‘Old woman with purse and golden coins, allegory of avarice’, by Matthias Stom (fl. 1615–1649). Samuel Smiles saw no point in practising economy for its own sake: to gaze on gold coins while wearing patched rags in a dark and empty house was not what he had in mind at all. Saving was a virtue only for those who gave generously, and spent wisely; otherwise it became not only useless, but an addiction and a disease.
TO provide for others and for our own comfort and independence in old age, is honourable, and greatly to be commended; but to hoard for mere wealth’s sake is the characteristic of the narrow-souled and the miserly.
It is against the growth of this habit of inordinate saving that the wise man needs most carefully to guard himself: else, what in youth was simple economy may in old age grow into avarice, and what was a duty in the one case may become a vice in the other. It is the love of money not money itself which is “the root of evil,”* a love which narrows and contracts the soul, and closes it against generous life and action.
* See 1 Timothy 6:10: “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” The Greek might be better rendered as “the love of money is the root of all manner of evil”.
Précis
Samuel Smiles, author of ‘Self-Help’, strongly recommended saving money and restraining waste, but also warned that economising can turn some people into misers over time. Saving money for its own sake, rather than as a means to a more comfortable and generous life, cramped both soul and body, and was a trap everyone should carefully avoid. (56 / 60 words)
