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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Advice to Young Men, by William Cobbett
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Advice to Young Men
+       And (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life. In a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Youth, a Bachelor, a Lover, a Husband, a Father, a Citizen, or a Subject.
+
+
+Author: William Cobbett
+
+Release Date: March 30, 2005  [eBook #15510]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, William Avery, and the Project
+Gutenber Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+COBBETT'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN
+
+And (Incidentally) to Young Women, in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life.
+In a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Youth, a Bachelor, a Lover,
+a Husband, a Father, a Citizen, or a Subject.
+
+by
+
+WILLIAM COBBETT
+
+(From the Edition of 1829)
+London
+Henry Frowde
+1906
+Oxford: Horace Hart
+Printer to the University
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+1. It is the duty, and ought to be the pleasure, of age and experience
+to warn and instruct youth and to come to the aid of inexperience. When
+sailors have discovered rocks or breakers, and have had the good luck to
+escape with life from amidst them, they, unless they be pirates or
+barbarians as well as sailors, point out the spots for the placing of
+buoys and of lights, in order that others may not be exposed to the
+danger which they have so narrowly escaped. What man of common humanity,
+having, by good luck, missed being engulfed in a quagmire or quicksand,
+will withhold from his neighbours a knowledge of the peril without which
+the dangerous spots are not to be approached?
+
+2. The great effect which correct opinions and sound principles, imbibed
+in early life, together with the good conduct, at that age, which must
+naturally result from such opinions and principles; the great effect
+which these have on the whole course of our lives is, and must be, well
+known to every man of common observation. How many of us, arrived at
+only forty years, have to repent; nay, which of us has not to repent, or
+has not had to repent, that he did not, at an earlier age, possess a
+great stock of knowledge of that kind which has an immediate effect on
+our personal ease and happiness; that kind of knowledge, upon which the
+cheerfulness and the harmony of our homes depend!
+
+3. It is to communicate a stock of this sort of knowledge, in
+particular, that this work is intended; knowledge, indeed, relative to
+education, to many sciences, to trade, agriculture, horticulture, law,
+government, and religion; knowledge relating, incidentally, to all
+these; but, the main object is to furnish that sort of knowledge to the
+young which but few men acquire until they be old, when it comes too
+late to be useful.
+
+4. To communicate to others the knowledge that I possess has always been
+my taste and my delight; and few, who know anything of my progress
+through life, will be disposed to question my fitness for the task. Talk
+of rocks and breakers and quagmires and quicksands, who has ever escaped
+from amidst so many as I have! Thrown (by my own will, indeed) on the
+wide world at a very early age, not more than eleven or twelve years,
+without money to support, without friends to advise, and without
+book-learning to assist me; passing a few years dependent solely on my
+own labour for my subsistence; then becoming a common soldier and
+leading a military life, chiefly in foreign parts, for eight years;
+quitting that life after really, for me, high promotion, and with, for
+me, a large sum of money; marrying at an early age, going at once to
+France to acquire the French language, thence to America; passing eight
+years there, becoming bookseller and author, and taking a prominent part
+in all the important discussions of the interesting period from 1793 to
+1799, during which there was, in that country, a continued struggle
+carried on between the English and the French parties; conducting
+myself, in the ever-active part which I took in that struggle, in such a
+way as to call forth marks of unequivocal approbation from the
+government at home; returning to England in 1800, resuming my labours
+here, suffering, during these twenty-nine years, two years of
+imprisonment, heavy fines, three years self-banishment to the other side
+of the Atlantic, and a total breaking of fortune, so as to be left
+without a bed to lie on, and, during these twenty-nine years of troubles
+and of punishments, writing and publishing, every week of my life,
+whether in exile or not, eleven weeks only excepted, a periodical paper,
+containing more or less of matter worthy of public attention; writing
+and publishing, during _the same twenty-nine years_, a grammar of the
+French and another of the English language, a work on the Economy of the
+Cottage, a work on Forest Trees and Woodlands, a work on Gardening, an
+account of America, a book of Sermons, a work on the Corn-plant, a
+History of the Protestant Reformation; all books of great and continued
+sale, and the _last_ unquestionably the book of greatest circulation in
+the whole world, the Bible only excepted; having, during _these same
+twenty-nine years_ of troubles and embarrassments without number,
+introduced into England the manufacture of Straw-plat; also several
+valuable trees; having introduced, during _the same twenty-nine years_,
+the cultivation of the Corn-plant, so manifestly valuable as a source of
+food; having, during the same period, always (whether in exile or not)
+sustained a shop of some size, in London; having, during the whole of
+the same period, never employed less, on an average, than ten persons,
+in some capacity or other, exclusive of printers, bookbinders, and
+others, connected with papers and books; and having, during these
+twenty-nine years of troubles, embarrassments, prisons, fines, and
+banishments, bred up a family of seven children to man's and woman's
+state.
+
+5. If such a man be not, after he has survived and accomplished all
+this, qualified to give Advice to Young Men, no man is qualified for
+that task. There may have been natural _genius_: but genius _alone_, not
+all the genius in the world, could, without _something more_, have
+conducted me through these perils. During these twenty-nine years, I
+have had for deadly and ever-watchful foes, a government that has the
+collecting and distributing of sixty millions of pounds in a year, and
+also every soul who shares in that distribution. Until very lately, I
+have had, for the far greater part of the time, the whole of the press
+as my deadly enemy. Yet, at this moment, it will not be pretended, that
+there is another man in the kingdom, who has so many cordial friends.
+For as to the _friends_ of _ministers_ and the _great_, the friendship
+is towards the _power_, the _influence_; it is, in fact, towards _those
+taxes_, of which so many thousands are gaping to get at a share. And, if
+we could, through so thick a veil, come at the naked fact, we should
+find the subscription, now going on in Dublin for the purpose of
+erecting a monument in that city, to commemorate the good recently done,
+or alleged to be done, to Ireland, by the DUKE of WELLINGTON; we should
+find, that the subscribers have _the taxes_ in view; and that, if the
+monument shall actually be raised, it ought to have _selfishness_, and
+not _gratitude_, engraven on its base. Nearly the same may be said with
+regard to all the praises that we hear bestowed on men in power. The
+friendship which is felt towards me is pure and disinterested: it is not
+founded in any hope that the parties can have, that they can ever
+_profit_ from professing it: it is founded on the gratitude which they
+entertain for the good that I _have done_ them; and, of this sort of
+friendship, and friendship so cordial, no man ever possessed a larger
+portion.
+
+6. Now, mere _genius_ will not acquire this for a man. There must be
+something more than _genius_: there must be industry: there must be
+perseverance: there must be, before the eyes of the nation, proofs of
+extraordinary exertion: people must say to themselves, 'What wise
+conduct must there have been in the employing of the time of this man!
+How sober, how sparing in diet, how early a riser, how little expensive
+he must have been!' These are the things, and _not genius_, which have
+caused my labours to be so incessant and so successful: and, though I do
+not affect to believe, that _every young man_, who shall read this work,
+will become able to perform labours of equal magnitude and importance, I
+do pretend, that _every_ young man, who will attend to my advice, will
+become able to perform a great deal more than men generally do perform,
+whatever may be his situation in life; and, that he will, too, perform
+it with greater ease and satisfaction than he would, without the advice,
+be able to perform the smaller portion.
+
+7. I have had, from thousands of young men, and men advanced in years
+also, letters of thanks for the great benefit which they have derived
+from my labours. Some have thanked me for my Grammars, some for my
+Cottage Economy, others for the Woodlands and the Gardener; and, in
+short, for every one of my works have I received letters of thanks from
+numerous persons, of whom I had never heard before. In many cases I have
+been told, that, if the parties had had my books to read some years
+before, the gain to them, whether in time or in other things, would have
+been very great. Many, and a great many, have told me, that, though long
+at school, and though their parents had paid for their being taught
+English Grammar, or French, they had, in a short time, learned more from
+my books, on those subjects, than they had learned, in years, from their
+teachers. How many gentlemen have thanked me, in the strongest terms,
+for my Woodlands and Gardener, observing (just as Lord Bacon had
+observed in his time) that they had before seen no books, on these
+subjects, that they could _understand_! But, I know not of anything that
+ever gave me more satisfaction than I derived from the visit of a
+gentleman of fortune, whom I had never heard of before, and who, about
+four years ago, came to thank me in person for a complete reformation,
+which had been worked in his son by the reading of my two SERMONS on
+_drinking_ and on _gaming_.
+
+8. I have, therefore, done, already, a great deal in this way: but,
+there is still wanting, in a compact form, a body of ADVICE such as that
+which I now propose to give: and in the giving of which I shall divide
+my matter as follows. 1. Advice addressed to a YOUTH; 2. Advice
+addressed to a BACHELOR; 3. Advice addressed to a LOVER; 4. To a
+HUSBAND; 5. To a FATHER; 6. To a CITIZEN or SUBJECT.
+
+9. Some persons will smile, and others laugh outright, at the idea of
+'Cobbett's giving advice for conducting the affairs of _love_.' Yes, but
+I was once young, and surely I may say with the poet, I forget which of
+them,
+
+  'Though old I am, for ladies' love unfit,
+  The power of beauty I remember yet.'
+
+I forget, indeed, the _names_ of the ladies as completely, pretty nigh,
+as I do that of the poets; but I remember their influence, and of this
+influence on the conduct and in the affairs and on the condition of men,
+I have, and must have, been a witness all my life long. And, when we
+consider in how great a degree the happiness of all the remainder of a
+man's life depends, and always must depend, on his taste and judgment in
+the character of a lover, this may well be considered as the most
+important period of the whole term of his existence.
+
+10. In my address to the HUSBAND, I shall, of course, introduce advice
+relative to the important duties of _masters_ and _servants_; duties of
+great importance, whether considered as affecting families or as
+affecting the community. In my address to the CITIZEN or SUBJECT, I
+shall consider all the reciprocal duties of the governors and the
+governed, and also the duties which man owes to his neighbour. It would
+be tedious to attempt to lay down rules for conduct exclusively
+applicable to every distinct calling, profession, and condition of life;
+but, under the above-described heads, will be conveyed every species of
+advice of which I deem the utility to be unquestionable.
+
+11. I have thus fully described the nature of my little work, and,
+before I enter on the first Letter, I venture to express a hope, that
+its good effects will be felt long after its author shall have ceased to
+exist.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I
+
+TO A YOUTH
+
+12. You are now arrived at that age which the law thinks sufficient to
+make an oath, taken by you, valid in a court of law. Let us suppose from
+fourteen to nearly twenty; and, reserving, for a future occasion, my
+remarks on your duty towards parents, let me here offer you my advice as
+to the means likely to contribute largely towards making you a happy
+man, useful to all about you, and an honour to those from whom you
+sprang.
+
+13. Start, I beseech you, with a conviction firmly fixed on your mind,
+that you have no right to live in this world; that, being of hale body
+and sound mind, you have _no right_ to any earthly existence, without
+doing _work_ of some sort or other, unless you have ample fortune
+whereon to live clear of debt; and, that even in that case, you have no
+right to breed children, to be kept by others, or to be exposed to the
+chance of being so kept. Start with this conviction thoroughly implanted
+on your mind. To wish to live on the labour of others is, besides the
+folly of it, to contemplate a _fraud_ at the least, and, under certain
+circumstances, to meditate oppression and robbery.
