivory and
emeralds, hounds and horses; thus taking off the appetite, and carrying
it from things that are necessary after things that are troublesome and
unusual, hard to come by, and unprofitable when obtained. For no man is
poor as to what nature requires and what suffices it; no man takes up
money on use to buy meal or cheese, bread or olives; but you may see
one man run into debt for the purchase of a sumptuous house, another
for an adjoining olive-yard, another for corn-fields or vineyards,
another for Galatian mules, and another by a vain expense,
For horses fitly paired, with prancing feet
To draw the empty chariots through the street,[165]
has been plunged over head and ears into contracts and use-money, pawns
and mortgages. Moreover, as they that use to drink after they have
quenched their thirst, and to eat after their hunger is satisfied,
vomit up even what they took when they were athirst or hungry; so they
that covet things useless and superfluous, enjoy not even those that
are necessary. This is the character of these men.
3. As for those that spend nothing although they possess much, and yet
are always craving more, they may still more increase our wonder at
their folly, especially when one calls to mind that of Aristippus, who
was wont to say, that when a man eats and drinks liberally and yet is
never the nearer being filled, he presently goes to the physician and
enquires what is his disease and his indisposition and how he may get
rid of it; but if one that has five beds desires ten, and having ten
tables is for purchasing as many more, and having land and money in
good store is not at all filled, but still is bent, even breaking his
natural rest, upon getting more, and when he has never so much never
has enough, this man thinks he has no need of a physician to cure him
and to show him from what cause his distemper arises. Indeed, when a
man is athirst that hath not drunk at all, we expect that upon his
drinking his thirstiness should cease; but as for him that drinks and
drinks and so goes on without giving over, we do not think such a one
needs further repletion, but evacuation; and we advise him by all means
to vomit, as knowing that his trouble proceeds not from the want of any
thing, but from some sharp humor or preternatural heat that is within
him.
Among those persons, therefore, that are for increasing their substance
and getting more, he that is poor and indigent may perhaps give over
his cares when he has got a house or found a treasure, or, by a
friend’s help, has paid his debts and his creditors have discharged
him. But as for him that, having more than enough, yet still desires to
have more, it is not gold nor silver, not horses, sheep, or oxen, that
can cure him of this disease, but he needs evacuation and purgation.
For his distemper is not penury and want, but an insatiable desire
and thirst after riches, proceeding from a depraved and inconsiderate
judgment of things, which if it be not plucked out of men’s minds, like
a thing twisting across and contracting them, they will always be in
want of superfluities, that is, be craving things they have no need of.
4. When a physician visits a patient that has thrown himself upon his
bed and lies there groaning and refusing to eat, he feels his pulse and
asks him some questions; and finding that he is not at all feverish,
he tells him it is his mind that is distempered, and goes his way. When
we see therefore a man pining away for more means and sighing sadly
at any expenses, forbearing no sordid or painful course that brings
him gain, when yet he hath houses and lands, herds and slaves, and
clothes enough, what shall we call this man’s disease but poverty of
mind? For as for want of money, one friend, as Menander says, by being
a benefactor to him can cure it; but as to this other of the mind, all
a man’s friends, living or dead, cannot satisfy it. It was therefore a
good saying of Solon concerning such persons:
Those men that after wealth aspire
Set no fixed bounds to their desire.
To those indeed that are wise, the riches that Nature requires are
limited, and confined within the compass of their real needs, as within
a circle drawn from a centre at a certain distance.
There is also this particular mischief in the love of wealth, that this
desire hinders and opposes its own satisfaction, which other desires
do procure. For no man abstains from a good morsel because he loves
dainties, nor from wine because he thirsts after wine, as these men
abstain from using money because they love money. Does it not look
like madness and a piteous distemper, for a man not to make use of a
garment because he shakes with cold, to refuse to eat bread because he
is ready to famish with hunger, and not to use wealth because he is
greedy of getting it? This is the evil case that Thrasonides describes:
“I have such a thing within by me, I have it in my power, and I will
this thing (like those that are madly in love), but I do it not. When I
have locked and sealed up all, or have told out so much to the usurers
and tradesmen, I scrape together and hunt after more; I quarrel and
contend with the servants, the ploughmen and debtors. O Apollo, hast
thou ever seen a more wretched man, or any lover more miserable?”
