Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1876-02-01
Genius and debt.

Men of genius are equally tacile' in running
into debt. Genius has no necessary connection
with prudence or sell. restraint, nor does it
exercise any influence over the common rules
of arithmetic which are rigid and infexib!e.
Men Of genius are often superior to what
Bacon calls "the wisdom Of business" Yet
Bacon himself did not follow his osn advice,
but was ruined by his improvidencc. He Was
in straits and difficulties when a youth, and in
still greater straits and difficulties when a man.
His life was splendid; but his excessive ex.
penditurc involved him in debts which created
a perpetual craving for money. One day in
passing out to his ante chamber, where his
followers awaited his appearance, he said, "Be
seated, my masters, your rise has been my fall.
To supply his wants Bacon took brides, and
was thereupon besct by his enemies, convicted,
degraded, and ruined.
Even men with a special genius for finance
on a grand scale may completely break down III
the management Of their own private affairs
Pitt managed the national finances during a
period Of unexamplcd difficulty, vet wa, HIM
self always plunged in debt. Lord Caring
ton, ex-baukcr, once or twice, at Mr. l1is
request, examined his household accounts, and
found the quantity Of butchers Inca! charged
in the bills was one hundredwelght a week.
The charge for servants wages, board wages,
living, and household bills exceeded L2,3oo 4
wear. At Pitts death the nation voted tfU,0'"'
to satisfy the demands Of his creditors; yet Ills
income had never been less than L6,oooa
wear: and at one time, with The wardcnshir OF
the Clinquc Ports, it was nearly tl,00O Il year
more. Macaulay truly says that 'thc clarac-
ter of Pitt would have stood higher r,.wiih
the disinterestedness Of PcrIclc5 and De WIT,
he had united their digniied irugality.'
But Pitt by no means stood alone lora
Melville was as unthrifty in the management
of his own affairs as he was Of the money Of
the public. Fox was an enormous over, his
financial maxim being that u man need never
want money if he was willing 10 pay enouS"
for it. Fox called the outer room at AIlnach 8
where he borrowed on occasions from Je"
lenders at exorbitant premiums, his "Jcrusa'cn
Chamber" Passion for play was his Srca'
vice, and at a vcry early age 1t involved h'w
in debt to an enormous amount Ii Is S'a'o0
by Gibbon that on one occasion Fox sat play
ing at hazard for twenty hours in succession
4l1,0OO. But deep play was the VICE
of high life in those days, and cheating "a'
not unknown. Sclwyn, alIudlng to r0A'
at play, called him Charles the ,lni'J';
Sheridan was the hero Of debt. lie i'ca
on it. Though he received large sums u
money in one way or another, no one knsE
what became of it, for he paid nobody ~
seemed to melt away in his hands like sno" ~
He spent his first wlfc's fortune u
El600 in a six weeks jaunt to Bath Nec'',
sity drove him to literature, and perhaps -
the stimulus of poverty We oWe Inc l'lS Wi,n
and the dramas which succeeded IT. WIN
his second wife he obtained a fortune :,
$4,000, and with e15,O0O which he realized
the sale of Drury Lane shares he pousns
an estate in Surrey, from which be was dr'I "n'
by debt and duns. The remainder ol Dis III.
a series Of shifts, sometimes brl'l'an'' Ou
degrading, to raise money anu ''I ~
creditors. Taylor, of the opera house uscu "
say that if he took off his hat to Shcf,uan ~
the street it would cost him fifty pounds ous
f he stopped to speak to him 1t "0u'o co''
hundred,