+
+14. I suppose you in the middle rank of life. Happiness ought to be your
+great object, and it is to be found only in _independence_. Turn your
+back on Whitehall and on Somerset-House; leave the Customs and Excise to
+the feeble and low-minded; look not for success to favour, to
+partiality, to friendship, or to what is called _interest_: write it on
+your heart, that you will depend solely on your own merit and your own
+exertions. Think not, neither, of any of those situations where gaudy
+habiliments and sounding titles poorly disguise from the eyes of good
+sense the mortifications and the heart-ache of slaves. Answer me not by
+saying, that these situations '_must be_ filled by _somebody_;' for, if
+I were to admit the truth of the proposition, which I do not, it would
+remain for you to show that they are conducive to happiness, the
+contrary of which has been proved to me by the observation of a now
+pretty long life.
+
+15. Indeed, reason tells us, that it must be thus: for that which a man
+owes to favour or to partiality, that same favour or partiality is
+constantly liable to take from him. He who lives upon anything except
+his own labour, is incessantly surrounded by rivals: his grand resource
+is that servility in which he is always liable to be surpassed. He is in
+daily danger of being out-bidden; his very bread depends upon caprice;
+and he lives in a state of uncertainty and never-ceasing fear. His is
+not, indeed, the dog's life, '_hunger_ and idleness;' but it is worse;
+for it is 'idleness with _slavery_,' the latter being the just price of
+the former. Slaves frequently are well _fed_ and well _clad_; but slaves
+dare not _speak_; they dare not be suspected to _think_ differently from
+their masters: hate his acts as much as they may; be he tyrant, be he
+drunkard, be he fool, or be he all three at once, they must be silent,
+or, nine times out of ten, affect approbation: though possessing a
+thousand times his knowledge, they must feign a conviction of his
+superior understanding; though knowing that it is they who, in fact, do
+all that he is paid for doing, it is destruction to them to _seem as if
+they thought_ any portion of the service belonged to them! Far from me
+be the thought, that any youth who shall read this page would not rather
+perish than submit to live in a state like this! Such a state is fit
+only for the refuse of nature; the halt, the half-blind, the unhappy
+creatures whom nature has marked out for degradation.
+
+16. And how comes it, then, that we see hale and even clever youths
+voluntarily bending their necks to this slavery; nay, pressing forward
+in eager rivalship to assume the yoke that ought to be insupportable?
+The cause, and the only cause, is, that the deleterious fashion of the
+day has created so many artificial wants, and has raised the minds of
+young men so much above their real rank and state of life, that they
+look scornfully on the employment, the fare, and the dress, that would
+become them; and, in order to avoid that state in which they might live
+_free_ and _happy_, they become _showy slaves_.
+
+17. The great source of independence, the French express in a precept of
+three words, '_Vivre de peu_,' which I have always very much admired.
+'_To live upon little_' is the great security against slavery; and this
+precept extends to dress and other things besides food and drink. When
+DOCTOR JOHNSON wrote his Dictionary, he put in the word pensioner thus:
+'PENSIONER--_A slave of state_.' After this he himself became a
+_pensioner_! And thus, agreeably to his own definition, he lived and
+died '_a slave of state_!' What must this man of great genius, and of
+great industry too, have felt at receiving this pension! Could he be so
+callous as not to feel a pang upon seeing his own name placed before his
+own degrading definition? And what could induce him to submit to this?
+His wants, his artificial wants, his habit of indulging in the pleasures
+of the table; his disregard of the precept '_Vivre de peu_.' This was
+the cause; and, be it observed, that indulgences of this sort, while
+they tend to make men poor and expose them to commit mean acts, tend
+also to enfeeble the body, and more especially to cloud and to weaken
+the mind.
+
+18. When this celebrated author wrote his Dictionary, he had not been
+debased by luxurious enjoyments; the rich and powerful had not caressed
+him into a slave; his writings then bore the stamp of truth and
+independence: but, having been debased by luxury, he who had, while
+content with plain fare, been the strenuous advocate of the rights of
+the people, became a strenuous advocate for _taxation without
+representation_; and, in a work under the title of '_Taxation no
+Tyranny_,' defended, and greatly assisted to produce, that unjust and
+bloody war which finally severed from England that great country the
+United states of America, now the most powerful and dangerous rival that
+this kingdom ever had. The statue of Dr. JOHNSON was the first that was
+put into St. PAUL'S CHURCH! A signal warning to us not to look upon
+monuments in honour of the dead as a proof of their virtues; for here we
+see St. PAUL'S CHURCH holding up to the veneration of posterity a man
+whose own writings, together with the records of the pension list, prove
+him to have been '_a slave of state_.'
+
+19. Endless are the instances of men of bright parts and high spirit
+having been, by degrees, rendered powerless and despicable, by their
+imaginary wants. Seldom has there been a man with a fairer prospect of
+accomplishing great things and of acquiring lasting renown, than CHARLES
+FOX: he had great talents of the most popular sort; the times were
+singularly favourable to an exertion of them with success; a large part
+of the nation admired him and were his partisans; he had, as to the
+great question between him and his rival (PITT), reason and justice
+clearly on his side: but he had against him his squandering and
+luxurious habits: these made him dependent on the rich part of his
+partisans; made his wisdom subservient to opulent folly or selfishness;
+deprived his country of all the benefit that it might have derived from
+his talents; and, finally, sent him to the grave without a single sigh
+from a people, a great part of whom would, in his earlier years, have
+wept at his death as at a national calamity.
+
+20. Extravagance in _dress_, in the haunting of _play-houses_, in
+_horses_, in everything else, is to be avoided, and, in youths and young
+men, extravagance in _dress_ particularly. This sort of extravagance,
+this waste of money on the decoration of the body, arises solely from
+vanity, and from vanity of the most contemptible sort. It arises from
+the notion, that all the people in the street, for instance, will be
+_looking at you_ as soon as you walk out; and that they will, in a
+greater or less degree, think the better of you on account of your fine
+dress. Never was notion more false. All the sensible people that happen
+to see you, will think nothing at all about you: those who are filled
+with the same vain notion as you are, will perceive your attempt to
+impose on them, and will despise you accordingly: rich people will
+wholly disregard you, and you will be envied and hated by those who have
+the same vanity that you have without the means of gratifying it. Dress
+should be suited to your rank and station; a surgeon or physician should
+not dress like a carpenter! but there is no reason why a tradesman, a
+merchant's clerk, or clerk of any kind, or why a shopkeeper or
+manufacturer, or even a merchant; no reason at all why any of these
+should dress in an _expensive_ manner. It is a great mistake to suppose,
+that they derive any advantage from exterior decoration. Men are
+estimated by other _men_ according to their capacity and willingness to
+be in some way or other _useful_; and though, with the foolish and vain
+part of _women_, fine clothes frequently do something, yet the greater
+part of the sex are much too penetrating to draw their conclusions
+solely from the outside show of a man: they look deeper, and find other
+criterions whereby to judge. And, after all, if the fine clothes obtain
+you a wife, will they bring you, in that wife, _frugality, good sense_,
+and that sort of attachment that is likely to be lasting? Natural beauty
+of person is quite another thing: this always has, it always will and
+must have, some weight even with men, and great weight with women. But
+this does not want to be set off by expensive clothes. Female eyes are,
+in such cases, very sharp: they can discover beauty though half hidden
+by beard and even by dirt and surrounded by rags: and, take this as a
+secret worth half a fortune to you, that women, however personally vain
+they may be themselves, _despise personal vanity in men_.
+
+21. Let your dress be as cheap as may be without _shabbiness_; think
+more about the colour of your shirt than about the gloss or texture of
+your coat; be always as _clean_ as your occupation will, without
+inconvenience, permit; but never, no, not for one moment, believe, that
+any human being, with sense in his skull, will love or respect you on
+account of your fine or costly clothes. A great misfortune of the
+present day is, that every one is, in his own estimate, _raised above
+his real state of life_: every one seems to think himself entitled, if
+not to title and great estate, at least _to live without work_. This
+mischievous, this most destructive, way of thinking has, indeed, been
+produced, like almost all our other evils, by the Acts of our Septennial
+and Unreformed Parliament. That body, by its Acts, has caused an
+enormous Debt to be created, and, in consequence, a prodigious sum to be
+raised annually in taxes. It has caused, by these means, a race of
+loan-mongers and stock-jobbers to arise. These carry on a species of
+_gaming_, by which some make fortunes in a day, and others, in a day,
+become beggars. The unfortunate gamesters, like the purchasers of blanks
+in a lottery, are never heard of; but the fortunate ones become
+companions for lords, and some of them lords themselves. We have, within
+these few years, seen many of these gamesters get fortunes of a quarter
+of a million in a few days, and then we have heard them, though
+notoriously amongst the lowest and basest of human creatures, called
+'_honourable gentlemen_'! In such a state of things, who is to expect
+patient industry, laborious study, frugality and care; who, in such a
+state of things, is to expect these to be employed in pursuit of that
+competence which it is the laudable wish of all men to secure? Not long
+ago a man, who had served his time to a tradesman in London, became,
+instead of pursuing his trade, a stock-jobber, or gambler; and, in about
+_two years_, drove his _coach-and-four_, had his town house and country
+house, and visited, and was visited by, _peers of the highest rank_! A
+_fellow-apprentice_ of this lucky gambler, though a tradesman in
+excellent business, seeing no earthly reason why _he_ should not have
+his coach-and-four also, turned his stock in trade into a stake for the
+'Change; but, alas! at the end of a few months, instead of being in a
+coach-and-four, he was in the _Gazette_!
+
+22. This is one instance out of hundreds of thousands; not, indeed,
+exactly of the same description, but all arising from the same copious
+source. The words _speculate_ and _speculation_ have been substituted
+for _gamble_ and _gambling_. The hatefulness of the pursuit is thus
+taken away; and, while taxes to the amount of more than double the whole
+of the rental of the kingdom; while these cause such crowds of idlers,
+every one of whom calls himself a _gentleman_, and avoids the appearance
+of working for his bread; while this is the case, who is to wonder, that
+a great part of the youth of the country, knowing themselves to be as
+_good_, as _learned_, and as _well-bred_ as these _gentlemen_; who is to
+wonder, that they think, that they also ought to be considered as
+_gentlemen_? Then, the late _war_ (also the work of the Septennial
+Parliament) has left us, amongst its many legacies, such swarms of
+_titled_ men and women; such swarms of '_Sirs_' and their '_Ladies_';
+men and women who, only the other day, were the fellow-apprentices,
+fellow-tradesmen's or farmers' sons and daughters, or indeed, the
+fellow-servants, of those who are now in these several states of life;
+the late Septennial Parliament war has left us such swarms of these,
+that it is no wonder that the heads of young people are turned, and that
+they are ashamed of that state of life to act their part well in which
+ought to be their delight.
+
+23. But, though the cause of the evil is in Acts of the Septennial
+Parliament; though this universal desire in people to be thought to be
+above their station; though this arises from such acts; and, though it
+is no wonder that young men are thus turned from patient study and
+labour; though these things be undoubted, they form no reason why I
+should not _warn you_ against becoming a victim to this national
+scourge. For, in spite of every art made use of to avoid labour, the
+taxes will, after all, maintain only _so many_ idlers. We cannot all be
+'_knights_' and '_gentlemen_': there must be a large part of us, after
+all, to make and mend clothes and houses, and carry on trade and
+commerce, and, in spite of all that we can do, the far greater part of
+us must actually _work_ at something; for, unless we can get at some of
+the taxes, we fall under the sentence of Holy Writ, 'He who will not
+_work_ shall not _eat_.' Yet, so strong is the propensity to be thought
+'_gentlemen_'; so general is this desire amongst the youth of this
+formerly laborious and unassuming nation; a nation famed for its pursuit
+of wealth through the channels of patience, punctuality, and integrity;
+a nation famed for its love of solid acquisitions and qualities, and its
+hatred of everything showy and false: so general is this really
+fraudulent desire amongst the youth of this now '_speculating_' nation,
+that thousands upon thousands of them are, at this moment, in a state of
+half starvation, not so much because they are too _lazy_ to earn their
+bread, as because they are too _proud_! And what are the _consequences_?
