What Are Misers All About?

What Are Misers All About?

Avaro acerba poena natura est sua. A miser’s bitter punishment is himself (Publilius Syrus, Maxims, 46). Most students know about misers from the literary depictions of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Ebenezer Balfour in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, Silas Marner in George Eliot’s novel of the same name, and perhaps Harpagon in Moliere’s The Miser.

What students come away with in these stories is how money can so twist a human being into making it a god, drying up his humanity, and keeping him from spending it. This is the real mystery for them — why not spend it? They wonder about what could have happened to these misers that made them act this way.

They can understand Shylock because of all the anti-Semitic hatred he was made to endure and which may have driven him mad. It is beyond their comprehension why being a Jew could make the Christians of Venice so hateful toward him. They see the play as exploring the effects of religious bigotry upon an innocent human being. They see his passion for money as a shield he thinks will keep him safe against the insults he must continually eendure. But they are at a loss to explain the psychology of three of the other four misers.

And then there is Scrooge, their favorite miser.

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”

“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, then?” said Scrooge.

“Both very busy, sir.”

“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I am very glad to hear it.”

“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned — they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides — excuse me — I don’t know that.”

“But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.

“It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!”

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labors with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Class discussions then inevitably spill over into why the wealthy one percent al act this way and cause so much suffering for the remaining ninety-nine percent of their countrymen without it even bothering them. They find it hard that people, especially churchgoers, could be so callous and unfeeling toward the poor until it’s explained to them how great wealth can dry up one’s humanity, but it still remains a mystery to them.

Heredis fletus sub persona risus est. The weeping of an heir is laughter behind a mask (Publilius Syrus, Maxims, 258). Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. The hypocrite lives his life on stage. As the recipient of an inheritance, he knows that at the funeral all eyes will be upon him and that he must comport himself in a seemly fashion. His weeping at the passing of his rich relative may move some of the onlookers, while others will think that he has already counted the silverware.

Frank Breslin is a retired high-school teacher in the New Jersey public school system.