The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1876-01-20
Genius and Debt.

Men OF genius are equally facile in
running into debt. Genius has no nee
cssary connection with prudence or self
restraint, nor does itexercisc any influence
over the common rules of arithmetic,
which are rigid and inflexible. Men of
genius are often superior to what Bacon
calls the wisdom of business" Yet
Bacon himself did not follow his own adj
vice, but was ruined by his improvidence.
He was in straits and difficulties when a
youth and in still greater straits and diff
culties when man. His life was splendid
but his excessive expenditure involved
him in debts which created perpetual
craving for money. One day in passing
out to his ante-chambers, where his fol-
lowers were awaiting his appearance, he
said: Be seated my master; your rise
has been my fall' TO supply his wants
Bacon took brides, and was thereupon
beset by his enemies, convicted, degraded
and ruined. Even men with special
genius for finance on grand scale may
completely break down in the manage
ment of their own private affairs. Pitt
managed the national finances during a
period Of unexampled difficulty, yet was
himself always plunged in debt. Lord
Darlington, ex-banker, once or twice, at
MIR. Pitts request, examined his household
accounts, and found the quantity Of butch
er's meat charged in the bills was 100
weight week. The charge for servants
wages, board wages, living and household
bills exceeded $4,000 year. At Pitts
death the nation voted Gao, OCO to satisfy
the demands Of his creditors; yet his in
come had never been less than &c, 900 a
year; and at one time, with the Warden
ship of the Cirque Ports, it was nearly
ga 900 year more. Macaulay truly says
that "the character of Pitt would have
stood higher if, with the disinterestedness
of Pericles and Dewitt, he had united
their dignified trugality.'
But Pitt by no means stood alone.
Lord Melville was as unthritty 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 man need never want money if he
was willing to pay enough for it. Fox
called the outer room at Almack's, where
he borrowed on occasions from Jew lend
ers at exorbitant premiums, his "Jerusa-
lem Chamber" Passion for play was his
great vice, and at very early age it in
vOlved him in debt to an enormous
amount. 1t is stated by Gibbon that on
one occasion Fox sat playing at hazard for
twenty hours in succession, losing Gill;
600. But deep play was the vice Of high
life in those days, and cheating was not
unknown. Selwyn, abiding to Eox's
losses at play, called him Charles the
Martyr
Sheridan was the hero of debt. He
lived on it. Though he received large
sums Of money in one way or another, no
one knew what became OF it, for he paid
nobody. 1t seemed to melt away in his
hands like snow in summer. He spent
his first wife's fortune of 600 in six
weeks jaunt to Bath. Necessity drove him
to literature, and perhaps to the stimulus
of poverty we owe The Rivals" and the
drama which succeeded it. With his Sec
ond wife he obtained fortune of Ga, 600,
and with Ella, 900 which he realized by the
sale of Drury Lane shares he bought an
estate in Surrey, from which he was
driven by debt and duns. The
remainder of his life was a Sc
ries of shifts, sometimes brilliant,
but oftener degrading, to raise money
and evade creditors. Taylor, of the Opera
House, used to say that if he took off his
hat to Sheridan in the street it would
cost him fifty pounds; but if he stopped
to speak to him it would cost hundred.
He was in debt all round-to his milk
man, his grocer, his baker and his butch
er. Sometimes Mrs. Sheridan would be
kept waiting for an hour or more, while
the servants were beating up the neigh
borhood for coffee, butter, eggs and rolls.
While Sheridan was paymaster of the
navy butcher one day brought leg of
mutton to the kitchen. The cook took it
and clapped it in the pot to boil, and went
upstairs for the money; but not return
ing, the butcher coolly removed the pot
lid, took out the mutton, and walked
away with it in his tray. Yet, while liv-
ing in these straits, Sheridan, when in
vited with his son into the country, usual
ly went in chalses and four-he in one.
and his son Tom following in the other.
The end of all was very sad. For some
weeks before his death he was nearly des-
titute of the means of subsistence. His
noble and royal friends had entirely de-
serted HIM. Executions for debt were in
his house, and he passed his last days in
the custody Of Sheriff's officers, who alb
stained from conveying him to prison
merely because they were assured that to
remove him would cause his immediate
death.-Sdmuel Smiles.
Walter Dumont, the young man who
so courageously risked his life in rescu-
spanp r. q AZ