LIVING BEYOND THE MEANS.
"By no means run in debt: take thine own measure. Who cannot live on twenty pounds a year, Cannot on forty: he's a man of pleasure, A kind of thing that's for itself too dear."--_George Herbert_.
"But what will Mrs. Grundy say?"--_Old Play._
"YES and No are, for good or evil, the Giants of Life."--_Jerrold_.
"A hundred years of vexation will not pay a farthing of debt."--_From the French_.
"Respectability is all very well for folks who can have it for ready money: but to be obliged to run into debt for it--it's enough to break the heart of an angel."--_Jerrold._
Extravagance is the pervading sin of modern society. It is not confined to the rich and moneyed classes, but extends also to the middle and working classes.
There never was such a burning desire to be rich, or to _seem_ to be rich. People are no longer satisfied with the earnings of honest industry; but they must aim at becoming suddenly rich,--by speculation, gambling, betting, swindling, or cheating.
General extravagance is to be seen everywhere. It is especially the characteristic of town life. You see it in the streets, in the parks, in the churches. The extravagance of dress is only one of its signs. There is a general prodigality in social display. People live in a style beyond their means; and the results are observed in commercial failures, in lists of bankrupts, and in criminal courts, where business men are so often convicted of dishonesty and fraud.
Appearances must be kept up. Men must _seem_ to be rich. Hypocrites can easily impose upon those who are willing to be convinced. People must now live in a certain style, inhabit handsome houses, give good dinners, drink fine wines, and have a handsome equipage. Perhaps they are only able to accomplish this by overreaching or by dishonesty. Everybody wondered at the generosity and style of Redpath and Robson; but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Redpaths and Robsons now.
There is another class of people, not fraudulent, but extravagant; though perhaps on the brink of becoming fraudulent. They live up to their means, and often beyond them. They desire to be considered "respectable people." They live according to the pernicious adage, "One must do as others do." They do not consider whether they can afford to live up to or beyond their means; but they think it necessary to secure the "respect" of others. In doing so, they usually sacrifice their own self-respect. They regard their dress, their establishments, their manner of living, and their observance of fashion, as the sole tests of respectability and rank. They make an appearance in the eyes of the world; though it may be entirely hypocritical and false.
But they must not _seem_ poor! They must hide their poverty by every effort. They spend their money before it is earned,--run into debt at the grocer's, the baker's, the milliner's, and the butcher's. They must entertain their fashionable "friends," at the expense of the shopkeepers. And yet, when misfortunes overtake them, and when their debts have become overwhelming, what becomes of the "friends"? They fly away, and shun the man who is up to his ears in debt!
Yet poverty is more than half disarmed by those who have the moral courage to say. "I can't afford it." Fair-weather friends are of no use whatever, except as an indication of the depth of snobbery to which human beings can descend. What is "a visiting connection"? It is not at all calculated to elevate one in social, or even in business life. Success mainly depends upon character, and the general esteem in which a person is held. And if the attempt is made to snatch the reward of success before it is earned, the half-formed footing may at once give way, and the aspirant will fall, unlamented, into the open-mouthed dragon of debt.
"Mrs. Grundy," in the play, is but an impersonation of the conventionalism of the world. Custom, habit, fashion, use and wont, are all represented in her. She may be a very vulgar and commonplace person, but her power is nevertheless prodigious. We copy and imitate her in all things. We are pinned to her apron-string. We are obedient at her bidding. We are indolent and complaisant, and fear to provoke her ill-word. "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" quells many a noble impulse, hinders many a self-denying act.
There seems to be a general, though unconscious conspiracy existing, against each other's individuality and manhood. We discourage self-reliance, and demand conformity. Each must see with others' eyes, and think through others' minds. We are idolaters of customs and observances, looking behind, not forwards and upwards. Pinned down and held back by ignorance and weakness, we are afraid of standing alone, or of thinking and acting for ourselves. Conventionalism rules all. We fear stepping out into the free air of independent thought and action. We refuse to plant ourselves upon our instincts, and to vindicate our spiritual freedom. We are content to bear others' fruit, not our own.
In private affairs, the same spirit is alike deleterious. We live as society directs, each according to the standard of our class. We have a superstitious reverence for custom. We dress, and eat, and live, in conformity with the Grundy law. So long as we do this, we are "respectable," according to class notions. Thus many rush open-eyed upon misery, for no better excuse than a foolish fear of "the world." They are afraid of "what others will say of them;" and, in nine cases out of ten, those who might probably raise the voice of censure, are not the wise or the far-seeing, but much oftener the foolish, the vain, and the short-sighted.