+Such a youth remains or becomes a burden to his parents, of whom he
+ought to be the comfort, if not the support. Always aspiring to
+something higher than he can reach, his life is a life of disappointment
+and of shame. If marriage _befal_ him, it is a real affliction,
+involving others as well as himself. His lot is a thousand times worse
+than that of the common labouring pauper. Nineteen times out of twenty a
+premature death awaits him: and, alas! how numerous are the cases in
+which that death is most miserable, not to say ignominious! _Stupid
+pride_ is one of the symptoms of _madness_. Of the two madmen mentioned
+in Don Quixote, one thought himself NEPTUNE, and the other JUPITER.
+Shakspeare agrees with CERVANTES; for, Mad Tom, in King Lear, being
+asked who he is, answers, 'I am a _tailor_ run mad with _pride_.' How
+many have we heard of, who claimed relationship with _noblemen_ and
+_kings_; while of not a few each has thought himself the Son of God! To
+the public journals, and to the observations of every one, nay, to the
+'_county-lunatic asylums_' (things never heard of in England till now),
+I appeal for the fact of the vast and hideous _increase of madness in
+this country_; and, within these very few years, how many scores of
+young men, who, if their minds had been unperverted by the gambling
+principles of the day, had a probably long and happy life before them;
+who had talent, personal endowments, love of parents, love of friends,
+admiration of large circles; who had, in short, everything to make life
+desirable, and who, from mortified pride, founded on false pretensions,
+_have put an end to their own existence_!
+
+24. As to DRUNKENNESS and GLUTTONY, generally so called, these are vices
+so nasty and beastly that I deem any one capable of indulging in them to
+be wholly unworthy of my advice; and, if any youth unhappily initiated
+in these odious and debasing vices should happen to read what I am now
+writing, I refer him to the command of God, conveyed to the Israelites
+by Moses, in Deuteronomy, chap. xxi. The father and mother are to take
+the bad son 'and bring him to the elders of the city; and they shall say
+to the elders, This our son will not obey our voice: he is a _glutton_
+and a _drunkard_. And all the men of the city shall stone him with
+stones, that he die.' I refer downright beastly gluttons and drunkards
+to this; but indulgence short, _far short_, of this gross and really
+nasty drunkenness and gluttony is to be deprecated, and that, too, with
+the more earnestness because it is too often looked upon as being no
+crime at all, and as having nothing blameable in it; nay, there are many
+persons who _pride_ themselves on their refined taste in matters
+connected with eating and drinking: so far from being ashamed of
+employing their thoughts on the subject, it is their boast that they do
+it. St. Gregory, one of the Christian fathers, says: 'It is not the
+_quantity_ or the _quality_ of the meat, or drink, but the _love of it_
+that is condemned;' that is to say, the indulgence beyond the absolute
+demands of nature; the hankering after it; the neglect of some duty or
+other for the sake of the enjoyments of the table.
+
+25. This _love_ of what are called 'good eating and drinking,' if very
+unamiable in grown-up persons, is perfectly hateful in _a youth_; and,
+if he indulge in the propensity, he is already half ruined. To warn you
+against acts of fraud, robbery, and violence, is not my province; that
+is the business of those who make and administer _the law_. I am not
+talking to you against acts which the jailor and the hangman punish; nor
+against those moral offences which all men condemn; but against
+indulgences, which, by men in general, are deemed not only harmless, but
+meritorious; but which the observation of my whole life has taught me to
+regard as destructive to human happiness, and against which all ought to
+be cautioned even in their boyish days. I have been a great observer,
+and I can truly say, that I have never known a man, 'fond of good eating
+and drinking,' as it is called; that I have never known such a man (and
+hundreds I have known) who was worthy of respect.
+
+26. Such indulgences are, in the first place, very _expensive_. The
+materials are costly, and the preparations still more so. What a
+monstrous thing, that, in order to satisfy the appetite of a man, there
+must be a person or two _at work every day_! More fuel, culinary
+implements, kitchen-room; what! all these merely to tickle the palate of
+four or five people, and especially people who can hardly pay their way!
+And, then, the _loss of time_: the time spent in pleasing the palate: it
+is truly horrible to behold people who ought to be at work, sitting, at
+the three meals, not less than three of the about fourteen hours that
+they are out of their beds! A youth, habituated to this sort of
+indulgence, cannot be valuable to any employer. Such a youth cannot be
+deprived of his table-enjoyments on any account: his eating and drinking
+form the momentous concern of his life: if business interfere with that,
+the business must give way. A young man, some years ago, offered himself
+to me, on a particular occasion, as an _amanuensis_, for which he
+appeared to be perfectly qualified. The terms were settled, and I, who
+wanted the job dispatched, requested him to sit down, and begin; but he,
+looking out of the window, whence he could see the church clock, said,
+somewhat hastily, 'I _cannot_ stop _now_, sir, I must go to _dinner_.'
+'Oh!' said I, 'you _must_ go to dinner, must you! Let the dinner, which
+you _must_ wait upon to-day, have your constant services, then: for you
+and I shall never agree.' He had told me that he was in _great distress_
+for want of employment; and yet, when relief was there before his eyes,
+he could forego it for the sake of getting at his eating and drinking
+three or four hours, perhaps, sooner than I should have thought it right
+for him to leave off work. Such a person cannot be sent from home,
+except at certain times; he _must_ be near the kitchen at three fixed
+hours of the day; if he be absent more than four or five hours, he is
+ill-treated. In short, a youth thus pampered is worth nothing as a
+person to be employed in business.
+
+27. And, as to _friends_ and _acquaintances_; they will _say_ nothing to
+you; they will _offer_ you indulgences under their roofs; but the more
+ready you are to accept of their offers, and, in fact, the better
+_taste_ you discover, the less they will like you, and the sooner they
+will find means of shaking you off; for, besides the _cost_ which you
+occasion them, people do not like to have _critics_ sitting in judgment
+on their bottles and dishes. _Water-drinkers_ are universally _laughed
+at_; but, it has always seemed to me, that they are amongst the most
+welcome of guests, and that, too, though the host be by no means of a
+niggardly turn. The truth is, they give _no trouble_; they occasion _no
+anxiety_ to please them; they are sure not to make their sittings
+_inconveniently long_; and, which is the great thing of all, their
+example teaches _moderation_ to the rest of the company. Your notorious
+'lovers of good cheer' are, on the contrary, not to be invited without
+_due reflection_: to entertain one of them is a serious business; and as
+people are not apt voluntarily to undertake such pieces of business, the
+well-known 'lovers of good eating and drinking' are left, very
+generally, to enjoy it by themselves and at their own expense.
+
+28. But, all other considerations aside, _health_, the most valuable of
+all earthly possessions, and without which all the rest are worth
+nothing, bids us, not only to refrain from _excess_ in eating and
+drinking, but bids us to stop short of what might be indulged in without
+any apparent impropriety. The words of ECCLESIASTICUS ought to be read
+once a week by every young person in the world, and particularly by the
+young people of this country at this time. 'Eat modestly that which is
+set before thee, and _devour_ not, lest thou be _hated_. When thou
+sittest amongst many, reach not thine hand out first of all. _How little
+is sufficient for man well taught! A wholesome sleep_ cometh of a
+temperate belly. Such a man _riseth up in the morning_, and is _well at
+ease with himself_. Be not too hasty of meats; for excess of meats
+bringeth sickness, and choleric disease cometh of gluttony. By surfeit
+have many perished, and he that _dieteth himself prolongeth his life_.
+Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many. Wine
+measurably taken, and in season, bringeth gladness and cheerfulness of
+mind; but drinking with excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings and
+scoldings.' How true are these words! How well worthy of a constant
+place in our memories! Yet, what pains have been taken to apologise for
+a life contrary to these precepts! And, good God! what punishment can be
+too great, what mark of infamy sufficiently signal, for those pernicious
+villains of talent, who have employed that talent in the composition of
+_Bacchanalian songs_; that is to say, pieces of fine and captivating
+writing in praise of one of the most odious and destructive vices in the
+black catalogue of human depravity!
+
+29. In the passage which I have just quoted from chap. xxxi. of
+ECCLESIASTICUS, it is said, that 'wine, _measurably_ taken, and in
+_season_,' is a _proper thing_. This, and other such passages of the Old
+Testament, have given a handle to drunkards, and to extravagant people,
+to insist, that _God intended_ that _wine_ should be _commonly_ drunk.
+No doubt of that. But, then, he could intend this only _in countries in
+which he had given wine_, and to which he had given no cheaper drink
+except _water_. If it be said, as it truly may, that, by the means of
+the _sea_ and the _winds_, he has given wine to all _countries_, I
+answer that this gift is of no use to us _now_, because our government
+steps in between the sea and the winds and us. _Formerly_, indeed, the
+case was different; and, here I am about to give you, incidentally, a
+piece of _historical knowledge_, which you will not have acquired from
+HUME, GOLDSMITH, or any other of the romancers called historians. Before
+that unfortunate event, the _Protestant Reformation_, as it is called,
+took place, the price of RED WINE, in England, was _fourpence a gallon_,
+Winchester measure; and of WHITE WINE, _sixpence a gallon_. At the same
+time the pay of a labouring man per day, as fixed by law, was
+_fourpence_. Now, when a labouring man could earn _four quarts of good
+wine in a day_, it was, doubtless, allowable, even in England, for
+people in the middle rank of life to drink wine _rather commonly_; and,
+therefore, in those happy days of England, these passages of Scripture
+were applicable enough. But, _now_, when we have got a _Protestant_
+government, which by the taxes which it makes people pay to it, causes
+the _eighth part of a gallon_ of wine to cost more than the pay of a
+labouring man for a day; _now_, this passage of Scripture is not
+applicable to us. There is no '_season_' in which we can take wine
+without ruining ourselves, however '_measurably_' we may take it; and I
+beg you to regard, as perverters of Scripture and as seducers of youth,
+all those who cite passages like that above cited, in justification of,
+or as an apology for, the practice of wine-drinking in England.
+
+30. I beseech you to look again and again at, and to remember every word
+of, the passage which I have just quoted from the book of
+ECCLESIASTICUS. How completely have been, and are, its words verified by
+my experience and in my person! How little of eating and drinking is
+sufficient for me! How wholesome is my sleep! How early do I rise; and
+how '_well at ease_' am I 'with myself!' I should not have deserved such
+blessings, if I had withheld from my neighbours a knowledge of the means
+by which they were obtained; and, therefore, this knowledge I have been
+in the constant habit of communicating. When one _gives a dinner to a
+company_, it is an extraordinary affair, and is intended, by sensible
+men, for purposes other than those of eating and drinking. But, in
+_general_, in the every-day life, despicable are those who suffer any
+part of their happiness to depend upon what they have to eat or to
+drink, provided they have _a sufficiency of wholesome food_; despicable
+is the _man_, and worse than despicable the _youth_, that would make any
+sacrifice, however small, whether of money or of time, or of anything
+else, in order to secure a dinner different from that which he would
+have had without such sacrifice. Who, what man, ever performed a greater
+quantity of labour than I have performed? What man ever did so much?
