Thrift Part 19

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 p.r.i.c.ked. 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 p.r.i.c.kles, 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 courts.h.i.+p 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 fict.i.tious 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 a.s.sail, 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 a.s.s, 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 fas.h.i.+on of the world, because we have not the honesty to p.r.o.nounce 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 succ.u.mb, 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 hea.r.s.es, 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 cla.s.ses that the mischiefs of this useless and expensive mummery are felt, as amongst the middle and working cla.s.ses. An expensive funeral is held to be "respectable."

Middle-cla.s.s 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 s.h.i.+lling is of consequence to the survivors, that the little ready money they can sc.r.a.pe 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 cla.s.ses suffer equally with the middle cla.s.ses, 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 const.i.tute 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 s.h.i.+llings each for carrying his body to the grave,--"For," said he, "I particularly desire that there may be no hea.r.s.e, 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 G.o.d, 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 fas.h.i.+ons 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 fas.h.i.+onable world; and through them, the middle cla.s.ses, 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 a.s.sociation 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.

CHAPTER XIII.

GREAT DEBTORS.

"What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors? You are going to Boulogne, the city of debts, peopled by men who never understood arithmetic."--_Sydney Smith._

"Quand on doit et qu'on ne paye pas, c'est comme si on ne devait pas."--_Araene Houssaye._

"Of what a hideous progeny is debt the father! What lies, what meanness, what invasions on self-respect, what cares, what double-dealing! How in due season it will carve the frank, open face into wrinkles: how like a knife, it will stab the houeat heart."--_Douglas Jerrold_.

"The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, _the men who borrow and the men who lend_. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those impertinent cla.s.sifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men, and such-like."--_Charles Lamb_.

People do not know what troubles they are brewing for themselves when they run into debt. It does not matter for what the debt is incurred. It hangs like a millstone round a man's neck until he is relieved of it. It presses like a nightmare upon him. It hinders the well-being of his family. It destroys the happiness of his household.

Even those who are in the regular receipt of large incomes, feel crippled, often for years, by the incubus of debt. Weighed down by this, what can a man do to save--to economise with a view to the future of his wife and children? A man in debt is disabled from insuring his life, from insuring his house and goods, from putting money in the bank, from buying a house or a freehold. All his surplus gains must go towards the payment of his debt.

Even men of enormous property, great lords with vast landed estates, often feel themselves oppressed and made miserable by loads of debt.

They or their forefathers having contracted extravagant habits--a taste for gambling, horseracing, or expensive living,--borrow money on their estates, and the burden of debt remains. Not, perhaps, in the case of strictly entailed estates--for the aristocracy have contrived so that their debts shall be wiped out at their death, and they can thus gratify their spendthrift tastes at the expense of the public--the estates going comparatively unburdened to the entailed heir. But comparatively few are in the position of the privileged cla.s.ses. In the case of the majority, the debts are inherited with the estates, and often the debts are more than the estates are worth. Thus it happens that a large part of the lands of England are at this moment the property of mortgagees and money-lenders.

The greatest men have been in debt. It has even been alleged that greatness and debt have a certain relation to each other. Great men have great debts; they are trusted. So have great nations; they are respectable, and have credit. Spiritless men have no debts, neither have spiritless nations; n.o.body will trust them. Men as well as nations in debt secure a widely extended interest. Their names are written in many books; and many are the conjectures formed as to whether they will pay--or not. The man who has no debts slips through the world comparatively unnoticed; while he who is in everybody's books has all eyes fixed upon him. His health is enquired after with interest; and if he goes into foreign countries, his return is anxiously looked for.

The creditor is usually depicted as a severe man, with a hard visage; while the debtor is an open-handed generous man, ready to help and entertain everybody. He is the object of general sympathy. When Goldsmith was dunned for his milk-score and arrested for the rent of his apartments, who would think of pitying the milk-woman or the landlady?