Sir William Temple has said, that "a restlessness in men's minds to be something that they are not, and to have something that they have not, is the root of all immorality." The statement is strictly correct. It has been attested by universal experience.
Keeping up appearances is one of the greatest social evils of the age. There is a general effort, more particularly amongst the middle and upper classes, at seeming to be something that they are not. They put on appearances, live a life of sham, and endeavour to look something superior to what they really are.
"Respectability" is one of the chief aims. Respectability, regarded in its true sense, is a desirable thing. To be respected, on right grounds, is an object which every man and woman is justified in obtaining. But modern respectability consists of external appearances. It means wearing fine clothes, dwelling in fine houses, and living in fine style. It looks to the outside,--to sound, show, externals. It listens to the chink of gold in the pocket. Moral worth or goodness forms no part of modern respectability. A man in these days may be perfectly "respectable," and yet altogether despicable.
This false and demoralizing habit arises from the overweening estimate which is formed of two things, well enough in their place,--rank and wealth. Everybody struggles to rise into some superior class. The spirit of caste is found as keenly at work among the humblest as among the highest ranks. At Birmingham, there was a club of workmen with tails to their coats, and another without tails: the one looked down upon the other. Cobbett, so felicitous in his nicknames, called his political opponent, Mr. Sadler, "a linendraper." But the linendraper also has plenty of people beneath him. The linendraper looks down on the huckster, the huckster on the mechanic, and the mechanic on the day labourer. The flunkey who exhibits his calves behind a baron, holds his head considerably higher than the flunkey who serves a brewer.
It matters not at what class you begin, or however low in the social scale, you will find that every man has somebody beneath him. Among the middling ranks, this sort of exclusiveness is very marked. Each circle would think it a degradation to mix on familiar terms with the members of the circle beneath it. In small towns and villages, you will find distinct coteries holding aloof from each other, perhaps despising each other, and very often pelting each other with hard words. The cathedral towns, generally, have at least six of such distinct classes, ranking one beneath the other.
And while each has his or her own exclusive circle, which all of supposed inferior rank are precluded from entering, they are at the same time struggling to pass over the line of social demarcation which has been drawn by those above them. They are eager to overleap it, and thus gain admission into a circle still more exclusive than their own.
There is also a desperate scramble for front places, and many are the mean shifts employed to gain them. We must possess the homage of society! And for this purpose we must be rich, or at least _seem_ to be so. Hence the struggles after style--the efforts made to put on the appearances of wealth--the dash, the glitter, and the show of middle and upper class life;--and hence, too, the motley train of palled and vitiated tastes--of shrunken hearts and stunted intellects--of folly, frivolity, and madness.
One of the most demoralizing practices of modern refinement is the "large party" system. People cram their houses with respectable mobs; thus conforming to a ridiculous custom. Rousseau, with all his aberrations of mind, said, "I had rather have my house too small for a day, than too large for a twelvemonth." Fashion exactly reverses the maxim; and domestic mischief is often begun with a large dwelling and suitable accommodations. The misfortune consists in this,--that we never look below our level for an example, but always above it.
It is not so much, however, in the mere appearances kept up, as in the means taken to keep them up, that the fruitful cause of immorality is to be found. A man having assumed a class status, runs all risks to keep it up. It is thought to be a descent in the world, to abridge oneself of a superfluity. The seeming-rich man, who drives his close carriage and drinks champagne, will not tolerate a descent to a gig and plain beer; and the respectable man, who keeps his gig, would think it a degradation to have to travel afoot or in a 'bus, between his country house and his town office. They will descend to immorality rather than descend in apparent rank; they will yield to dishonesty rather than yield up the mock applause and hollow respect of that big fool, "the world."
Everybody can call to mind hundreds of cases of men--"respectable men"--who, from one extravagance have gone on to another--wantonly squandering wealth which was not theirs--in order to keep up a worldly reputation, and cut a figure before their admiring fellows;--all ending in a sudden smash, a frightful downfall, an utter bankruptcy--to the ruin, perhaps, of thousands. They have finished up with paying a respectable dividend of sixpence in the pound! Indeed it is not too much to say, that five-sixths of the fraud and swindling that disgrace commercial transactions, have had their origin in the diseased morality of "keeping up appearances."
To be "respectable," in the false sense of the word,--what is not sacrificed? Peace, honesty, truth, virtue,--all to keep up appearances. We must cheat, and scrub, and deceive, and defraud, that "the world" may not see behind our mask! We must torment and enslave ourselves, because we must extort "the world's" applause, or at least obtain "the world's" good opinion!