+Now, in a great measure, I owe my capability to perform this labour to
+my disregard of dainties. Being shut up two years in Newgate, with a
+fine on my head of a thousand pounds to the king, for having expressed
+my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen under a guard of German
+bayonets, I ate, during one whole year, one mutton chop every day. Being
+once in town, with one son (then a little boy) and a clerk, while my
+family was in the country, I had during some weeks nothing but legs of
+mutton; first day, leg of mutton boiled or _roasted_; second, _cold_;
+third, _hashed_; then, leg of mutton _boiled_; and so on. When I have
+been by myself, or nearly so, I have _always_ proceeded thus: given
+directions for having _every day the same thing_, or alternately as
+above, and every day exactly at the same hour, so as to prevent the
+necessity of any _talk_ about the matter. I am certain that, upon an
+average, I have not, during my life, spent more than _thirty-five
+minutes a day at table_, including all the meals of the day. I like, and
+I take care to have, good and clean victuals; but, if wholesome and
+clean, that is enough. If I find it, by chance, _too coarse_ for my
+appetite, I put the food aside, or let somebody do it, and leave the
+appetite to gather keenness. But the great security of all is, to eat
+_little_, and to drink nothing that _intoxicates_. He that eats till he
+is _full_ is little better than a beast; and he that drinks till he is
+_drunk_ is quite a beast.
+
+31. Before I dismiss this affair of eating and drinking, let me beseech
+you to resolve to free yourselves from the slavery of the _tea_ and
+_coffee_ and other _slop-kettle_, if, unhappily, you have been bred up
+in such slavery. Experience has taught me, that those slops are
+_injurious to health_: until I left them off (having taken to them at
+the age of 26), even my habits of sobriety, moderate eating, early
+rising; even these were not, until I left off the slops, sufficient to
+give me that complete health which I have since had. I pretend not to be
+a 'doctor;' but, I assert, that to pour regularly, every day, a pint or
+two of _warm liquid matter_ down the throat, whether under the name of
+tea, coffee, soup, grog, or whatever else, is greatly injurious to
+health. However, at present, what I have to represent to _you is the
+great deduction, which the use of these slops makes, from your power of
+being useful_, and also from your _power to husband your income_,
+whatever it may be, and from whatever source arising. I am to suppose
+you to be desirous to become a clever and a useful man; a man to be, if
+not admired and revered, at least to be _respected_. In order to merit
+respect beyond that which is due to very common men, you must do
+something more than very common men; and I am now going to show you how
+your course _must be impeded_ by the use of the _slops_.
+
+32. If the women exclaim, 'Nonsense! come and take a cup,' take it for
+that once; but hear what I have to say. In answer to my representation
+regarding the _waste of time_ which is occasioned by the slops, it has
+been said, that let what may be the nature of the food, there must _be
+time_ for taking it. Not _so much_ time, however, to eat a bit of meat
+or cheese or butter with a bit of bread. But, these may be eaten in a
+shop, a warehouse, a factory, far from any _fire_, and even in a
+carriage on the road. The slops absolutely demand _fire_ and a
+_congregation_; so that, be your business what it may; be you
+shopkeeper, farmer, drover, sportsman, traveller, to the _slop-board_
+you must come; you must wait for its assembling, or start from home
+without your breakfast; and, being used to the warm liquid, you feel out
+of order for the want of it. If the slops were in fashion amongst
+ploughmen and carters, we must all be starved; for the food could never
+be raised. The mechanics are half-ruined by them. Many of them are
+become poor, enervated creatures; and chiefly from this cause. But is
+the positive _cost_ nothing? At boarding-schools an _additional price is
+given_ on account of the tea slops. Suppose you to be a clerk, in hired
+lodgings, and going to your counting-house at nine o'clock. You get your
+dinner, perhaps, near to the scene of your work; but how are you to have
+the _breakfast slops_ without _a servant_? Perhaps you find a lodging
+just to suit you, but the house is occupied by people who keep no
+_servants_, and you want a servant to _light a fire_ and get the slop
+ready. You could get this lodging for several shillings a week less than
+another at the next door; but _there_ they keep a servant, who will
+'_get_ you your breakfast,' and preserve you, benevolent creature as she
+is, from the cruel necessity of going to the cupboard and cutting off a
+slice of meat or cheese and a bit of bread. She will, most likely, toast
+your bread for you too, and melt your butter; and then muffle you up, in
+winter, and send you out almost swaddled. Really such a thing can hardly
+be expected ever to become a _man_. You are weak; you have delicate
+health; you are '_bilious_!' Why, my good fellow, it is these very slops
+that make you weak and bilious; And, indeed, the _poverty_, the real
+poverty, that they and their concomitants bring on you, greatly assists,
+in more ways than one, in producing your 'delicate health.'
+
+33. So much for indulgences in eating, drinking, and dress. Next, as to
+_amusements_. It is recorded of the famous ALFRED, that he devoted eight
+hours of the twenty-four to _labour_, eight to _rest_, and eight to
+_recreation_. He was, however, _a king_, and could be _thinking_ during
+the eight hours of recreation. It is certain, that there ought to be
+hours of recreation, and I do not know that eight are too many; but,
+then observe, those hours ought to be _well-chosen_, and the _sort_ of
+recreation ought to be attended to. It ought to be such as is at once
+innocent in itself and in its tendency, and not injurious to health. The
+sports of the field are the best of all, because they are conducive to
+health, because they are enjoyed by _day-light_, and because they demand
+early rising. The nearer that other amusements approach to these, the
+better they are. A town-life, which many persons are compelled, by the
+nature of their calling, to lead, precludes the possibility of pursuing
+amusements of this description to any very considerable extent; and
+young men in towns are, generally speaking, compelled to choose between
+_books_ on the one hand, or _gaming_ and the _play-house_ on the other.
+_Dancing_ is at once rational and healthful: it gives animal spirits: it
+is the natural amusement of young people, and such it has been from the
+days of Moses: it is enjoyed in numerous companies: it makes the parties
+to be pleased with themselves and with all about them; it has no
+tendency to excite base and malignant feelings; and none but the most
+grovelling and hateful tyranny, or the most stupid and despicable
+fanaticism, ever raised its voice against it. The bad modern habits of
+England have created one inconvenience attending the enjoyment of this
+healthy and innocent pastime, namely, _late hours_, which are at once
+injurious to health and destructive of order and of industry. In other
+countries people dance by _day-light_. Here they do not; and, therefore,
+you must, in this respect, submit to the custom, though not without
+robbing the dancing night of as many hours as you can.
+
+34. As to GAMING, it is always _criminal_, either in itself, or in its
+tendency. The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others
+something, for which you have given, and intend to give, no equivalent.
+No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and very few gamblers have escaped
+being miserable; and, observe, to _game for nothing_ is still gaming,
+and naturally leads to gaming for something. It is sacrificing time, and
+that, too, for the worst of purposes. I have kept house for nearly forty
+years; I have reared a family; I have entertained as many friends as
+most people; and I have never had cards, dice, a chess-board, nor any
+implement of gaming, under my roof. The hours that young men spend in
+this way are hours _murdered_; precious hours, that ought to be spent
+either in reading or in writing, or in rest, preparatory to the duties
+of the dawn. Though I do not agree with the base and nauseous
+flatterers, who now declare the army to be _the best school for
+statesmen_, it is certainly a school in which to learn experimentally
+many useful lessons; and, in this school I learned, that men, fond of
+gaming, are very rarely, if ever, trust-worthy. I have known many a
+clever man rejected in the way of promotion only because he was addicted
+to gaming. Men, in that state of life, cannot _ruin_ themselves by
+gaming, for they possess no fortune, nor money; but the taste for gaming
+is always regarded as an indication of a radically bad disposition; and
+I can truly say, that I never in my whole life knew a man, fond of
+gaming, who was not, in some way or other, a person unworthy of
+confidence. This vice creeps on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it
+becomes an ungovernable passion, swallowing up every good and kind
+feeling of the heart. The gambler, as pourtrayed by REGNARD, in a comedy
+the translation of which into English resembles the original much about
+as nearly as Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S plagiarisms resembled the Registers on
+which they had been committed, is a fine instance of the contempt and
+scorn to which gaming at last reduces its votaries; but, if any young
+man be engaged in this fatal career, and be not yet wholly lost, let him
+behold HOGARTH'S gambler just when he has made his _last throw_ and when
+disappointment has bereft him of his senses. If after this sight he
+remain obdurate, he is doomed to be a disgrace to his name.
+
+35. The _Theatre may be_ a source not only of amusement but also of
+instruction; but, as things now are in this country, what, that is not
+bad, is to be learned in this school? In the first place not a word is
+allowed to be uttered on the stage, which has not been previously
+approved of by the Lord Chamberlain; that is to say, by a person
+appointed by the Ministry, who, at his pleasure, allows, or disallows,
+of any piece, or any words in a piece, submitted to his inspection. In
+short, those who go to play-houses _pay their money to hear uttered such
+words as the government approve of, and no others_. It is now just
+twenty-six years since I first well understood how this matter was
+managed; and, from that moment to this, I have never been in an English
+play-house. Besides this, the meanness, the abject servility, of the
+players, and the slavish conduct of the audience, are sufficient to
+corrupt and debase the heart of any young man who is a frequent beholder
+of them. Homage is here paid to every one clothed with power, be he who
+or what he may; real virtue and public-spirit are subjects of ridicule;
+and mock-sentiment and mock-liberality and mock-loyalty are applauded to
+the skies.
+
+36. 'Show me a man's _companions_' says the proverb, 'and I will tell
+you _what the man_ is;' and this is, and must be true; because all men
+seek the society of those who think and act somewhat like themselves:
+sober men will not associate with drunkards, frugal men will not like
+spendthrifts, and the orderly and decent shun the noisy, the disorderly,
+and the debauched. It is for the very vulgar to herd together as
+singers, ringers, and smokers; but, there is a class rather higher still
+more blamable; I mean the tavern-haunters, the gay companions, who herd
+together to do little but _talk_, and who are so fond of talk that they
+go from home to get at it. The conversation amongst such persons has
+nothing of instruction in it, and is generally of a vicious tendency.
+Young people naturally and commendably seek the society of those of
+their own age; but, be careful in choosing your companions; and lay this
+down as a rule never to be departed from, that no youth, nor man, ought
+to be called your _friend_, who is addicted to _indecent talk_, or who
+is fond of the _society of prostitutes_. Either of these argues a
+depraved taste, and even a depraved heart; an absence of all principle
+and of all trust-worthiness; and, I have remarked it all my life long,
+that young men, addicted to these vices, never succeed in the end,
+whatever advantages they may have, whether in fortune or in talent. Fond
+mothers and fathers are but too apt to be over-lenient to such
+offenders; and, as long as youth lasts and fortune smiles, the
+punishment is deferred; but, it comes at last; it is sure to come; and
+the gay and dissolute youth is a dejected and miserable man. After the
+early part of a life spent in illicit indulgences, a man is _unworthy_
+of being the husband of a virtuous woman; and, if he have anything like
+justice in him, how is he to reprove, in his children, vices in which he
+himself so long indulged? These vices of youth are varnished over by the
+saying, that there must be time for 'sowing the _wild oats_,' and that
+'_wildest colts_ make the _best horses_.' These figurative oats are,
+however, generally like the literal ones; they are _never to be
+eradicated from the soil_; and as to the _colts_, wildness in them is an
+indication of _high animal spirit_, having nothing at all to do with the
+_mind_, which is invariably debilitated and debased by profligate
+indulgences. Yet this miserable piece of sophistry, the offspring of
+parental weakness, is in constant use, to the incalculable injury of the
+rising generation. What so amiable as a steady, trust-worthy boy? He is
+of _real use_ at an early age: he can be trusted far out of the sight of
+parent or employer, while the 'pickle,' as the poor fond parents call
+the profligate, is a great deal worse than useless, because there must
+be some one to see that he does no harm. If you have to choose, choose
+companions of _your own rank in life_ as nearly as may be; but, at any
+rate, none to whom you acknowledge _inferiority_; for, slavery is too
+soon learned; and, if the mind be bowed down in the youth, it will
+seldom rise up in the man. In the schools of those best of teachers the
+JESUITS, there is perfect equality as to rank in life: the boy, who
+enters there, leaves all family pride behind him: intrinsic merit alone
+is the standard of preference; and the masters are so scrupulous upon
+this head, that they do not suffer one scholar, of whatever rank, to
+have more money to spend than the poorest. These wise men know well the
+mischiefs that must arise from inequality of pecuniary means amongst
+their scholars: they know how injurious it would be to learning, if
+deference were, by the learned, paid to the dunce; and they, therefore,
+take the most effectual means to prevent it. Hence, amongst other
+causes, it is, that their scholars have, ever since the existence of
+their Order, been the most celebrated for learning of any men in the
+world.
