though Shakespeare tells us 'How apt the poor are to be proud,' they are
not proud of being poor.

'Poverty,' says the greatest of English divines, 'is indeed despised and
makes men contemptible; it exposes a man to the influences of evil
persons, and leaves a man defenceless; it is always suspected; its
stories are accounted lies, and all its counsels follies; it puts a man
from all employment; it makes a man's discourses tedious and his society
troublesome. This is the worst of it.' Even so poverty seems pretty bad,
but, begging Dr. Jeremy Taylor's pardon, what he has stated is by no
means 'the worst of it.' To be in want of food at any time, and of
firing in winter time, is ever so much worse than the inconveniences he
enumerates; and to see those we love--delicate women and children
perhaps--in want, is worse still. The fact is, the excellent bishop
probably never knew what it was to go without his meals, but took them
'reg'lar' (as Mrs. Gamp took her Brighton ale) as bishops generally do.
Moreover, since his day, Luxury has so universally increased, and the
value of Intelligence has become so well recognised (by the publishers)
that even philosophers, who profess to despise such things, have plenty
to eat, and good of its kind too. Hence it happens that, from all we
hear to the contrary from the greatest thinkers, the deprivation of food
is a small thing: indeed, as compared with the great spiritual struggles
of noble minds, and the doubts that beset them as to the supreme
government of the universe, it seems hardly worth mentioning.

In old times, when folks were not so 'cultured,' starvation was thought
more of. It is quite curious, indeed, to contrast the high-flying
morality of the present day (when no one is permitted, either by
Evolutionist or Ritualist, however dire may be his necessity, so much as
to jar his conscience) with the shocking laxity of the Holy Scriptures.