How often is suicide traceable to this false sentiment! Vain men will give up their lives, rather than their class notions of respectability. They will cut the thread of existence, rather than cut fashionable life. Very few suicides are committed from real want. "We never hear," says Joel Barlow, "of a man committing suicide for want of a loaf of bread, but it is often done for want of a coach."
Of this mean and miserable spirit of class and caste, women are the especial victims. They are generally brought up with false notions of life, and are taught to estimate men and things rather by their external appearances than by their intrinsic worth. Their education is conducted mainly with the view of pleasing and attracting the admiration of others, rather than of improving and developing their qualities of mind and heart. They are imbued with notions of exclusiveness, fashion, and gentility. A respectable position in society is held up to them as the mark to be aimed at. To be criminal or vicious is virtually represented to them as far less horrible than to be "vulgar." Immured within the bastile of exclusivism, woman is held captive to all the paltry shifts and expediencies of convention, fashion, gentility, and so forth. The genuine benevolence of her nature is perverted; her heart becomes contracted; and the very highest sources of happiness--those which consist in a kindly sympathy with humanity in all ranks of life--are as a well shut up and a fountain sealed.
Is it not a fact, that in what is called "fashionable society," a fine outside appearance is regarded almost in the light of a virtue?--that to be rich, or to have the appearance of riches, is esteemed as a merit of a high order;--whereas, to be poor, or to seem so, ranks as something like an unpardonable offence? Nay, such is the heartlessness of this class spirit, that a young woman, belonging to the better class, who, by misfortune or family reverses, has been thrown upon her own resources, and who endeavours, by her own honest hands, to earn her honest bread, immediately loses caste, and is virtually expelled from "respectable" society. The resolution to be independent--the most invigorating resolution which can take possession of the human mind--is scouted in such circles as a degrading thing; and those who have been brought up within the influence of fashion, will submit to the most severe privations, rather than submit to the loss of their class and caste respectability!
Thus brought up, it is no wonder that woman has been the co-partner with man in upholding the general extravagance of the age. There never was such a rage for dress and finery amongst English women as there is now. It rivals the corrupt and debauched age of Louis XV. of France. A delirium of fashion exists. Women are ranked by what they wear, not by what they are. Extravagance of dress, and almost indecency of dress, has taken the place of simple womanly beauty. Wordsworth once described the "perfect woman nobly planned." Where will you find the perfect woman now? Not in the parti-coloured, over-dressed creature--the thing of shreds and patches--with false hair, false colour, false eyebrows, false everything. "Some of nature's journeymen have made them, and not made them well, they imitate humanity so abominably."
The evil does not stop with the moneyed classes. It descends to those who have nothing but their salary to live upon. It descends to the wives of clerks and shopmen. They, too, dress for respectability. They live beyond their means. They must live in gimcrack suburban villas, and "give parties." They must see what is going on at the theatres. Every farthing is spent so soon as earned,--sometimes before. The husband does not insure his life, and the wife runs into debt. If the man died to-morrow, he would leave his wife and children paupers. The money he ought to have saved during his life of toil, is spent on "respectability;" and if he leaves a few pounds behind him, they are usually spent in giving the thriftless husband a respectable funeral.
"Is that dress paid for?" asked a husband. "No." "Then you are allowing yourself to be clothed at another man's expense!" No woman is justified in running into debt for a dress, without her husband's knowledge and consent. If she do so, she is clothing herself at the expense of the draper. This is one of the things that worry a man who is trying to keep his head above water; and it is often sufficient to turn his heart against his wife and her extravagances. It is in this way that incomes are muddled away, and that life is rendered the scene of bitterness and discontent. This is especially the case when both husband and wife are alike spendthrifts.
By running into debt yourself, or by your allowing your wife to run into debt, you give another person power over your liberty. You cannot venture to look your creditor in the face. A double knock at the door frightens you: the postman may be delivering a lawyer's letter demanding the amount you owe. You are unable to pay it, and make a sneaking excuse. You invent some pretence for not paying. At length you are driven to downright lying. For "lying rides on debt's back."
What madness it is to run in debt for superfluities! We buy fine articles--finer than we can pay for. We are offered six months'--twelve months' credit! It is the shopkeeper's temptation; and we fall before it. We are too spiritless to live upon our own earnings; but must meanwhile live upon others'. The Romans regarded their servants as their enemies. One might almost regard modern shopkeepers in the same light. By giving credit, by pressing women to buy fine clothes, they place the strongest temptation before them. They inveigle the wives of men who are disposed to be honest into debt, and afterwards send in untruthful bills. They charge heavier prices, and their customers pay them,--sometimes doubly pay them; for it is impossible to keep a proper check upon long-due accounts.