+
+37. In your _manners_ be neither boorish nor blunt, but even these are
+preferable to simpering and crawling. I wish every English youth could
+see those of the United States of America; always _civil_, never
+_servile_. Be _obedient_, where obedience is due; for, it is no act of
+meanness, and no indication of want of spirit, to yield implicit and
+ready obedience to those who have a right to demand it at your hands. In
+this respect England has been, and I hope always will be, an example to
+the whole world. To this habit of willing and prompt obedience in
+apprentices, in servants, in all inferiors in station, she owes, in a
+great measure, her multitudes of matchless merchants, tradesmen, and
+workmen of every description, and also the achievements of her armies
+and navies. It is no disgrace, but the contrary, to obey, cheerfully,
+lawful and just commands. None are so saucy and disobedient as slaves;
+and, when you come to read history, you will find that in proportion as
+nations have been _free_ has been their reverence for the laws. But,
+there is a wide difference between lawful and cheerful obedience and
+that servility which represents people as laying petitions 'at the
+_king's feet_,' which makes us imagine that we behold the supplicants
+actually crawling upon their bellies. There is something so abject in
+this expression; there is such horrible self-abasement in it, that I do
+hope that every youth, who shall read this, will hold in detestation the
+reptiles who make use of it. In all other countries, the lowest
+individual can put a petition into the _hands_ of the chief magistrate,
+be he king or emperor: let us hope, that the time will yet come when
+Englishmen will be able to do the same. In the meanwhile I beg you to
+despise these worse than pagan parasites.
+
+38. Hitherto I have addressed you chiefly relative to the things to be
+_avoided_: let me now turn to the things which you ought _to do_. And,
+first of all, the _husbanding of your time_. The respect that you will
+receive, the real and _sincere respect_, will depend entirely on what
+you are able _to do_. If you be rich, you may purchase what is called
+respect; but it is not worth having. To obtain respect worth possessing,
+you must, as I observed before, do more than the common run of men in
+your state of life; and, to be enabled to do this, you must manage well
+_your time_: and, to manage it well, you must have as much of the
+_day-light_ and as little of the _candle-light_ as is consistent with
+the due discharge of your duties. When people get into the habit of
+sitting up _merely for the purpose of talking_, it is no easy matter to
+break themselves of it: and if they do not go to bed early, they cannot
+rise early. Young people require more sleep than those that are grown
+up: there must be the number of hours, and that number cannot well be,
+on an average, less than _eight_: and, if it be more in winter time, it
+is all the better; for, an hour in bed is better than an hour spent over
+fire and candle in an idle gossip. People never should sit talking till
+they do not know what to talk about. It is said by the country-people,
+that one hour's sleep before midnight is worth more than two are worth
+after midnight, and this I believe to be a fact; but it is useless to go
+to bed early and even to rise early, if the time be not well employed
+after rising. In general, half the morning is _loitered_ away, the party
+being in a sort of half-dressed half-naked state; out of bed, indeed,
+but still in a sort of bedding. Those who first invented _morning-gowns_
+and _slippers_ could have very little else to do. These things are very
+suitable to those who have had fortunes gained for them by others; very
+suitable to those who have nothing to do, and who merely live for the
+purpose of assisting to consume the produce of the earth; but he who has
+his bread to earn, or who means to be worthy of respect on account of
+his labours, has no business with morning gown and slippers. In short,
+be your business or calling what it may, _dress at once for the day_;
+and learn to do it _as quickly_ as possible. A looking-glass is a piece
+of furniture a great deal worse than useless. _Looking_ at the face will
+not alter its shape or its colour; and, perhaps, of all wasted time;
+none is so foolishly wasted as that which is employed in surveying one's
+own face. Nothing can be of _little_ importance, if one be compelled to
+attend to it _every day of our lives_; if we _shaved_ but once a year,
+or once a month, the execution of the thing would be hardly worth
+naming: but this is a piece of work that must be done once every day;
+and, as it may cost only about _five minutes_ of time, and may be, and
+frequently is, made to cost _thirty_, or even _fifty minutes_; and, as
+only fifteen minutes make about a fifty-eighth part of the hours of our
+average day-light; this being the case, this is a matter of real
+importance. I once heard SIR JOHN SINCLAIR ask Mr. COCHRANE JOHNSTONE,
+whether he meaned to have a son of his (then a little boy) taught Latin.
+'No,' said Mr. JOHNSTONE, 'but I mean to do something a great deal
+better for him.' 'What is that?' said Sir John. 'Why,' said the other,
+'teach him _to shave with cold water and without a glass_.' Which, I
+dare say, he did; and for which benefit I am sure that son has had good
+reason to be grateful. Only think of the inconvenience attending the
+common practice! There must be _hot water_; to have this there must be
+_a fire_, and, in some cases, a fire for that purpose alone; to have
+these, there must be a _servant_, or you must light a fire yourself. For
+the want of these, the job is put off until a later hour: this causes a
+stripping and _another dressing bout_; or, you go in a slovenly state
+all that day, and the next day the thing must be done, or cleanliness
+must be abandoned altogether. If you be on a journey you must wait the
+pleasure of the servants at the inn before you can dress and set out in
+the morning; the pleasant time for travelling is gone before you can
+move from the spot; instead of being at the end of your day's journey in
+good time, you are benighted, and have to endure all the great
+inconveniences attendant on tardy movements. And, all this, from the
+apparently insignificant affair of shaving! How many a piece of
+important business has failed from a short delay! And how many thousand
+of such delays daily proceed from this unworthy cause! '_Toujours prêt_'
+was the motto of a famous French general; and pray let it be yours: be
+'_always ready_;' and never, during your whole life, have to say, '_I
+cannot go till I be shaved and dressed_.' Do the whole at once for the
+day, whatever may be your state of life; and then you have a day
+unbroken by those indispensable performances. Begin thus, in the days of
+your youth, and, having felt the superiority which this practice will
+give you over those in all other respects your equals, the practice will
+stick by you to the end of your life. Till you be shaved and dressed for
+the day, you cannot set steadily about any business; you know that you
+must presently quit your labour to return to the dressing affair; you,
+therefore, put it off until that be over; the interval, the precious
+interval, is spent in lounging about; and, by the time that you are
+ready for business, the best part of the day is gone.
+
+39. Trifling as this matter appears upon _naming_ it, it is, in fact,
+one of the great concerns of life; and, for my part, I can truly say,
+that I owe more of my great labours to my strict adherence to the
+precepts that I have here given you, than to all the natural abilities
+with which I have been endowed; for these, whatever may have been their
+amount, would have been of comparatively little use, even aided by great
+sobriety and abstinence, if I had not, in early life, contracted the
+blessed habit of husbanding well my time. To this, more than to any
+other thing, I owed my very extraordinary promotion in the army. I was
+_always ready_: if I had to mount guard at _ten_, I was ready at _nine_:
+never did any man, or any thing, wait one moment for me. Being, at an
+age _under twenty years_, raised from Corporal to Serjeant Major _at
+once_, over the heads of thirty Serjeants, I naturally should have been
+an object of envy and hatred; but this habit of early rising and of
+rigid adherence to the precepts which I have given you, really subdued
+these passions; because every one felt, that what I did he had never
+done, and never could do. Before my promotion, a clerk was wanted to
+make out the morning report of the regiment. I rendered the clerk
+unnecessary; and, long before any other man was dressed for the parade,
+my work for the morning was all done, and I myself was on the parade,
+walking, in fine weather, for an hour perhaps. My custom was this: to
+get up, in summer, at day-light, and in winter at four o'clock; shave,
+dress, even to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and having
+my sword lying on the table before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I
+ate a bit of cheese, or pork, and bread. Then I prepared my report,
+which was filled up as fast as the companies brought me in the
+materials. After this I had an hour or two to read, before the time came
+for any duty out of doors, unless when the regiment or part of it went
+out to exercise in the morning. When this was the case, and the matter
+was left to me, I always had it on the ground in such time as that the
+bayonets glistened in the _rising sun_, a sight which gave me delight,
+of which I often think, but which I should in vain endeavour to
+describe. If the _officers_ were to go out, eight or ten o'clock was the
+hour, sweating the men in the heat of the day, breaking in upon the time
+for cooking their dinner, putting all things out of order and all men
+out of humour. When I was commander, the men had a long day of leisure
+before them: they could ramble into the town or into the woods; go to
+get raspberries, to catch birds, to catch fish, or to pursue any other
+recreation, and such of them as chose, and were qualified, to work at
+their trades. So that here, arising solely from the early habits of one
+very young man, were pleasant and happy days given to hundreds.
+
+40. _Money_ is said to be _power_, which is, in some cases, true; and
+the same may be said of _knowledge_; but superior _sobriety_, _industry_
+and _activity_, are a still more certain source of power; for without
+these, _knowledge_ is of little use; and, as to the power which _money_
+gives, it is that of _brute force_, it is the power of the bludgeon and
+the bayonet, and of the bribed press, tongue and pen. Superior sobriety,
+industry, activity, though accompanied with but a moderate portion of
+knowledge, command respect, because they have great and visible
+influence. The drunken, the lazy, and the inert, stand abashed before
+the sober and the active. Besides, all those whose interests are at
+stake prefer, of necessity, those whose exertions produce the greatest
+and most immediate and visible effect. Self-interest is no respecter of
+persons: it asks, not who knows best what ought to be done, but who is
+most likely to do it: we may, and often do, admire the talents of lazy,
+and even dissipated men, but we do not trust them with the care of our
+interests. If, therefore, you would have respect and influence in the
+circle in which you move, be more sober, more industrious, more active
+than the general run of those amongst whom you live.
+
+41. As to EDUCATION, this word is now applied exclusively to things
+which are taught in schools; but _education_ means _rearing up_, and the
+French speak of the education of _pigs_ and _sheep_. In a very famous
+French book on rural affairs, there is a Chapter entitled '_Education du
+Cochon_,' that is, _education of the hog_. The word has the same meaning
+in both languages; for both take it from the Latin. Neither is the word
+LEARNING properly confined to things taught in schools, or by books;
+for, _learning_ means _knowledge_; and, but a comparatively small part
+of useful knowledge comes from books. Men are not to be called
+_ignorant_ merely because they cannot make upon paper certain marks with
+a pen, or because they do not know the meaning of such marks when made
+by others. A ploughman may be very _learned_ in his line, though he does
+not know what the letters _p. l. o. u. g. h_ mean when he sees them
+combined upon paper. The first thing to be required of a man is, that he
+understand well his own _calling_, or _profession_; and, be you in what
+state of life you may, to acquire this knowledge ought to be your first
+and greatest care. A man who has had a new-built house tumble down will
+derive little more consolation from being told that the architect is a
+great astronomer, than this distressed nation now derives from being
+assured that its distresses arise from the measures of a long list of
+the greatest orators and greatest heroes that the world ever beheld.
