Book 4
38
Moreover Meanness is a far-reaching vice, and one of varied aspect: it appears to take several shapes. For as it consists in two things, deficiency in giving and excess in getting, it is not found in its entirety in every case, but sometimes the two forms occur separately, some men going too far in getting, while others fall short in giving.
39
The characters described by such names as niggardly, close-fisted, and stingy all fall short in giving, but they do not covet the goods of others nor wish to take them. With some of them this is due to an honorable motive of a sort, namely a shrinking from base conduct—since some persons are thought, or at all events profess, to be careful of their money because they wish to avoid being forced at some time or other to do something base; to this class belong the skinflintκυμινοπρίστης means literally one who saws cumminseed in half. and similar characters, who get their names from an excessive reluctance to give. But some keep their hands off their neighbors’ goods from fear; they calculate that it is not easy to take what belongs to others without others taking what belongs to oneself, and so they prefer (as they say) neither to take nor to give.