Professor Newman's advice is worthy of being followed. "Heartily do I wish," he says, "that shop debts were pronounced after a certain day irrecoverable at law. The effect would be that no one would be able to ask credit at a shop except where he was well known, and for trifling sums. All prices would sink to the scale of cash prices. The dishonourable system of fashionable debtors, who always pay too late, if at all, and cast their deficiencies on other customers in the form of increased charges, would be at once annihilated. Shopkeepers would be rid of a great deal of care, which ruins the happiness of thousands."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Lectures on Political Economy_, p. 255.]
A perfect knowledge of human nature is in the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." No man and no woman ever resists temptation after it has begun to be temptation. It is in the outworks of the habits that the defence must lie. The woman who hesitates to incur a debt which she ought not to incur, is lost. The clerk or apprentice who gloats over his master's gold, sooner or later appropriates it. He does so when he has got over the habitual feeling which made any approach to it an impossibility. Thus the habits which insinuate themselves into the thousand inconsiderable acts of life, constitute a very large part of man's moral conduct.
This running into debt is a great cause of dishonesty. It does not matter what the debt is, whether it be for bets unsettled, for losses by cards, for milliners' or drapers' bills unpaid. Men who have been well educated, well trained, and put in the way of earning money honestly, are often run away with by extravagances, by keeping up appearances, by betting, by speculation and gambling, and by the society of the dissolute of both sexes.
The writer of this book has had considerable experience of the manner in which young men have been led from the way of well-doing into that of vice and criminality. On one occasion his name was forged by a clerk, to enable him to obtain a sum of money to pay the debts incurred by him at a public-house. The criminal was originally a young man of good education, of reasonable ability, well-connected, and married to a respectable young lady. But all his relatives and friends were forgotten--wife and child and all--in his love for drink and card-playing. He was condemned, and sentenced to several years' imprisonment.
In another case the defaulter was the son of a dissenting minister. He stole some valuable documents, which he converted into money. He escaped, and was tracked. He had given out that he was going to Australia, by Southampton. The Peninsular and Oriental steamer was searched, but no person answering to his description was discovered. Some time passed, when one of the Bank of England notes which he had carried away with him, was returned to the Bank from Dublin. A detective was put upon his track; he was found in the lowest company, brought back to London, tried, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment.
In another case, the criminal occupied a high position in a railway company,--so high that he was promoted from it to be Manager of the Royal Swedish Railway. He was one of the too numerous persons who are engaged in keeping up appearances, irrespective of honesty, morality, or virtue. He got deeply into debt, as most of such people do; and then he became dishonest. He became the associate of professional thieves. He abstracted a key from the office of which he was in charge, and handed it to a well-known thief. This was the key of the strong box in which gold and silver were conveyed by railway from London to Paris. A cast of the key was taken in wax, and it was copied in iron. It was by means of this key that "The Great Gold Robbery" was effected. After some time the thieves were apprehended, and the person who had stolen the key--the keeper-up of appearances, then Manager of the Royal Swedish Railway--was apprehended, convicted, and sentenced by Baron Martin to Transportation for Life.
The Rev. John Davis, the late Chaplain of Newgate, published the following among other accounts of the causes of crime among the convicted young men who came under his notice:--
"I knew a youth, the child of an officer in the navy, who had served his country with distinction, but whose premature death rendered his widow thankful To receive an official appointment for her delicate boy in a Government office. His income from the office was given faithfully to his mother; and it was a pleasure and a pride to him to gladden her heart by the thought that he was helping her. She had other children--two little girls, just rising from the cradle to womanhood. Her scanty pension and his salary made every one happy. But over this youth came a love of dress. He had not strength of mind to see how much more truly beautiful a pure mind is, than a finely decorated exterior. He took pleasure in helping his mother and sisters, but did not take greater pleasure in thinking that to do this kindness to them he must be contented for a time to dress a little worse than his fellow-clerks; his clothes might appear a little worn, but they were like the spot on the dress of a soldier arising from the discharge of duty; they were no marks of undue carelessness; necessity had wrought them; and while they indicated necessity, they marked also the path of honour, and without such spots duty must have been neglected. But this youth did not think of such great thoughts as these. He felt ashamed at his threadbare but clean coat. The smart, new-shining dress of other clerks mortified him.... He wanted to appear finer. In an evil hour he ordered a suit of clothes from a fashionable tailor. His situation and connections procured him a short credit. But tradesmen must be paid, and he was again and again importuned to defray his debt. To relieve himself of his creditor he stole a letter containing a £10 note. His tailor was paid, but the injured party knew the number of the note. It was traced to the tailor, by him to the thief, with the means and opportunity of stealing it, and in a few days he was transported. His handsome dress was exchanged for the dress of a convict. Better by far would it have been for him to have worn his poorer garb, with the marks of honest labour upon it. He formed only another example of the intense folly of love of dress, which, exists quite as much amongst foolish young men as amongst foolish young women."