+
+42. Nevertheless, book-learning is by no means to be despised; and it is
+a thing which may be laudably sought after by persons in all states of
+life. In those pursuits which are called _professions_, it is necessary,
+and also in certain trades; and, in persons in the middle ranks of life,
+a total absence of such learning is somewhat disgraceful. There is,
+however, one danger to be carefully guarded against; namely, the opinion
+that your genius, or your literary acquirements, are such as to warrant
+you in disregarding the calling in which you are, and by which you gain
+your bread. Parents must have an uncommon portion of solid sense to
+counterbalance their natural affection sufficiently to make them
+competent judges in such a case. Friends are partial; and those who are
+not, you deem enemies. Stick, therefore, to _the shop; _rely upon your
+mercantile or mechanical or professional calling; try your strength in
+literature, if you like; but, _rely_ on the shop. If BLOOMFIELD, who
+wrote a poem called the FARMER'S BOY, had placed no _reliance_ on the
+faithless muses, his unfortunate and much-to-be-pitied family would, in
+all probability, have not been in a state to solicit relief from
+charity. I remember that this loyal shoemaker was flattered to the
+skies, and (ominous sign, if he had understood it) feasted at the tables
+of some of the great. Have, I beseech you, no hope of this sort; and, if
+you find it creeping towards your heart, drive it instantly away as the
+mortal foe of your independence and your peace.
+
+43. With this precaution, however, book-learning is not only proper, but
+highly commendable; and portions of it are absolutely necessary in every
+case of trade or profession. One of these portions is distinct reading,
+plain and neat writing, and _arithmetic_. The two former are mere
+child's work; the latter not quite so easily acquired, but equally
+indispensable, and of it you ought to have a thorough knowledge before
+you attempt to study even the grammar of your own language. Arithmetic
+is soon learned; it is not a thing that requires much natural talent; it
+is not a thing that loads the memory or puzzles the mind; and it is a
+thing of _every-day utility_. Therefore, this is, to a certain extent,
+an absolute necessary; an indispensable acquisition. Every man is not to
+be a _surveyor_ or an _actuary_; and, therefore, you may stop far short
+of the knowledge, of this sort, which is demanded by these professions;
+but, as far as common accounts and calculations go, you ought to be
+perfect; and this you may make yourself, without any assistance from a
+master, by bestowing upon this science, during six months, only one half
+of the time that is, by persons of your age, usually wasted over the
+tea-slops, or other kettle-slops, alone! If you become _fond_ of this
+science, there may be a little danger of wasting your time on it. When,
+therefore, you have got as much of it as your business or profession can
+possibly render necessary, turn the time to some other purpose. As to
+_books_, on this subject, they are in everybody's hand; but, there is
+_one book_ on the subject of calculations, which I must point out to
+you; 'THE CAMBIST,' by Dr. KELLY. This is a bad title, because, to men
+in general, it gives no idea of what the book treats of. It is a book
+which shows the value of the several pieces of money of one country when
+stated in the money of another country. For instance, it tells us what a
+Spanish Dollar, a Dutch Dollar, a French Frank, and so on, is worth in
+English money. It does the same with regard to _weights_ and _measures_:
+and it extends its information to _all the countries in the world_. It
+is a work of rare merit; and every youth, be his state of life what it
+may, if it permit him to pursue book-learning of any sort, and
+particularly if he be destined, or at all likely to meddle with
+commercial matters, ought, as soon as convenient, to possess this
+valuable and instructive book.
+
+44. The next thing is the GRAMMAR of your own language. Without
+understanding this, you can never hope to become fit for anything beyond
+mere trade or agriculture. It is true, that we do (God knows!) but too
+often see men have great wealth, high titles, and boundless power heaped
+upon them, who can hardly write ten lines together correctly; but,
+remember, it is not _merit_ that has been the cause of their
+advancement; the cause has been, in almost every such case, the
+subserviency of the party to the will of some government, and the
+baseness of some nation who have quietly submitted to be governed by
+brazen fools. Do not you imagine, that you will have luck of this sort:
+do not you hope to be rewarded and honoured for that ignorance which
+shall prove a scourge to your country, and which will earn you the
+curses of the children yet unborn. Rely you upon your merit, and upon
+nothing else. Without a knowledge of grammar, it is impossible for you
+to write correctly, and it is by mere accident if you speak correctly;
+and, pray bear in mind, that all well-informed persons judge of a man's
+mind (until they have other means of judging) by his writing or
+speaking. The labour necessary to acquire this knowledge is, indeed, not
+trifling: grammar is not, like arithmetic, a science consisting of
+several distinct departments, some of which may be dispensed with: it is
+a whole, and the whole must be learned, or no part is learned. The
+subject is abstruse: it demands much reflection and much patience: but,
+when once the task is performed, it is performed _for life_, and in
+every day of that life it will be found to be, in a greater or less
+degree, a source of pleasure or of profit or of both together. And, what
+is the labour? It consists of no bodily exertion; it exposes the student
+to no cold, no hunger, no suffering of any sort. The study need subtract
+from the hours of no business, nor, indeed, from the hours of necessary
+exercise: the hours usually spent on the tea and coffee slops and in the
+mere gossip which accompany them; those wasted hours of only _one year_,
+employed in the study of English grammar, would make you a correct
+speaker and writer for the rest of your life. You want no school, no
+room to study in, no expenses, and no troublesome circumstances of any
+sort. I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of
+sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my
+seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit of board, lying on
+my lap, was my writing-table; and the task did not demand any thing like
+a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in
+winter-time it was rarely that I could get any evening-light but that of
+_the fire_, and only my _turn_ even of that. And if I, under such
+circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or encourage me,
+accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there be for _any youth_,
+however poor, however pressed with business, or however circumstanced as
+to room or other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was
+compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state of
+half-starvation; I had no moment of time that I could call my own; and I
+had to read and to write amidst the talking, laughing, singing,
+whistling and brawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless
+of men, and that too in the hours of their freedom from all control.
+Think not lightly of the _farthing_ that I had to give, now and then,
+for ink, pen, or paper! That farthing was, alas! a _great sum_ to me! I
+was as tall as I am now; I had great health and great exercise. The
+whole of the money, not expended for us at market, was _two-pence a
+week_ for each man. I remember, and well I may! that upon one occasion
+I, after all absolutely necessary expenses, had, on a Friday, made shift
+to have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of
+a _red-herring_ in the morning; but, when I pulled off my clothes at
+night, so hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found that
+I had _lost my halfpenny_! I buried my head under the miserable sheet
+and rug, and cried like a child! And, again I say, if I, under
+circumstances like these, could encounter and overcome this task, is
+there, can there be, in the whole world, a youth to find an excuse for
+the non-performance? What youth, who shall read this, will not be
+ashamed to say, that he is not able to find time and opportunity for
+this most essential of all the branches of book-learning?
+
+45. I press this matter with such earnestness, because a knowledge of
+grammar is the foundation of all literature; and because without this
+knowledge opportunities for writing and speaking are only occasions for
+men to display their unfitness to write and speak. How many false
+pretenders to erudition, have I exposed to shame merely by my knowledge
+of grammar! How many of the insolent and ignorant great and powerful
+have I pulled down and made little and despicable! And, with what ease
+have I conveyed upon numerous important subjects, information and
+instruction to millions now alive, and provided a store of both for
+millions yet unborn! As to the course to be pursued in this great
+undertaking, it is, first, to read the grammar from the first word to
+the last, very attentively, several times over; then, to copy the whole
+of it very correctly and neatly; and then to study the Chapters one by
+one. And what do this reading and writing require as to time? Both
+together not more than the tea-slops and their gossips for _three
+months_! There are about three hundred pages in my English Grammar. Four
+of those little pages in a day, which is a mere trifle of work, do the
+thing in _three months_. Two hours a day are quite sufficient for the
+purpose; and these may, in any _town_ that I have ever known, or in any
+village, be taken from that part of the morning during which the main
+part of the people are in bed. I do not like the evening-candle-light
+work: it wears the eyes much more than the same sort of light in the
+morning, because then the faculties are in vigour and wholly
+unexhausted. But for this purpose there is sufficient of that day-light
+which is usually wasted; usually gossipped or lounged away; or spent in
+some other manner productive of no pleasure, and generally producing
+pain in the end. It is very becoming in all persons, and particularly in
+the young, to be civil, and even polite: but it becomes neither young
+nor old to have an everlasting simper on their faces, and their bodies
+sawing in an everlasting bow: and, how many youths have I seen who, if
+they had spent, in the learning of grammar, a tenth part of the time
+that they have consumed in earning merited contempt for their affected
+gentility, would have laid the foundation of sincere respect towards
+them for the whole of their lives!
+
+46. _Perseverance_ is a prime quality in every pursuit, and particularly
+in this. Yours is, too, the time of life to acquire this inestimable
+habit. Men fail much oftener from want of perseverance than from want of
+talent and of good disposition: as the race was not to the hare but to
+the tortoise, so the meed of success in study is to him who is not in
+haste, but to him who proceeds with a steady and even step. It is not to
+a want of taste or of desire or of disposition to learn that we have to
+ascribe the rareness of good scholars, so much as to the want of patient
+perseverance. Grammar is a branch of knowledge; like all other things of
+high value, it is of difficult acquirement: the study is dry; the
+subject is intricate; it engages not the passions; and, if the _great
+end_ be not kept constantly in view; if you lose, for a moment, sight of
+the _ample reward_, indifference begins, that is followed by weariness,
+and disgust and despair close the book. To guard against this result be
+not in _haste_; keep _steadily on_; and, when you find weariness
+approaching, rouse yourself, and remember, that if you give up, all that
+you have done has been done in vain. This is a matter of great moment;
+for out of every ten, who undertake this task, there are, perhaps, nine
+who abandon it in despair; and this, too, merely for the want of
+resolution to overcome the first approaches of weariness. The most
+effectual means of security against this mortifying result is to lay
+down a rule to write or to read a certain fixed quantity _every day_,
+Sunday excepted. Our minds are not always in the same state; they have
+not, at all times, the same elasticity; to-day we are full of hope on
+the very same grounds which, to-morrow, afford us no hope at all: every
+human being is liable to those flows and ebbs of the mind; but, if
+reason interfere, and bid you _overcome the fits of lassitude_, and
+almost mechanically to go on without the stimulus of hope, the buoyant
+fit speedily returns; you congratulate yourself that you did not yield
+to the temptation to abandon your pursuit, and you proceed with more
+vigour than ever. Five or six triumphs over temptation to indolence or
+despair lay the foundation of certain success; and, what is of still
+more importance, fix in you the _habit of perseverance_.
