Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Beggar's Club

"THE Beggars Club as the astute reader may have guessed without the reading of a line does not lay any particular stress on wealth among its conditions for membership but he may not have surmised that the club was founded for social purposes only by men of wit or to be more exact by men who live by their wits for while the two often go together they are more often found apart...

Here a mean man and a man of means are one and the same thing Here a penny has a use and a value of its own besides that of serving as the part of a dollar and an abstract unit of the monetary table The members agree with the rest of the world that poverty is no disgrace and unlike the rest of the world they honestly mean it The most worthless is welcomed here for his intrinsic worth and not for the extrinsic qualities of his pocket book...

Individually (beggars) gain the sympathy of the public, collectively they have no public sympathy whatsoever. He may not know it himself but your true beggar is a paradox...

I can offer you no other inducements but if these prove sufficiently enticing I stand ready to secure you an entree into THE BEGGARS CLUB."