poverty is so relative. i have lived to be thirty-two now, and am just beginning to find that out. hitherto, in no vague way, poverty to me seemed to be indivisibly united with the lack of money. and this in the face of a long series of experiences which should have proved to any sane person that this was only relatively true. without money, or at times with so little that an ordinary day laborer would have scoffed at my supply, i still found myself meditating gloomily and with much show of reason upon the poverty of others. but what i was really complaining of, if i had only known, was not poverty of material equipment (many of those whom i pitied were materially as well if not better supplied than i was) but poverty of mind, the most dreadful and inhibiting and destroying of all forms of poverty. there are others, of course: poverty of strength, of courage, of skill. and in respect to no one of these have i been rich, but poverty of mind, of the understanding, of taste, of imagination—therein lies the true misery, the freezing degradation of life.
for i walk through the streets of this great city—so many of them no better than the one in which i live—and see thousands upon thousands, materially no worse78 off than myself, many of them much better placed, yet with whom i would not change places save under conditions that could not be met, the principal one being that i be permitted to keep my own mind, my own point of view. for here comes one whose clothes are good but tasteless, or dirty; and i would not have his taste or his dirt. and here is another whose shabby quarters cost him as much as do mine and more, and yet i would not live in the region which he chooses for half his rent, nor have his mistaken notion of what is order, beauty, comfort. nothing short of force could compel me. and here is one sufficiently well dressed and housed, as well dressed and housed as myself, who still consorts with friends from whom i could take no comfort, creatures of so poor a mentality that it would be torture to associate with them.
and yet how truly poor, materially, i really am. for over a year now the chamber in which i dwell has cost me no more than four dollars a week. my clothes, with the exception of such minor changes as ties and linen, are the very same i have had for several years. i am so poor at this writing that i have not patronized a theater in months. a tasteful restaurant such as always i would prefer has this long while been beyond my purse. i have even been beset by a nervous depression which has all but destroyed my power to write, or to sell that which i might write. and, as i well know, illness and death might at any time interfere and cut short the struggle that in my case has thus far proved materially most profitless; and yet, believe me, i have never felt poor, or that i have been cheated of much79 that life might give. nor have i felt that sense of poverty that appears to afflict thousands of those about me.
being poor
i cannot go to a theater, for instance, lacking the means. but i can and do go to many of the many, many museums, exhibits, collections and arboreta that are open to me for nothing in this great city. and for greater recreation even, i turn to such books of travel, of discovery, of scientific and philosophic investigation and speculation as chance to fit in with my mood at the time and with which a widespread public beneficence has provided me, and where i find such pleasure, such relief, such delight as i should hesitate to attempt to express in words.
but apart from these, which are after all but reports of and commentaries upon the other, comes the beauty of life itself. i know it to be a shifting, lovely, changeful thing ever, and to it, the spectacle of it as a whole, in my hours of confusion and uncertainty i invariably return, and find such marvels of charm in color, tone, movement, arrangement, which, had i the genius to report, would fill the museums and the libraries of the world to overflowing with its masterpieces. the furies of snow and rain that speed athwart a hidden sun. the wracks and wisps of cloud that drape a winter or a summer moon. a distant, graceful tower from which a flock of pigeons soar. the tortuous, tideful rivers that twist among great forests of masts and under many graceful bridges. the crowding, surging ways of seeking men. these cost me nothing, and i weary of them never.
80 and sunsets. and sunrises. and moonsets. and moonrises. these are not things to which those materially deficient would in the main turn for solace, but to me they are substances of solace, the major portion of all my wealth or possible wealth, in exchange for which i would not take a miser’s hoard. i truly would not.