+
+47. If I have bestowed a large portion of my space on this topic, it has
+been because I know, from experience as well as from observation, that
+it is of more importance than all the other branches of book-learning
+put together. It gives you, when you possess it thoroughly, a real and
+practical superiority over the far greater part of men. How often did I
+experience this even long before I became what is called an author! The
+_Adjutant_, under whom it was my duty to act when I was a Serjeant
+Major, was, as almost all military officers are, or at least _were_, a
+very illiterate man, perceiving that every sentence of mine was in the
+same form and manner as sentences in _print_, became shy of letting me
+see pieces of _his_ writing. The writing of _orders_, and other things,
+therefore, fell to me; and thus, though no nominal addition was made to
+my pay, and no nominal addition to my authority, I acquired the latter
+as effectually as if a law had been passed to confer it upon me. In
+short, I owe to the possession of this branch of knowledge everything
+that has enabled me to do so many things that very few other men have
+done, and that now gives me a degree of influence, such as is possessed
+by few others, in the most weighty concerns of the country. The
+possession of this branch of knowledge raises you in your own esteem,
+gives just confidence in yourself, and prevents you from being the
+willing slave of the rich and the titled part of the community. It
+enables you to discover that riches and titles do not confer merit; you
+think comparatively little of them; and, as far as relates to you, at
+any rate, their insolence is innoxious.
+
+48. Hoping that I have said enough to induce you to set resolutely about
+the study of _grammar_, I might here leave the subject of _learning_;
+arithmetic and grammar, both _well learned_, being as much as I could
+wish in a mere youth. But these need not occupy the whole of your spare
+time; and, there are other branches of learning which ought immediately
+to follow. If your own calling or profession require book-study, books
+treating of that are to be preferred to all others; for, the first
+thing, the first object in life, is to secure the honest means of
+obtaining sustenance, raiment, and a state of being suitable to your
+rank, be that rank what it may: excellence in your own calling is,
+therefore, the first thing to be aimed at. After this may come _general
+knowledge_, and of this, the first is a thorough knowledge of _your own
+country_; for, how ridiculous is it to see an English youth engaged in
+reading about the customs of the Chinese or of the Hindoos, while he is
+content to be totally ignorant of those of Kent or of Cornwall! Well
+employed he must be in ascertaining how Greece was divided and how the
+Romans parcelled out their territory, while he knows not, and apparently
+does not want to know, how England came to be divided into counties,
+hundreds, parishes and tithings.
+
+49. GEOGRAPHY naturally follows Grammar; and you should begin with that
+of this kingdom, which you ought to understand well, perfectly well,
+before you venture to look abroad. A rather slight knowledge of the
+divisions and customs of other countries is, generally speaking,
+sufficient; but, not to know these full well, as far as relates to our
+own country, is, in one who pretends to be a gentleman or a scholar,
+somewhat disgraceful. Yet how many men are there, and those called
+_gentlemen_ too, who seem to think that counties and parishes, and
+churches and parsons, and tithes and glebes, and manors and courts-leet,
+and paupers and poor-houses, all grew up in England, or dropped down
+upon it, immediately after Noah's flood! Surely, it is necessary for
+every man, having any pretensions to scholarship, to know _how these
+things came_; and, the sooner this knowledge is acquired the better;
+for, until it be acquired, you read the _history_ of your country in
+vain. Indeed, to communicate this knowledge is one main part of the
+business of history; but it is a part which no historian, commonly so
+called, has, that I know of, ever yet performed, except, in part,
+myself, in the History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION. I had read HUME'S
+History of England, and the Continuation by SMOLLETT; but, in 1802, when
+I wanted to write on the subject of the _non-residence of the clergy_, I
+found, to my great mortification, that I knew nothing of the foundation
+of the office and the claims of the parsons, and that I could not even
+guess at the _origin of parishes_. This gave a new turn to my inquiries;
+and I soon found the romancers, called historians, had given me no
+information that I could rely on, and, besides, had done, apparently,
+all they could to keep me in the dark.
+
+50. When you come to HISTORY, begin also with that _of your own
+country_; and here it is my bounden duty to put you _well on your
+guard_; for in this respect we are _peculiarly_ unfortunate, and for the
+following reasons, to which I beg you to attend. Three _hundred years
+ago_, the religion of England had been, during _nine hundred years_, the
+Catholic religion: the Catholic clergy possessed about a third part of
+all the lands and houses, which they held _in trust_ for their own
+support, for the _building and repairing of churches_, and for the
+relief of the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger; but, at the
+time just mentioned, the king and the aristocracy changed the religion
+to _Protestant_, took the estates of the church and the poor _to
+themselves as their own property_, and _taxed the people at large_ for
+the building and repairing of churches and for the relief of the poor.
+This great and terrible change, effected partly by force against the
+people and partly by the most artful means of deception, gave rise to a
+series of efforts, which has been continued from that day _to this_, to
+cause us all to believe, _that that change was for the better_, that it
+was for _our good_; and that, _before that time_, our forefathers were a
+set of the most miserable slaves that the sun ever warmed with his
+beams. It happened, too, that the _art of printing_ was not discovered,
+or, at least, it was very little understood, until about the time when
+this change took place; so that the books relating to former times were
+confined to manuscript; and, besides, even these manuscript libraries
+were destroyed with great care by those who had made the change and had
+grasped the property of the poor and the church. Our '_Historians_,' as
+they are called, have written under _fear_ of the powerful, or have been
+_bribed_ by them; and, generally speaking, both at the same time; and,
+accordingly, their works are, as far as they relate to former times,
+masses of lies unmatched by any others that the world has ever seen.
+
+51. The great object of these lies always has been to make the main body
+of the people believe, that the nation is now more happy, more populous,
+more powerful, _than it was before it was Protestant_, and thereby to
+induce us to conclude, that it was _a good thing for us_ that the
+aristocracy should take to themselves the property of the poor and the
+church, and make the people at large _pay taxes for the support of
+both_. This has been, and still is, the great object of all those heaps
+of lies; and those lies are continually spread about amongst us in all
+forms of publication, from heavy folios down to halfpenny tracts. In
+refutation of those lies we have only very few and rare ancient books to
+refer to, and their information is incidental, seeing that their authors
+never dreamed of the possibility of the lying generations which were to
+come. We have the ancient acts of parliament, the common-law, the
+customs, the canons of the church, and _the churches themselves_; but
+these demand _analyses_ and _argument_, and they demand also a _really
+free press_, and _unprejudiced and patient readers_. Never in this
+world, before, had truth to struggle with so many and such great
+disadvantages!
+
+52. To refute lies is not, at present, my business; but it is my
+business to give you, in as small a compass as possible, one striking
+proof that they are lies; and thereby to put you well upon your guard
+for the whole of the rest of your life. The opinion sedulously
+inculcated by these '_historians_' is this; that, before the
+_Protestant_ times came, England was, comparatively, an insignificant
+country, _having few people in it, and those few wretchedly poor and
+miserable_. Now, take the following _undeniable facts_. All the parishes
+in England are now (except where they have been _united_, and two,
+three, or four, have been made into one) in point of _size_, what they
+were _a thousand years ago_. The county of Norfolk is the best
+cultivated of any one in England. This county has _now_ 731 parishes;
+and the number was formerly greater. Of these parishes 22 _have now no
+churches at all_; 74 contain less than 100 souls each: and 268 have _no
+parsonage-houses_. Now, observe, every parish had, in old times, a
+church and a parsonage-house. The county contains 2,092 square miles;
+that is to say, something less than 3 square miles to each parish, and
+that is 1,920 statute acres of land; and the _size_ of each parish is,
+on an average, that of a piece of ground about one mile and a half each
+way; so that the churches are, even now, on an average, only about _a
+mile and a half from each other_. Now, the questions for you to put to
+yourself are these: Were churches formerly built and kept up _without
+being wanted_, and especially by a poor and miserable people? Did these
+miserable people build 74 churches out of 731, each of which 74 had not
+a hundred souls belonging to it? Is it a sign of an augmented
+population, that 22 churches out of 731 have tumbled down and been
+effaced? Was it a country _thinly_ inhabited by miserable people that
+could build and keep a church in every piece of ground a mile and a half
+each way, besides having, in this same county, 77 monastic
+establishments and 142 free chapels? Is it a sign of augmented
+population, ease and plenty, that, out of 731 parishes, 268 have
+suffered the parsonage houses to fall into ruins, and their sites to
+become patches of nettles and of brambles? Put these questions calmly to
+yourself: common sense will dictate the answers; and truth will call for
+an expression of your indignation against the lying historians and the
+still more lying population-mongers.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II
+
+TO A YOUNG MAN
+
+53. In the foregoing Letter, I have given my advice to a Youth. In
+addressing myself to you, I am to presume that you have entered upon
+your present stage of life, having acted upon the precepts contained in
+that letter; and that, of course, you are a sober, abstinent,
+industrious and well-informed young man. In the succeeding letters,
+which will be addressed to the _Lover_, the _Husband_, the _Father_ and
+the _Citizen_, I shall, of course, have to include my notion of your
+duties as a _master_, and as a person employed by _another_. In the
+present letter, therefore, I shall confine myself principally to the
+conduct of a young man with regard to the management of his means, or
+money.
+
+54. Be you in what line of life you may, it will be amongst your
+misfortunes if you have not time properly to attend to this matter; for
+it very frequently happens, it has happened to thousands upon thousands,
+not only to be ruined, according to the common acceptation of the word;
+not only to be made poor, and to suffer from poverty, in consequence of
+want of attention to pecuniary matters; but it has frequently, and even
+generally, happened, that a want of attention to these matters has
+impeded the progress of science, and of genius itself. A man, oppressed
+with pecuniary cares and dangers, must be next to a miracle, if he have
+his mind in a state fit for intellectual labours; to say nothing of the
+temptations, arising from such distress, to abandon good principles, to
+suppress useful opinions and useful facts; and, in short, to become a
+disgrace to his kindred, and an evil to his country, instead of being an
+honour to the former and a blessing to the latter. To be poor and
+independent, is very nearly an impossibility.
+
+55. But, then, poverty is not a positive, but a relative term. BURKE
+observed, and very truly, that a labourer who earned a sufficiency to
+maintain him as a labourer, and to maintain him in a suitable manner; to
+give him a sufficiency of good food, of clothing, of lodging, and of
+fuel, ought not to be called _a poor man_; for that, though he had
+little riches, though his, _compared_ with that of a lord, was a state
+of poverty, it was not a state of poverty in itself. When, therefore, I
+say that poverty is the cause of a depression of spirit, of inactivity
+and of servility in men of literary talent, I must say, at the same
+time, that the evil arises from their own fault; from their having
+created for themselves imaginary wants; from their having indulged in
+unnecessary enjoyments, and from their having caused that to be poverty,
+which would not have been poverty, if they had been moderate in their
+enjoyments.