5. Sophocles being asked by one whether he was able yet to company with
a woman; Heavens defend, said he, I have got my liberty, and by means
of my old age have escaped those mad and furious masters. For it is
very fit and becoming that, when our pleasures leave us, those desires
should do so too, which, as Alcaeus says,
’Twas never any man’s good hap
Nor woman’s wholly to escape.
But it is otherwise in the love of wealth, which, like a hard and
severe mistress, compels us to get what it forbids us to enjoy, and
excites an appetite but denies the pleasure of its gratification.
Stratonicus wittily abused the Rhodians for their profuseness, when
he said that they builded their houses as if they were immortal, but
provided for their tables as if they were to live but a little while.
So covetous men seem to be profuse by what they possess, when they
are sordid wretches if you consider what they use and enjoy; for they
endure labor, but taste no pleasure.
Demades once came to Phocion’s house and surprised him as he was at
dinner; and when he saw his frugal and slender diet, I much wonder,
Phocion, says he, that you should manage state affairs, and can dine as
you do. For this orator himself pleaded causes and harangued the people
only for his gut; and looking upon Athens as affording too little a
supply for his luxury, he fetched his provisions from Macedonia. For
which cause Antipater, seeing him when he was an old man, compared him
to a sacrifice when all was over and there remained nothing of the
beast but only the tongue and the stomach. But who would not wonder
at thee, O wretched man, who, being able to live as thou dost,—so
sordidly, so unlike a man, bestowing nothing on anybody, being currish
to thy friends, and without any ambition to serve the public,—yet
afflictest thyself and watchest whole nights, hirest out thy labors,
liest at catch for inheritances, crouchest to every one, when thou art
so well provided by thy sordid parsimony to live at ease?
It is reported of a certain Byzantine, that, surprising a whoremaster
with his wife that was very hard-favored, he cried out, O wretch,
what compelled thee to do this?—for her dowry is my solace. It is
necessary for kings, for procurators under them, for those that covet
pre-eminence and rule over cities, that they should heap up treasure;
they are forced through ambition, pride, and vain-glory to make feasts,
to gratify friends, to maintain a retinue, to send presents, to feed
armies, to purchase gladiators. But thou hast so much business lying
upon thy hand, tormentest thyself, tumblest up and down, and all this
while livest the life of a snail in thy shell through parsimony, and
endurest all hardships, receiving no advantage at all; just like the
bath-keeper’s ass, that carries the wood and fuel for the fires and
is always filled with the smoke and ashes of the stove, but itself is
neither bathed nor warmed, washed nor cleansed there.
6. I have said enough of this sort of covetousness, which makes a man
live the life of an ass or ant. But there is another sort of it which
is more savage, that calumniates and gets inheritance by bad arts, that
pries into other men’s affairs, that is full of thoughtfulness and
cares, counting how many of their friends are yet alive, and after all
enjoying nothing of what by all these arts has been heaped up.
As therefore we have a greater aversion and hatred against vipers,
poisonous flies, and spiders than against bears and lions, because
they kill and destroy men, but serve themselves no farther of their
carcasses, which they do not feed upon as those other wild beasts do;
so they that become bad and ill men through sordidness and parsimony
deserve more of our abhorrence than those that prove such by luxurious
living and excess, for they deprive others of what they are neither
able nor inclined to make use of themselves. Hence it is that the
luxurious, when they are rich and well provided, give some truce to
their debaucheries; as Demosthenes said to some that were of opinion
that Demades ceased to be an ill man. Now, says he, you see him full
and glutted, like lions, that then hunt not after prey. But as for the
others, who in the management of affairs propose no end to themselves
either of pleasure or profit, their covetous desires have no truce or
cessation, they being always empty and standing in need of all things.