When Sir Charles Napier left India, he issued an order to the Army, in which he reproved the officers for contracting debts without the prospect of paying them. The Commander-in-Chief found that he was subject to constant complaints against officers for non-payment of debts; and in some cases he found that the ruin of deserving and industrious tradesmen had been consequent on that cause. This growing vice he severely reprimanded, as being derogatory to the character of the gentleman, as a degrading thing, as entitling those who practised it to "group with the infamous, with those who are cheats, and whose society is contamination." He strongly urged them to stick to their duties, to reprobate extravagance and expense of all sorts, and to practise rigid economy; for "to drink unpaid-for champagne and unpaid-for beer, and to ride unpaid-for horses, is to be a cheat and not a gentleman."
The extravagance of these young "gentlemen" in India is, in too many respects, but a counterpart of the extravagance of our young "gentlemen" at home. The revelations of extravagances at Oxford and Cambridge point to the school in which they have learnt their manners. Many worthy parents have been ruined by the sons whom they had sent thither to be made scholars of; but who have learnt only to be "gentlemen" in the popular acceptation of the word. To be a "gentleman" nowadays, is to be a gambler, a horse-racer, a card-player, a dancer, a hunter, a _roué_,--or all combined. The "gentleman" lives fast, spends fast, drinks fast, dies fast. The old style of gentleman has degenerated into a "gent" and a "fast" man. "Gentleman" has become disreputable; and when it is now employed, it oftener signifies an idle spendthrift, than an accomplished, virtuous, laborious man.
Young men are growing quite shameless about being in debt; and the immorality extends throughout society. Tastes are becoming more extravagant and luxurious, without the corresponding increase of means to enable them to be gratified. But they are gratified, nevertheless; and debts are incurred, which afterwards weigh like a millstone round the neck. Extravagant habits, once formed and fostered, are very difficult to give up. The existing recklessness of running into debt without the prospect, often without even the intention, of paying the debt, saps the public morals, and spreads misery throughout the middle and upper classes of society. The tone of morality has sunk, and it will be long before it is fairly recovered again.
In the mean time, those who can, ought to set their faces against all expenditure where there are not sufficient means to justify it. The safest plan is, to run up no bills, and never to get into debt; and the next is, if one does get into debt, to get out of it again as quickly as possible. A man in debt is not his own master: he is at the mercy of the tradesmen he employs. He is the butt of lawyers, the byword of creditors, the scandal of neighbours; he is a slave in his own house; his moral character becomes degraded and defiled; and even his own household and family regard him with pity akin to contempt.
Montaigne said, "I always feel a pleasure in paying my debts, because I discharge my shoulders of a wearisome load and of an image of slavery." Johnson might well call Economy the mother of Liberty. No man can be free who is in debt. The inevitable effect of debt is not only to injure personal independence, but, in the long run, to inflict moral degradation. The debtor is exposed to constant humiliations. Men of honourable principles must be disgusted by borrowing money from persons to whom they cannot pay it back;--disgusted with drinking wine, wearing clothes, and keeping up appearances, with other people's money. The Earl of Dorset, like many other young nobles, became involved in debt, and borrowed money upon his property. He was cured of his prodigality by the impertinence of a city alderman, who haunted his antechamber for the purpose of dunning him for his debt. From that day the Earl determined to economize, to keep entirely out of everybody's debt,--and he kept his word.
Let every man have the fortitude to look his affairs in the face,--to keep an account of his items of income and debts, no matter how long or black the list may be. He must know how he stands from day to day, to be able to look the world fairly in the face. Let him also inform his wife, if he has one, how he stands with the world. If his wife be a prudent woman, she will help him to economize his expenditure, and enable him to live honourably and honestly. No good wife will ever consent to wear clothes and give dinners that belong not to her, but to her shopkeeper.
The knowledge of arithmetic is absolutely necessary to those who would live within their means. Women are especially ignorant of arithmetic; they are scarcely taught the simplest elements, for female teachers think the information useless. They prefer to teach languages, music, deportment, the use of the globes. All these may be important, but the first four rules of arithmetic are better than all. How can they compare their expenditure with their receipts, without the knowledge of addition and subtraction? How can they know precisely what to spend in rent, or clothing, or food, or for service, unless they know the value of figures? How can they check the accounts of their tradesmen or their servants? This want of knowledge of arithmetic is the cause, not only of great waste, but of great misery. Many a family of good position has fallen into destitution merely because of their ignorance of this branch of knowledge.
