THE MISER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MISER.

TWO NOTABLE STUDIES. |

HUMOURS OF ECONOMY.

(By CYRANO.)

It happened that about the time I was working on Andrew Carnegie for. the centenary article that appeared on this page, I was reading Hugh Walpole's latest novel, "The Inquisitor." Moreover, not long before that I had been reading "Riceyman Steps," by Arnold Bennett. Both these novels contain remarkable studies of miserliness, and their contrast with the wise generosity of Carnegie struck me. \ Stephen Furse, the moneylender of Polchester, in Mr. Walpole's novel, has a good deal in common with the keeper of the second-hand book shop in "Riceyman Steps." Both love money to the point of madness. Both economise so severely as to stint their households of food. In the earlier story both the miser himself and his wife die as an indirect result of semi-starvation. The outstanding character in the book, however, is the servant girl. Humble, ignorant and ill-used, this woman is probably the most beautiful character that Bennett drew, and when I think _ of this author's naive worldliness, his open appreciation of material things, I remind myself of the spirituality with which he invested. this child of the slums.

The Aggressive Miser. There is, however, this great difference between the bookseller and Stephen Furse. The Londoner is not aggressive in his miserliness. He loves money simply as money, and has no thought for its use. Furse loves money for the power it gives him, and when the story onens he has many of the leading citizens of the cathedral town m his clutches. His victims he despises, they are fools to have put themselves in his hands. Furse is much the less attractive of the two men. He refuses to pay for an operation for Ma wife, in consequence of which she becomes blind, and he has no mercy on those who ask for it Mr. Walpole conveys & most depressing and indeed dreadful picture of a cold soul-less home, dominated by this o-entle-voiced maniac. Furse plays at times with the idea of devoting his wealth to some public purpose, but the motive is egotism, and he quickly becomes alarmed at the thought of thus losing what he has made. Such a character is the exact antithesis of Carneeie, who regarded wealth as a trust.

There are probably few men or women in the world who go to such lengths as these two m the saving of money— doin«- without sufficient food and without fires in cold weather—but regularly such cases come to light in forms of spectacular eccentricity. Men and women who have lived in poverty and squalor are found to have been rich. What germ is it that destroys the balance of the human brain in this way ? There are sins that are easier to understand and sympathise with than that of avarice. Hatred is a much more human failing than miserliness. Sexual sin

springs from a primal natural impulse that is absolutely necessary to the life of mankind; often it is nothing more I

than loving not wisely but too well. The Italians have a saying that the sins of the flesh are not sins. But meanness of any kind, vindictiveness, cruelty, are essentially sins of the spirit. They are terribly corrosive and withering. They destroy love, and reduce the soul to the dimensions of a dried pea. A friend of mine is fond of saying that great as the offence may have beep for which Oscar Wilde was punished by the law and ostracised by society, he emphatically prefers Wilde to Whistler, for the reason that Whistler had a grudging mean mind, eaten into by egotism.

Money and Life. The extreme miser, making the virtue of thrift into a vice, is a highly antisocial and extraordinarily unpleasant type. He simply does not understand anything about the art of living, and it is not an exaggeration to say that his lack of proportion is a form of madness. There are poor creatures —poorer than many of the inmates of mental hospitals—who, after living in rags and dirt, die leaving comfortable fortunes— to whom? The disposition of their wealth seems not to have troubled them; their one thought in life was this wealth. There are, however, many stages in the over-care for money, and society is thickly sprinkled with men and women who, without being comparable in extreme types, are deficient in the sense of wise spending. In the lives of these people saving takes humorous forms. Mr. Gi W. E. Russell mentions a well-known figure in the City of London who could be 6een on wet days standing under a dripping umbrella waiting for a bus; the price of a hansom would have been a trifle compared with his wealth, but .he would not hail one. For a wealthy New Zealander, a semi-invalid in his old age, a small gas fixture was put in near his bedroom, at a cost of a few shillings, so that water could be heated more easily. When he saw it he promptly ordered it to be removed. A family who keep more than one motor car, live very comfortably, and travel freely, gave up one of their two daily papers as an economy. Such humours could be multiplied indefinitely. All of us have observed such examples, and those of us who'are not wealthy are quite certain that if we were well off we would put our money to better use. I wonder if we all would.

It is said that at either Oxford or Cambridge the question has been debated: "That it is more difficult to spend £1000 wisely than to make £1000." It is certainly an interesting subject. Ideas about money are changing and thrift in the sense of hoarding is not ranked so high as a virtue as it was in Victorian days. The trouble with many men is that they, had to save hard for years to make a start with their fortunes and the habit has become so ingrained that when they acquire wealth they cannot spend it. With incomes of thousands a year they live as they did when they had only hundreds, denying themselves comforts and pleasures that would sweeten and enlarge life. Many of them, of course, have had no education in the art of iiving. Their one object has been to make money and this is their only standard. They have made money and therefore they have been successful. What more is there for them to do —except to try to make more money? So the pathetic spectacle is common of well-to-do and 'wealthy folk who have the means to

enjoy life but not the knowledge. Their bank balance accumulates, but not their experience in living. It is not correct to say that moneymakers are always moved purely by the desire for money. Often they enjoy the power that money gives much more than the money itself and often they derive their satisfaction from the exercise of their wits in the process of money-making. Just as a civil engineer enjoys subduing Nature, or a doctor is absorbed in his profession, so a business man finds pleasure in bringing off deals. It is one theory of lago's villainy that ho had to have something on which to exercise his keen and restless intelligence. The same explanation might be advanced for much of the persistent and often relentless pursuit of wealth. A rich Englishman was reminded that he could not take his wealth with him —or as David Haruin said, "there ain't no pockets in a shroud" —and that it might bo squandered by his heirs. "Oh, well," he said, "if they get as much satisfaction from spending it as I did from making it, I shan't grudge it to them."

Disposition of Wealth. Yet what may happen to a man's wealth when he has gone may well give him pause. Carnegie's contention was that a wealthy man should die poor, that he should dispose of his wealth for public purposes during his lifetime. Such a method should give a man the maximum of satisfaction, for he can see for himself the beginnings of his philanthropic enterprise. Be avoids the risk of his intention being thwarted by the law's requirements in respect to the phrasing of wills, and dies knowing that he has done all that is humanly possible to realise his desires. That should be a considerable comfort. As to leaving large sums to persons not in need of them —well, experience shows abundantly enough the danger of that course. The State, by its heavy scale of death duties, implicitly recognises that there are limits to the needs of the rich man's family and connections. However, if a man takes pride in leaving a larger fortune than his neighbours, it may be hard to persuade him to part with much of it during his lifetime.