Nature and Art Part 23

"The worst is," said Rebecca, "the poor have not always enough."

"Who has enough?" asked her husband. "Had my uncle? No: he hoped for more; and in all his writings sacrificed his duty to his avarice. Had his son enough, when he yielded up his honour, his domestic peace, to gratify his ambition? Had Lady Bendham enough, when she staked all she had, in the hope of becoming richer? Were we, my Rebecca, of discontented minds, we have now too little. But conscious, from observation and experience, that the rich are not so happy as ourselves, we rejoice in our lot."

The tear of joy which stole from her eye expressed, more than his words, a state of happiness.

He continued: "I remember, when I first came a boy to England, the poor excited my compa.s.sion; but now that my judgment is matured, I pity the rich. I know that in this opulent kingdom there are nearly as many persons perishing through intemperance as starving with hunger; there are as many miserable in the la.s.situde of having nothing to do as there are of those bowed down to the earth with hard labour; there are more persons who draw upon themselves calamity by following their own will than there are who experience it by obeying the will of another. Add to this, that the rich are so much afraid of dying they have no comfort in living."

"There the poor have another advantage," said Rebecca; "for they may defy not only death, but every loss by sea or land, as they have nothing to lose."

"Besides," added the elder Henry, "there is a certain joy of the most gratifying kind that the human mind is capable of tasting, peculiar to the poor, and of which the rich can but seldom experience the delight."

"What can that be?" cried Rebecca.

"A kind word, a benevolent smile, one token of esteem from the person whom we consider as our superior."

To which Rebecca replied, "And the rarity of obtaining such a token is what increases the honour."

"Certainly," returned young Henry, "and yet those in poverty, ungrateful as they are, murmur against that Government from which they receive the blessing."

"But this is the fault of education, of early prejudice," said the elder Henry. "Our children observe us pay respect, even reverence, to the wealthy, while we slight or despise the poor. The impression thus made on their minds in youth is indelible during the more advanced periods of life; and they continue to pine after riches, and lament under poverty: nor is the seeming folly wholly dest.i.tute of reason; for human beings are not yet so deeply sunk in voluptuous gratification, or childish vanity, as to place delight in any attainment which has not for its end the love or admiration of their fellow-beings."

"Let the poor, then," cried the younger Henry, "no more be their own persecutors--no longer pay homage to wealth--instantaneously the whole idolatrous worship will cease--the idol will be broken!"