Young people often rush into marriage without reflection. A young man meets a pretty face in a ball-room, likes it, dances with it, flirts with it, and goes home to dream about it. At length he falls in love with it, courts it, marries it, and then he takes the pretty face home, and begins to know something more about it. All has as yet been "very jolly." The face has hitherto been charming, graceful, artless, and beautiful. It has now to enter upon another sphere of life. It has to be seen much closer; it has to be seen daily; and it has to begin housekeeping.
Most newly married people require some time to settle quietly down together. Even those whose married life has been the happiest, arrive at peace and repose through a period of little struggles and bewilderments. The husband does not all at once find his place, nor the wife hers. One of the very happiest women we know has told us, that the first year of her married life was the most uncomfortable of all. She had so much to learn--was so fearful of doing wrong--and had not yet found her proper position. But, feeling their way, kind and loving natures will have no difficulty in at last settling down comfortably and peacefully together.
It was not so with the supposed young man and his pretty "face." Both entered upon their new life without thinking; or perhaps with exaggerated expectations of its unalloyed happiness. They could not make allowances for lovers subsiding into husband and wife; nor were they prepared for the little ruffles and frettings of individual temper; and both felt disappointed. There was a relaxation of the little attentions which are so novel and charming to lovers. Then the pretty face, when neglected, found relief in tears.
There is nothing of which men tire sooner, especially when the tears are about trifles. Tears do not in such cases cause sympathy, but breed repulsion. They occasion sourness, both on the one side and the other. Tears are dangerous weapons to play with. Were women to try kindness and cheerfulness instead, how infinitely happier would they be. Many are the lives that are made miserable by an indulgence in fretting and carking, until the character is indelibly stamped, and the rational enjoyment of life becomes next to a moral impossibility.
Mental qualities are certainly admirable gifts in domestic life. But though they may dazzle and delight, they will not excite love and affection to anything like the same extent as a warm and happy heart. They do not wear half so well, and do not please half so much. And yet how little pains are taken to cultivate the beautiful quality of good temper and happy disposition! And how often is life, which otherwise might have been blessed, embittered and soured by the encouragement of peevish and fretful habits, so totally destructive of everything like social and domestic comfort! How often have we seen both men and women set themselves round about as if with bristles, so that no one dared to approach them without the fear of being pricked. For want of a little occasional command over one's temper, an amount of misery is occasioned in society which is positively frightful. Thus is enjoyment turned into bitterness, and life becomes like a journey barefooted, amongst prickles, and thorns, and briars.
In the instance we have cited, the pretty face soon became forgotten. But as the young man had merely bargained for the "face"--as it was that to which he had paid his attentions--that which he had vowed to love, honour, and protect.--when it ceased to be pretty, he began to find out that he had made a mistake. And if the home be not made attractive,--if the newly married man finds that it is only an indifferent boarding-house,--he will gradually absent himself from it. He will stay out in the evenings, and console himself with cigars, cards, politics, the theatre, the drinking club; and the poor pretty face will then become more and more disconsolate, hopeless, and miserable.
Perhaps children grow up; but neither husband nor wife know much about training them, or keeping them healthy. They are regarded as toys when babies, dolls when boys and girls, drudges when young men and women. There is scarcely a quiet, happy, hearty hour spent during the life of such a luckless couple. Where there is no comfort at home, there is only a succession of petty miseries to endure. Where there is no cheerfulness,--no disposition to accommodate, to oblige, to sympathize with one another,--affection gradually subsides on both sides.
It is said, that "When poverty comes in at the door, loves flies out at the window." But it is not from poor men's houses only that love flies. It flies quite as often from the homes of the rich, where there is a want of loving and cheerful hearts. This little home might have been snug enough; with no appearance of want about it; rooms well furnished; cleanliness pervading it; the table well supplied; the fire burning bright; and yet without cheerfulness. There wanted the happy faces, radiant with contentment and good humour. Physical comfort, after all, forms but a small part of the blessings of a happy home. As in all other concerns of life, it is the moral state which determines the weal or woe of the human condition.
Most young men think very little of what has to follow courtship and marriage. They think little of the seriousness of the step. They forget that when the pledge has once been given, there is no turning back, The knot cannot be untied. If a thoughtless mistake has been made, the inevitable results will nevertheless follow. The maxim is current, that "marriage is a lottery." It may be so if we abjure the teachings of prudence--if we refuse to examine, inquire, and think--if we are content to choose a husband or a wife, with less reflection than we bestow upon the hiring of a servant, whom we can discharge any day--if we merely regard attractions of face, of form, or of purse, and give way to temporary impulse or to greedy avarice--then, in such cases, marriage does resemble a lottery, in which you _may_ draw a prize, though there are a hundred chances to one that you will only draw a blank.
