Chapter XX: 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.”