7. But some perhaps may plead on their behalf, that these men keep and
hoard up their wealth for their children and heirs,—to whom they part
with nothing whilst they are alive; but, like those mice that live in
mines and pick up and eat the golden sands and ore, you cannot come by
any of that gold, till you anatomize them to find it after they are
dead. But to what end, I pray, would they leave such a deal of money
and a great estate to their children and heirs? That they forsooth may
preserve it also for others, and those others in like manner shall hand
it down to their children (just like those earthen pipes the potters
make for a water-course, which retain none of the water themselves,
but one pipe only conveys it to the next), till some informing false
accuser or tyrant appears and cuts off this keeper in trust, and when
his breath is stopped, derives and diverts the course of his wealth
into another channel; or, as they say, till some one that is the most
wicked of the race devours and consumes all that those who went before
him had preserved. For not only, as Euripides says,
Children from slaves derived and baser blood
Prove prodigal and lewd, none come to good;
but it is as true of the children of the parsimonious; as Diogenes
wittily abused this sort of men, when he said that it was better to
be a certain Megarian’s ram than his son. For, under the pretence of
training them up and instructing them, they undo and pervert them,
implanting in them their own love of money and meanness of spirit, and
erecting as it were a fortress for the securing their inheritance in
the minds of their heirs.
For the instructions and lessons they give them are such as these: Gain
as much and spend as little as may be; value yourself according to what
you are worth. But certainly this is not to instruct, but to contract
and sew them up, just like a purse, the better to conceal and keep what
is put into it. The purse indeed becomes foul and musty after money
is put up in it; but the children of the covetous, before they are
enriched by their parents, are replenished with covetous desires which
they derive from them. And indeed they pay them a deserved reward for
their instructions, not loving them because they shall receive a great
estate from them, but hating them because they have it not so soon as
they fain would. For being taught to admire nothing but wealth, nor
knowing any other end of living but to get a great estate, they account
the life of their parents to be a hindrance to that of their own, and
fancy so much time is taken from their own age as is added to theirs.
Wherefore, whilst their parents are yet living, they secretly always
steal their pleasures; and what they bestow upon their friends or spend
upon their lusts, and even what they give to their teachers, is fetched
as it were from another’s estate, not from their own.
But when their parents are dead and they are once possessed of their
keys and seals, then their way of living is of another fashion, and
they put on another face and aspect, grave, severe, and morose. You
hear no more of their former pastimes, nor of exercises with the ball
and in wrestling, nor of the Academy or the Lyceum; but they are
wholly taken up in examining the servants, looking over writings, in
debating matters with those that receive or owe them money. Their
hurry of business and thoughtfulness will not give them leave to
dine, and they are forced to make the night their time of bathing;
the gymnastic schools in which they were educated and the water of
Dirce are neglected. If any man ask him, Will you not go and hear the
philosopher? How can I, says he, now that my father is dead? I am not
at leisure. O miserable wretch! What has thy father left thee to be
compared with what he has taken from thee, thy leisure and thy liberty?
And yet it is not so much he that hath done it, as the wealth that
flows round thee and overpowers thee, which, like the women Hesiod
speaks of,
Thee without firebrands burns, and unawares
Resigns thee up to dotage and gray hairs,[166]
bringing on thy soul those cares—like untimely wrinkles and old
age—that spring from covetous desires and multiplicity of business,
that shrivel up all thy vigor and gayety, all sense of honor, all
kindness and humanity within thee.
8. But some will say, Do you not see rich men live splendidly and spend
high? To whom we answer: Dost thou not hear what Aristotle says, that
some there are that do not use wealth, and some that abuse it? For
neither sort do what is fit and becoming; but what the one sort possess
does neither advantage nor adorn them, and what the other sort have
does both hurt and dishonor them.
But let us further consider, What is the use of riches, for which men
so much admire them? Is it the enjoyment of what suffices nature? Alas!
in this respect the wealthy have no advantage of those that are of a
meaner fortune; but wealth (as Theophrastus says) is really no wealth
and need not be coveted, if Callias, the richest man of Athens, and
Ismenias, the wealthiest of Thebes, made use but of the same things
that Socrates and Epaminondas did. For as Agathon sent away the music
from the room where he feasted to the women’s apartment, contenting
himself with the discourses of his guests, so you would reject and
send away the purple beds and the high prized tables and all other
superfluous things, should you see that the rich make use of the same
things with the poor.