But we deny that marriage has any necessary resemblance to a lottery. When girls are taught wisely how to love, and what qualities to esteem in a companion for life, instead of being left to gather their stock of information on the subject from the fictitious and generally false personations given to them in novels; and when young men accustom themselves to think of the virtues, graces, and solid acquirements requisite in a wife, with whom they are to spend their days, and on whose temper and good sense the whole happiness of their home is to depend, then it will be found that there is very little of the "lottery " in marriage; and that, like any concern of business or of life, the man or woman who judges and acts wisely, with proper foresight and discrimination, will reap the almost certain consequences in a happy and prosperous future. True, mistakes may be made, and will be made, as in all things human; but nothing like the grievous mistake of those who stake their happiness in the venture of a lottery.
Another great point is, to be able to say No on proper occasions. When enticements allure, or temptations assail, say No at once, resolutely and determinedly. "No; I can't" afford it." Many have not the moral courage to adopt this course. They consider only their selfish gratification. They are unable to practise self-denial. They yield, give way, and "enjoy themselves." The end is often defalcation, fraud, and ruin. What is the verdict of society in such cases? "The man has been living beyond his means." Of those who may have been entertained by him, not one of them will thank him, not one of them will pity him, not one of them will help him.
Every one has heard of the man who couldn't say No. He was everybody's friend but his own. His worst enemy was himself. He ran rapidly through his means, and then called upon his friends for bonds, bails, and "promises to pay." After spending his last guinea, he died in the odour of harmless stupidity and folly.
His course in life seemed to be directed by the maxim of doing for everybody what everybody asked him to do. Whether it was that his heart beat responsive to every other heart, or that he did not like to give offence, could never be ascertained; but certain it is, that he was rarely asked to sign a requisition, to promise a vote, to lend money, or to endorse a bill, that he did not comply. He couldn't say "No;" and there were many who knew him well, who said he had not the moral courage to do so.
His father left him a snug little fortune, and he was at once beset by persons wanting a share of it. Now was the time to say "No," if he could; but he couldn't. His habit of yielding had been formed; he did not like to be bored; could not bear to refuse; could not stand importunity; and almost invariably yielded to the demands made upon his purse. While his money lasted, he had no end of friends. He was a universal referee--everybody's bondsman. "Just sign me this little bit of paper," was a request often made to him by particular friends, "What is it?" he would mildly ask; for, with all his simplicity, he prided himself upon his caution! Yet he never refused. Three months after, a bill for a rather heavy amount would fall due, and who should be called upon to make it good but everybody's friend--the man who couldn't say "No."
At last a maltster, for whom he was bondsman--a person with whom he had only a nodding acquaintance--suddenly came to a stand in his business, ruined by heavy speculations in funds and shares; when the man who couldn't say "No" was called upon to make good the heavy duties due to the Crown. It was a heavy stroke, and made him a poor man. But he never grew wise. He was a post against which every needy fellow came and rubbed himself; a tap, from which every thirsty soul could drink; a flitch, at which every hungry dog had a pull; an ass, on which every needy rogue must have his ride; a mill, that ground everybody's corn but his own; in short, a "good-hearted fellow," who couldn't for the life of him say "No."
It is of great importance to a man's peace and well-being that he should be able to say "No" at the right time. Many are ruined because they cannot or will not say it. Vice often gains a footing within us, because we will not summon up the courage to say "No." We offer ourselves too often as willing sacrifices to the fashion of the world, because we have not the honesty to pronounce the little word. The duellist dares not say "No," for he would be "cut." The beauty hesitates to say it, when a rich blockhead offers her his hand, because she has set her ambition on an "establishment." The courtier will not say it, for he must smile and promise to all.
When pleasure tempts with its seductions, have the courage to say "No" at once. The little monitor within will approve the decision; and virtue will become stronger by the act. When dissipation invites, and offers its secret pleasures, boldly say "No." If you do not, if you acquiesce and succumb, virtue will have gone from you, and your self-reliance will have received a fatal shock. The first time may require an effort; but strength will grow with use. It is the only way of meeting temptations to idleness, to self-indulgence, to folly, to bad custom, to meet it at once with an indignant "No." There is, indeed, great virtue in a "No," when pronounced at the right time.
A man may live beyond his means until he has nothing left. He may die in debt, and yet "society" does not quit its hold of him until he is laid in his grave. He must be buried as "society" is buried. He must have a fashionable funeral. He must, to the last, bear witness to the power of Mrs. Grundy. It is to please her, that the funeral cloaks, hatbands, scarves, mourning coaches, gilded hearses, and processions of mutes are hired. And yet, how worthless and extravagant is the mummery of the undertaker's grief; and the feigned woe of the mutes, saulies, and plume bearers, who are paid for their day's parade!
