|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 3
These sufferings, however, appertain but to one class of debtors. There
are others who scorn such compunctious visitations, and set all laws of
conscience at defiance. They press into their service all the aids of
cunning, and travel on byroads of the world till they are bronzed enough
for its highway. Their memories are like mirrors, and their debts like
breathings on them, which vanish the same moment they are produced. They
look on mankind as a large family, and the world as a large storehouse,
or open house, where they have a claim proportioned to their wants. They
clear their consciences by maintaining, that what is parted with is not
lost, and foster their hopes with the idea of its reversion. They think
those who _can_ ride ought not to walk; and, therefore, that all
men have the option of such chances of good-fortune. With this laxity of
principle they quarter themselves on the credulity of extortionate
tradesmen, and the good-natured simplicity of friends or associates.
If, perchance, they possess any excellence above their society, they
consider it as a redeeming grace for their importunities, and,
calculating on the vulgarism _ad captandum_, that what is dearest
bought is most prized, they make their friends pay freely for their
admiration. Nor are such admirers willing to break the spell by which
they are bound, since, by their unqualified approval they sanction, and
flatter _the man_ of their party, to their mutual ruin; for, as
Selden observes, "he who will keep a monkey should surely pay for the
glasses he breaks."
Prone as men are to the crooked path, and still more apt as the weak and
ignorant are to indulge them in such a course, perhaps the love of
principle is as strong in men's hearts as it ever will be. Of times gone
by, we must not here speak; because the _amor patri�_ its has long
since shifted to _amor nummi_, and naked honesty has learned the
decency of dress. There have been profligates in all ages; but the
world, though sometimes a severe master, ruins as many by its deceitful
indulgence, as by its ill-timed severity. Good fellows are usually the
worst treated by the world allowing them to go beyond their tether, and
then cutting them off out of harm's way. Nothing but an earlier
discipline can improve us; for so habitual is debt, that the boy who
forestals his pocket-money uses it as a step-ladder to mortgaging his
estate. The sufferers, in such cases, are generally shut up in prisons
or poor-houses, to afflict or console each other as their sensibilities
may direct; and thus the salutary lessons, which their condition might
afford, is lost to the world. Neither are such scenes of real misery
courted by mankind; the nearest semblances which they can bear being in
the sentimentalities of the stage, encumbered as they often are by
overstrained fiction and caricature. On the contrary, a walk through
those receptacles of human woe, and the little histories of their
inmates, will often furnish as many lessons of morality and
world-knowledge as will suffice us for life. We may there see the
rapacious creditor at the same goal with the unfortunate debtor, whom he
has hunted through life, supplicating mercy which he never exercised,
and vainly attempting to recant a course of cruelty and persecution, by
mixing up his merited sufferings with the distresses of his abused
companions.
Goldsmith has said, that "every man is the architect of his own
fortune;" and perhaps there are few men, who, in the moments of their
deepest suffering, have not felt the force of this assertion. In high
life, embarrassments are generally to be attributed to the love of
gambling, prodigality, or some such sweeping vice, which no station can
control. Bankruptcies, or failures in trade, being common occurrences,
are seldom traced to their origin, too often found to be in expensive
habits, and overreaching or misguided speculations, and sometimes in the
treachery and villany of partners; and, amidst this bad system, so
nicely is credit balanced, that a run of ill luck, or a mere idle
whisper, is often known to destroy commercial character of a century's
growth. But in these cases it should be recollected, that the reputation
of the parties has probably been already endangered by some great
stretch of enterprize, calculated to excite envy or suspicion.
Debts of fashion, or those contracted in high life, are usually the most
unjust, probably the result of honesty being more a virtue of necessity
than of choice, and of the disgraceful system of imposing on the
extravagant and wealthy. Experience, it is granted, is a treasure which
fools must purchase at a high price; but however largely we may hold
possession of that commodity, it will not excuse that scheme of
bare-weight honesty, which some are apt to make the standard of their
dealings with the rich. A man of family, partly from indiscretion, and
from various other causes, becomes embarrassed; the clamours of his
creditors soon magnify his luxuries, but not a word is said about their
innumerable extortions, in the shape of commissions, percentages, and
other licensed modifications of cheatery, nor are they reckoned to the
advantage of the debtor. These may be practices of experience, custom,
and money-getting, but they are not rules of conscience. In truth, there
is not a more painful scene than the ruin of a young man of family.
There is so much vice and unprincipled waste opposed to indignant and
rapacious clamour, often accompanied with idle jests. Here again is food
for the vitiated appetites of scandalmongers, and that miserable but
numerous portion of mankind, who rejoice at the fall of a superior. The
name of _debtor_ is an odium which a proud spirit can but ill
support; cunning and avarice come in a thousand shapes, not to retrieve
lost credit, but to swell the list of embarrassments;--friends have fled
at the approach of the crisis, and associates appear but to pluck the
poor victim of the wrecks of his fortune! Absenteeism, the curse of
England, is the only alternative of wretched and humiliating
imprisonment. An entire change of habit ensues: ease and elegance of
manners dwindle into coldness and neglect, liberality to meanness, and
good-natured simplicity to chicanery and cunning. In society, too, how
changed; once the gay table companion, full of gallantry and wit, now
solitary and dejected, with the weeds of discomfort and despair rankling
around his heart. If fortune ever enable him to regenerate from such
obscurity, perhaps custom may have habituated him to privation till the
return of comfort serves little more than to awaken recollections of
past error or obligation, and to embitter future enjoyment. Such a
change may, however, empower him to adjust his conscience with men, of
all satisfaction the most valuable; notwithstanding that the world is
readier to exaggerate error, than recognise such sterling principle. It
is alike obvious, that men who are under the stigma of debt, do not
enjoy that ease which they are commonly thought to possess. The horrors
of dependance, in all its afflicting shapes, are known to visit them
hourly, although in some instances, buoyancy of spirits, and affected
gaiety may enable them to appear happy; and ofttimes would they be
awakened to a sense of these fallacies, and thus become reformed, were
it not for the rigour of persecution, which renders them reckless of all
that may ensue, and callous to the honourable distinctions of man. This
of a truth, is tampering with human weakness, and is too often known to
prove the upshot of industry, by sacrificing principle to vindictive
passion.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|