when contempt would be
awarded to many if they were not wealthy, who are spoken of with
deference, and even lauded to the skies, because their riches are great
and notorious; when this is the case, we are not to be surprised that
men are ashamed to be thought to be poor. This is one of the greatest of
all the dangers at the outset of life: it has brought thousands and
hundreds of thousands to ruin, even to _pecuniary_ ruin. One of the most
amiable features in the character of American society is this; that men
never boast of their riches, and never disguise their poverty; but they
talk of both as of any other matter fit for public conversation. No man
shuns another because he is poor: no man is preferred to another because
he is rich. In hundreds and hundreds of instances, men, not worth a
shilling, have been chosen by the people and entrusted with their rights
and interests, in preference to men who ride in their carriages.

58. This shame of being thought poor, is not only dishonourable in
itself, and fatally injurious to men of talent; but it is ruinous even
in a _pecuniary_ point of view, and equally destructive to farmers,
traders, and even gentlemen of landed estate. It leads to everlasting
efforts to _disguise one's poverty_: the carriage, the servants, the
wine, (oh, that fatal wine!) the spirits, the decanters, the glasses,
all the table apparatus, the dress, the horses, the dinners, the
parties, all must be kept up; not so much because he or she who keeps or
gives them, has any pleasure arising therefrom, as because not to keep
and give them, would give rise to a suspicion _of the want of means_ so
to give and keep; and thus thousands upon thousands are yearly brought
into a state of real poverty by their great _anxiety not to be thought
poor_. Look round you, mark well what you behold, and say if this be not
the case. In how many instances have you seen most amiable and even most
industrious families brought to ruin by nothing but this! Mark it well;
resolve to set this false shame at defiance, and when you have done
that, you have laid the first stone of the surest foundation of your
future tranquillity of mind. There are thousands of families, at this
very moment, who are thus struggling to keep up appearances. The farmers
accommodate themselves to circumstances more easily than tradesmen and
professional men. They live at a greater distance from their neighbours:
they can change their style of living unper