Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/29

Rh even the time for eating and sleeping. In his letters we are continually coming across the following lamentable refrain:

“I have hardly time to eat … I have no time to eat … For the past twelve years I have been ruining my body with fatigue. I stand in need of necessaries … I am without a penny. I am naked. I suffer a thousand ills … I live in a state of poverty and suffering … I struggle with poverty.”

Michael Angelo’s poverty was imaginary. He was wealthy—he became, indeed, very wealthy. But what use did he make of his riches? He lived like a poor man, harnessed to his task like a horse to a millstone. No one could understand why he thus tortured himself. No one could understand that it was out of his power not to torture himself—that it was a necessity for him. Even his father—who had many of his son’s traits—reproached him.

“Your brother tells me that you live with great economy and even in a wretched manner. Economy is good, but poverty is bad—it is a vice which displeases both God and man and will do harm to your soul and