It is not so much among the wealthy upper classes that the mischiefs of this useless and expensive mummery are felt, as amongst the middle and working classes. An expensive funeral is held to be "respectable." Middle-class people, who are struggling for front places in society, make an effort to rise into the region of mutes and nodding plumes; and, like their "betters," they are victimised by the undertakers. These fix the fashion for the rest; "we must do as Others do;" and most people submit to pay the tax. They array themselves, friends, and servants, in mourning; and a respectable funeral is thus purchased.
The expenditure falls heavily upon a family, at a time when they are the least able to bear it. The bread-winner has been taken away, and everything is left to the undertaker. How is a wretched widow in the midst of her agony, or how are orphan children, deprived of the protecting hand of a parent, to higgle with a tradesman about the cheapening of mourning suits, black gloves, weepers, and the other miserable "trappings of woe"? It is at such a moment, when in thousands of cases every pound and every shilling is of consequence to the survivors, that the little ready money they can scrape together is lavished, without question, upon a vulgar and extravagant piece of pageantry. Would not the means which have been thus foolishly expended in paying an empty honour to the dead, be much better applied in being used for the comfort and maintenance of the living?
The same evil propagates itself downwards in society. The working classes suffer equally with the middle classes, in proportion to their means. The average cost of a tradesman's funeral in England is about fifty pounds; of a mechanic, or labourer, it ranges from five pounds to ten pounds. In Scotland funeral expenses are considerably lower. The desire to secure respectable interment for departed relatives, is a strong and widely-diffused feeling among the labouring population; and it does them honour. They will subscribe for this purpose, when they will for no other. The largest of the working-men's clubs are burial clubs. Ten pounds are usually allowed for the funeral of a husband, and five pounds for the funeral of a wife. As much as fifteen, twenty, thirty, and even forty pounds, are occasionally expended on a mechanic's funeral, in cases where the deceased has been a member of several clubs, on which occasions the undertakers meet and "settle" between them their several shares in the performance of the funeral. It is not unusual to insure a child's life in four or five of these burial clubs; and we have heard of a case where one man had insured payments in no fewer than nineteen different burial clubs in Manchester!
When the working-man, in whose family a death has occurred, does not happen to be a member of a burial club, he is still governed by their example, and has to tax himself seriously to comply with the usages of society, and give to his wife or child a respectable funeral. Where it is the father of the family himself who has died, the case is still harder. Perhaps all the savings of his life are spent in providing mourning for his wife and children at his death. Such an expense, at such a time, is ruinous, and altogether unjustifiable.
Does putting on garments of a certain colour constitute true mourning? Is it not the heart and the affections that mourn, rather than the outside raiment? Bingham, in speaking of the primitive Christians, says that "they did not condemn the notion of going into a mourning habit for the dead, nor yet much approve of it, but left it to all men's liberty as an indifferent thing, rather commending those that either omitted it wholly, or in short laid it aside again, as acting more according to the bravery and philosophy of a Christian."
John Wesley directed, in his will, that six poor men should have twenty shillings each for carrying his body to the grave,--"For," said he, "I particularly desire that there may be no hearse, no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp, except the tears of those that loved me, and are following me to Abraham's bosom. I solemnly adjure my executors, in the name of God, punctually to observe this."
It will be very difficult to alter the mourning customs of our time. We may anxiously desire to do so, but the usual question will occur--"What will people say?" "What will the world say?" We involuntarily shrink back, and play the coward like our neighbours. Still, common sense, repeatedly expressed, will have its influence; and, in course of time, it cannot fail to modify the fashions of society The last act of Queen Adelaide, by which she dispensed with the hired mummery of undertakers' grief,--and the equally characteristic request of Sir Robert Peel on his deathbed, that no ceremony, nor pomp, should attend his last obsequies,--cannot fail to have their due effect upon the fashionable world; and through them, the middle classes, who are so disposed to imitate them in all things, will in course of time benefit by their example. There is also, we believe, a growing disposition on the part of the people at large to avoid the unmeaning displays we refer to; and it only needs the repeated and decided expression of public opinion, to secure a large measure of beneficial reform in this direction.
Societies have already been established in the United States, the members of which undertake to disuse mourning themselves, and to discountenance the use of it by others. It is only, perhaps, by association and the power of numbers that this reform is to be accomplished; for individuals here and there could scarcely be expected to make way against the deeply-rooted prejudices of the community at large.