is house and goods, from putting money in the bank, from
buying a house or a freehold. All his surplus gains must go towards the
payment of his debt.

Even men of enormous property, great lords with vast landed estates,
often feel themselves oppressed and made miserable by loads of debt.
They or their forefathers having contracted extravagant habits--a taste
for gambling, horseracing, or expensive living,--borrow money on their
estates, and the burden of debt remains. Not, perhaps, in the case of
strictly entailed estates--for the aristocracy have contrived so that
their debts shall be wiped out at their death, and they can thus gratify
their spendthrift tastes at the expense of the public--the estates going
comparatively unburdened to the entailed heir. But comparatively few are
in the position of the privileged classes. In the case of the majority,
the debts are inherited with the estates, and often the debts are more
than the estates are worth. Thus it happens that a large part of the
lands of England are at this moment the property of mortgagees and
money-lenders.

The greatest men have been in debt. It has even been alleged that
greatness and debt have a certain relation to each other. Great men have
great debts; they are trusted. So have great nations; they are
respectable, and have credit. Spiritless men have no debts, neither have
spiritless nations; nobody will trust them. Men as well as nations in
debt secure a widely extended interest. Their names are written in many
books; and many are the conjectures formed as to whether they will
pay--or not. The man who has no debts slips through the world
comparatively unnoticed; while he who is in everybody's books has all
eyes fixed upon him. His health is enquired after with interest; and if
he goes into foreign countries, his return is anxiously looked for.

The creditor is usually depicted as a severe man, with a hard visage;
while the debtor is an open-handed generous man, ready to help and
entertain everybody. He is the object of general sympathy. When
Goldsmith was dunned for his milk-score and arrested for the rent of his
apartments, who would think of pitying the milk-woman or the landlady?
It is the man in debt who is the prominent feature of the piece, and all
our sympathy is reserved for him. "What were you," asked Pantagruel of
Panurge, "without your debts? God preserve me from ever being without
them! Do you think there is anything divine in lending or i