From his sad experience, no one could speak with greater authority on
the subject of debt than Johnson. "Do not accustom yourself," he wrote
to Boswell, "to consider debt only an inconvenience; you will find it a
calamity. Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt.
Whatever you have, spend less. Frugality is not only the basis of quiet,
but of beneficence." To Simpson, the barrister, he wrote, "Small debts
are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely
be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon, of loud noise,
but little danger. You must therefore be enabled to discharge petty
debts, that you may have leisure, with security to struggle with the
rest." "Sir," said he to the patient and receptive Boswell, "get as much
peace of mind as you can, and keep within your income, and you won't go
far wrong."
Men who live by their wits, their talents, or their genius, have,
somehow or other, acquired the character of being improvident. Charles
Nodier, writing about a distinguished genius, said of him--"In the life
of intelligence and art, he was an angel; in the common practical life
of every day, he was a child." The same might be said of many great
writers and artists. The greatest of them have been so devoted--heart
and soul--to their special work, that they have not cared to think how
the efforts of their genius might be converted into pounds, shillings,
and pence.
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