trip the
feet as badly as a cloak that hangs down in front. In everything that
we employ for the needs of daily life, whatever exceeds the mean is
superfluous and a burden rather than a help. So it is that excessive
riches, like steering oars of too great weight and bulk, serve to sink
the ship rather than to guide it; for their bulk is unprofitable and
their superfluity a curse. I have noticed that of the wealthy
themselves those win most praise who live quietly and in moderate
comfort, concealing their actual resources, administering their great
possessions without ostentation or pride and showing like poor folk
under the disguise of their moderation. Now, if even the rich to some
extent affect the outward form and semblance of poverty to give
evidence of their moderation, why should we of slenderer means be
ashamed of being poor not in appearance only but in reality?

20. I might even engage with you in controversy over the word poverty,
urging that no man is poor who rejects the superfluous and has at his
command all the necessities of life, which nature has ordained should
be exceedingly small. For he who desires least will possess most,
inasmuch as he who wants but little will have all he wants. The
measure of wealth ought therefore not to be the possession of lands
and investments, but the very soul of man. For if avarice make him
continually in need of some fresh acquisition and insatiable in his
lust for gain, not even mountains of gold will bring him satisfaction,
but he will always be begging for more that he may increase what he
already possesses. That is _the_ genuine admission of poverty. For
every desire for fresh acquisition springs from the consciousness of
want, and it matters little how large your possessions are if they are
too small for _you_. Philus had a far smaller household than Laelius,
Laelius than Scipio, Scipio than Crassus the Rich, and yet not even
Crassus had as much as he wanted; and so, though he surpassed all
others in wealth, he was himself surpassed by his own avarice and
seemed rich to all save himself. On the other hand, the philosophers
of whom I have spoken wanted nothing beyond what was at their
disposal, and, thanks to the harmony existing between their desires
and their resources, they were deservedly rich and happy. For poverty
consists in the need for fresh acquisition, wealth in the satisfaction
springing from the absence of needs. For the badge of penury is
desire, the b