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Updated: June 4, 2025
In short, I triumphed as cowards and niggards do when they flatter themselves with having given some supposed instance of courage or generosity; and my triumph lasted as long; that is to say, till my ascendant passion had a proper opportunity of displaying itself in its true and natural colours.
"My brother, and my son, and my grandson, are among the number," said the old man, and his face grew yet more deathlike. "Their monuments shall be in hecatombs of their tyrants. They shall not, at least, call the Jews niggards in revenge."
I know it may be objected, that this vice is not confined to age, that youth is frequently very avaritious, and grasps at money with a very unbecoming eagerness: this, I grant, is true; but, if we look into the conduct of such men in other respects, I believe we shall generally find their avarice proceeds from their prodigality; they are lavish in the purchase of pleasures, and must therefore be parsimonious in acts of generosity and justice: they are guilty of meanness in some things, only for the sake of making a great figure in others; and are not ashamed to be accounted niggards, where they ought to be liberal, in order to acquire the reputation of open-handedness, where it would better become them to be sparing.
"My brother, and my son, and my grandson, are among the number," said the old man, and his face grew yet more deathlike. "Their monuments shall be in hecatombs of their tyrants. They shall not, at least, call the Jews niggards in revenge."
"Is that all?" gasped the Director at last, when every object from the basket glittered before them on the table. "Yes," said Smith. "That is no. I found a broken statuette hidden in the sand outside the tomb. It is of the queen, but I thought perhaps you would allow me to keep this." "But certainly, Mr. Smith; it is yours indeed. We are not niggards here. Still, if I might see it "
I mean those who are designated by such appellations as sparing, close-fisted, niggards, are all deficient in giving; but other men's property they neither desire nor are willing to receive, in some instances from a real moderation and shrinking from what is base.
"Since you have invited these strangers to the castle, whether they are really our relations or not, we must be prepared to receive them. Go, look for Sandy Redland; he has not left the island yet: he must go round and collect an ample store of provisions, that we may not be looked on as niggards in our hospitality, in this island home of ours.
The "gripple niggards" might have pleaded feebly in their own behalf that they could not all afford to spend, like Heber, a hundred thousand pounds in the purchase of books; and that an occasional reluctance to part with some hard-earned, hard-won volume might be pardonable in one who could not hope to replace it.
I did it because the way led to it, because I was only a human boy, a creature of my environment, and neither an anaemic nor a god. I was just human, and I was taking the path in the world that men took men whom I admired, if you please; full-blooded men, lusty, breedy, chesty men, free spirits and anything but niggards in the way they foamed life away. And the way was open.
Heber's generosity has been nobly praised by Scott, who contrasts the hard-heartedness of other bibliophiles, those "gripple niggards" who preferred holding on to their treasures, with his friend's careless liberality. "Thy volumes, open as thy heart, Delight, amusement, science, art, To every ear and eye impart. Yet who, of all who thus employ them, Can, like the owner's self, enjoy them?"
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