It is the man in debt who is the prominent feature of the piece, and all our sympathy is reserved for him. "What were you," asked Pantagruel of Panurge, "without your debts? G.o.d preserve me from ever being without them! Do you think there is anything divine in lending or in crediting others? No! To owe is the true heroic virtue!"

Yet, whatever may be said in praise of Debt, it has unquestionably a very seedy side. The man in debt is driven to resort to many sorry expedients to live. He is the victim of duns and sheriff's officers. Few can treat them with the indifference that Sheridan did, who put them into livery to wait upon his guests. The debtor starts and grows pale at every knock at his door. His friends grow cool, and his relatives shun him. He is ashamed to go abroad, and has no comfort at home. He becomes crabbed, morose, and querulous, losing all pleasure in life. He wants the pa.s.sport to enjoyment and respect--money; he has only his debts, and these make him suspected, despised, and snubbed. He lives in the slough of despond. He feels degraded in others' eyes as well as in his own. He must submit to impertinent demands, which he can only put off by sham excuses. He has ceased to be his own master, and has lost the independent bearing of a man. He seeks to excite pity, and pleads for time. A sharp attorney pounces on him, and suddenly he feels himself in the vulture's gripe. He tries a friend or a relative, but all that he obtains is a civil leer, and a cool repulse. He tries a money-lender; and, if he succeeds, he is only out of the frying-pan into the fire. It is easy to see what the end will be,--a life of mean s.h.i.+fts and expedients, perhaps ending in the gaol or the workhouse.

Can a man keep out of debt? Is there a possibility of avoiding the moral degradation which accompanies it? Could not debt be dispensed with altogether, and man's independence preserved secure? There is only one way of doing this; by "living within the means." Unhappily, this is too little the practice in modern times. We incur debt, trusting to the future for the opportunity of defraying it. We cannot resist the temptation to spend money. One will have fine furniture and live in a high-rented house; another will have wines and a box at the opera; a third must give dinners and music-parties:--all good things in their way, but not to be indulged in if they cannot be paid for. Is it not a shabby thing to pretend to give dinners, if the real parties who provide them are the butcher, the poulterer, and the wine-merchant, whom you are in debt to, and cannot pay?

A man has no business to live in a style which his income cannot support, or to mortgage his earnings of next week or of next year, in order to live luxuriously to-day. The whole system of Debt, by means of which we forestall and antic.i.p.ate the future, is wrong. They are almost as much to blame who give credit, and encourage customers to take credit, as those are who incur debts. A man knows what his actual position is, if he pays his way as he goes. He can keep within his means, and so apportion his expenditure as to reserve a fund of savings against a time of need. He is always balanced up; and if he buys nothing but what he pays for in cash, he cannot fail to be on the credit side of his household accounts at the year's end.

But once let him commence the practice of running up bills--one at the tailor's, another at the dressmaker's and milliner's, another at the butcher's, another at the grocer's, and so on,--and he never knows how he stands. He is deceived into debt; the road is made smooth and pleasant for him; things flow into the house, for which he does not seem to pay. But they are all set down against him; and at the year's end, when the bills come in, he is ready to lift up his hands in dismay. Then he finds that the sweet of the honey will not repay for the smart of the sting.

It is the same as respects the poorer cla.s.ses. Not many years since, Parliament pa.s.sed a law facilitating the establishment of Small Loan Societies, for the purpose of helping small tradesmen and poor people generally to raise money on an emergency. The law was at once pounced upon by the numerous race of Grab.a.l.l.s, as a means of putting money in their purse. They gave the working cla.s.ses facilities for running into debt, and for mortgaging their future industry. A few men, desirous of making money, would form themselves into a Loan Club, and offer sums of money ostensibly at five per cent, interest, repayable in weekly instalments. The labouring people eagerly availed themselves of the facility for getting into debt. One wanted money for a "spree," another wanted money for a suit of clothes, a third for an eight-day clock, and so on; and instead of saving the money beforehand, they preferred getting the money from the Club, keeping themselves in difficulties and poverty until the debt was paid off. Such a practice is worse than living from hand to mouth: it is living upon one's own vitals.