+
+56. As it may be your lot (such has been mine) to live by your literary
+talent, I will here, before I proceed to matter more applicable to
+persons in other states of life, observe, that I cannot form an idea of
+a mortal more wretched than a man of real talent, compelled to curb his
+genius, and to submit himself in the exercise of that genius, to those
+whom he knows to be far inferior to himself, and whom he must despise
+from the bottom of his soul. The late Mr. WILLIAM GIFFORD, who was the
+son of a shoemaker at ASHBURTON in Devonshire; who was put to school and
+sent to the university at the expense of a generous and good clergyman
+of the name of COOKSON, and who died, the other day, a sort of
+whipper-in of MURRAY'S QUARTERLY REVIEW; this was a man of real genius;
+and, to my certain personal knowledge, he detested, from the bottom of
+his soul, the whole of the paper-money and Boroughmongering system, and
+despised those by whom the system was carried on. But, he had imaginary
+wants; he had been bred up in company with the rich and the extravagant;
+expensive indulgences had been made necessary to him by habit; and, when
+in the year 1798, or thereabouts, he had to choose between a bit of
+bacon, a scrag of mutton, and a lodging at ten shillings a week, on the
+one side, and made-dishes, wine, a fine house and a footman on the other
+side, he chose the latter. He became the servile Editor of CANNING'S
+Anti-jacobin newspaper; and he, who had more wit and learning than all
+the rest of the writers put together, became the miserable tool in
+circulating their attacks upon everything that was hostile to a system
+which he deplored and detested. But he secured the made-dishes, the
+wine, the footman and the coachman. A sinecure as '_clerk of the Foreign
+Estreats_,' gave him 329_l._ a year, a double commissionership of the
+lottery gave him 600_l._ or 700_l._ more; and, at a later period, his
+Editorship of the Quarterly Review gave him perhaps as much more. He
+rolled in his carriage for several years; he fared sumptuously; he was
+buried at _Westminster Abbey_, of which his friend and formerly his
+brother pamphleteer in defence of PITT was the _Dean_; and never is he
+to be heard of more! Mr. GIFFORD would have been full as happy; his
+health would have been better, his life longer, and his name would have
+lived for ages, if he could have turned to the bit of bacon and scrag of
+mutton in 1798; for his learning and talents were such, his reasonings
+so clear and conclusive, and his wit so pointed and keen, that his
+writings must have been generally read, must have been of long duration!
+and, indeed, must have enabled him (he being always a single man) to
+live in his latter days in as good style as that which he procured by
+becoming a sinecurist, a pensioner and a _hack_, all which he was from
+the moment he lent himself to the Quarterly Review. Think of the
+mortification of such a man, when he was called upon to justify the
+power-of-imprisonment bill in 1817! But to go into particulars would be
+tedious: his life was a life of luxurious misery, than which a worse is
+not to be imagined.
+
+57. So that poverty is, except where there is an actual want of food and
+raiment, a thing much more imaginary than real. _The shame of poverty_,
+the shame of being thought poor, is a great and fatal weakness, though
+arising, in this country, from the fashion of the times themselves. When
+a _good man_, as in the phraseology of the city, means a _rich man_, we
+are not to wonder that every one wishes to be thought richer than he is.
+When adulation is sure to follow wealth, and when contempt would be
+awarded to many if they were not wealthy, who are spoken of with
+deference, and even lauded to the skies, because their riches are great
+and notorious; when this is the case, we are not to be surprised that
+men are ashamed to be thought to be poor. This is one of the greatest of
+all the dangers at the outset of life: it has brought thousands and
+hundreds of thousands to ruin, even to _pecuniary_ ruin. One of the most
+amiable features in the character of American society is this; that men
+never boast of their riches, and never disguise their poverty; but they
+talk of both as of any other matter fit for public conversation. No man
+shuns another because he is poor: no man is preferred to another because
+he is rich. In hundreds and hundreds of instances, men, not worth a
+shilling, have been chosen by the people and entrusted with their rights
+and interests, in preference to men who ride in their carriages.
+
+58. This shame of being thought poor, is not only dishonourable in
+itself, and fatally injurious to men of talent; but it is ruinous even
+in a _pecuniary_ point of view, and equally destructive to farmers,
+traders, and even gentlemen of landed estate. It leads to everlasting
+efforts to _disguise one's poverty_: the carriage, the servants, the
+wine, (oh, that fatal wine!) the spirits, the decanters, the glasses,
+all the table apparatus, the dress, the horses, the dinners, the
+parties, all must be kept up; not so much because he or she who keeps or
+gives them, has any pleasure arising therefrom, as because not to keep
+and give them, would give rise to a suspicion _of the want of means_ so
+to give and keep; and thus thousands upon thousands are yearly brought
+into a state of real poverty by their great _anxiety not to be thought
+poor_. Look round you, mark well what you behold, and say if this be not
+the case. In how many instances have you seen most amiable and even most
+industrious families brought to ruin by nothing but this! Mark it well;
+resolve to set this false shame at defiance, and when you have done
+that, you have laid the first stone of the surest foundation of your
+future tranquillity of mind. There are thousands of families, at this
+very moment, who are thus struggling to keep up appearances. The farmers
+accommodate themselves to circumstances more easily than tradesmen and
+professional men. They live at a greater distance from their neighbours:
+they can change their style of living unperceived: they can banish the
+decanter, change the dishes for a bit of bacon, make a treat out of a
+rasher and eggs, and the world is none the wiser all the while. But the
+tradesman, the doctor, the attorney, and the trader, cannot make the
+change so quietly, and unseen. The accursed wine, which is a sort of
+criterion of the style of living, a sort of _scale_ to the _plan_, a
+sort of _key_ to the _tune_; this is the thing to banish first of all;
+because all the rest follow, and come down to their proper level in a
+short time. The accursed decanter cries footman or waiting maid, puts
+bells to the side of the wall, screams aloud for carpets; and when I am
+asked, 'Lord, _what_ is a glass of wine?' my answer is, that, in this
+country, it is _everything_; it is the pitcher of the key; it demands
+all the other unnecessary expenses; it is injurious to health, and must
+be injurious, every bottle of wine that is drunk containing a certain
+portion of ardent spirits, besides other drugs deleterious in their
+nature; and, of all the friends to the doctors, this fashionable
+beverage is the greatest. And, which adds greatly to the folly, or, I
+should say, the real vice of using it, is, that the parties themselves,
+nine times out of ten, do not drink it by _choice_; do not like it; do
+not relish it; but use it from mere ostentation, being ashamed to be
+seen even by their own servants, not to drink wine. At the very moment I
+am writing this, there are thousands of families in and near London, who
+daily have wine upon their tables, and who _drink_ it too, merely
+because their own servants should not suspect them to be poor, and not
+deem them to be genteel; and thus families by thousands are ruined, only
+because they are ashamed to be thought poor.
+
+59. There is no shame belonging to poverty, which frequently arises from
+the virtues of the impoverished parties. Not so frequently, indeed, as
+from vice, folly, and indiscretion; but still very frequently. And as
+the Scripture tells us, that we are not to 'despise the poor _because_
+he is poor'; so we ought not to honour the rich because he is rich. The
+true way is, to take a fair survey of the character of a man as depicted
+in his conduct, and to respect him, or despise him, according to a due
+estimate of that character. No country upon earth exhibits so many, as
+this, of those fatal terminations of life, called suicides. These arise,
+in nine instances out of ten, from this very source. The victims are, in
+general, what may be fairly called insane; but their insanity almost
+always arises from the dread of poverty; not from the dread of a want of
+the means of sustaining life, or even decent living, but from the dread
+of being thought or known to be poor; from the dread of what is called
+falling in the scale of society; a dread which is prevalent hardly in
+any country but this. Looked at in its true light, what is there in
+poverty to make a man take away his own life? he is the same man that he
+was before: he has the same body and the same mind: if he even foresee a
+great alteration in his dress or his diet, why should he kill himself on
+that account? Are these all the things that a man wishes to live for?
+But, such is the fact; so great is the disgrace upon this country, and
+so numerous and terrible are the evils arising from this dread of being
+thought to be poor.
+
+60. Nevertheless, men ought to take care of their means, ought to use
+them prudently and sparingly, and to keep their expenses always within
+the bounds of their income, be it what it may. One of the effectual
+means of doing this is to purchase with ready money. ST. PAUL says,
+'_Owe no man any thing_:' and of his numerous precepts this is by no
+means the least worthy of our attention. _Credit_ has been boasted of as
+a very fine thing: to decry credit seems to be setting oneself up
+against the opinions of the whole world; and I remember a paper in the
+FREEHOLDER or the SPECTATOR, published just after the funding system had
+begun, representing 'PUBLIC Credit' as a GODDESS, enthroned in a temple
+dedicated to her by her votaries, amongst whom she is dispensing
+blessings of every description. It must be more than forty years since I
+read this paper, which I read soon after the time when the late Mr. PITT
+uttered in Parliament an expression of his anxious hope, that his 'name
+would be inscribed on the _monument_ which he should raise to '_public
+credit_.' Time has taught me, that PUBLIC CREDIT means, the contracting
+of debts which a nation never can pay; and I have lived to see this
+_Goddess_ produce effects, in my country, which Satan himself never
+could have produced. It is a very bewitching Goddess; and not less fatal
+in her influence in private than in public affairs. It has been carried
+in this latter respect to such a pitch, that scarcely any transaction,
+however low and inconsiderable in amount, takes place in any other way.
+There is a trade in London, called the 'tally-trade,' by which,
+household goods, coals, clothing, all sorts of things, are sold upon
+credit, the seller keeping _a tally_, and receiving payment for the
+goods, little by little; so that the income and the earnings of the
+buyers are always anticipated; are always gone, in fact, before they
+come in or are earned; the sellers receiving, of course, a great deal
+more than the proper profit.
+
+61. Without supposing you to descend to so low a grade as this, and even
+supposing you to be lawyer, doctor, parson, or merchant; it is still the
+same thing, if you purchase on credit, and not, perhaps, in a much less
+degree of disadvantage. Besides the higher price that you pay there is
+the temptation to have what you _really do not want_. The cost seems a
+trifle, when you have not to pay the money until a future time. It has
+been observed, and very truly observed, that men used to lay out a
+one-pound note when they would not lay out a sovereign; a consciousness
+of the intrinsic value of the things produces a retentiveness in the
+latter case more than in the former: the sight and the touch assist the
+mind in forming its conclusions, and the one-pound note was parted with,
+when the sovereign would have been kept. Far greater is the difference
+between Credit and Ready money. Innumerable things are not bought at all
+with ready money, which would be bought in case of trust: it is so much
+easier to _order_ a thing than to _pay_ for it. A future day; a day of
+payment must come, to be sure, but that is little thought of at the
+time; but if the money were to be drawn out, the moment the thing was
+received or offered, this question would arise, '_Can I do without it_?'
+Is this thing indispensable; am I compelled to have it, or suffer a loss
+or injury greater in amount than the cost of the thing? If this question
+were put, every time we make a purchase, seldom should we hear of those
+suicides which are such a disgrace to this country.
+
+62. I am aware, that it will be said, and very truly said, that the
+concerns of merchants; that the purchasing of great estates, and various
+other great transactions, cannot be carried on in this manner; but these
+are rare exceptions to the rule; even in these cases there might be much
+less of bills and bonds, and all the sources of litigation; but in the
+every-day business of life; in transactions with the butcher, the baker,
+the tailor, the shoemaker, what excuse can there be for pleading the
+example of the merchant, who carries on his work by ships and exchanges?
+I was delighted, some time ago, by being told of a young man, who, upon
+being advised _to keep a little account_ of all he received and
+expended, answered, 'that his business was not to keep account books:
+that he was sure not to make a mistake as to his income; and that, as to
+his expenditure, the little bag that held his sovereigns would be an
+infallible guide, as he never bought anything that he did not
+immediately pay for.'
+
+63. I believe that nobody will deny, that, generally speaking, you pay
+for the same article a fourth part more in the case of trust than you do
+in the case of ready money. Suppose, then, the baker, butcher, tailor,
+and shoemaker, receive from you only one hundred pounds a year. Put that
+together; that is to say, multiply twenty-five by twenty, and you will
+find, that, at the end of twenty years, you have 500_l._, besides the
+accumulating and growing interest. The fathers of the Church (I mean the
+ancient ones), and also the canons of the Church, forbade selling on
+trust at a higher price than for ready money, which was in effect to
+forbid _trust_; and this, doubtless, was one of the great objects which
+those wise and pious men had in view; for they were fathers in
+legislation and morals as well as in religion. But the doctrine of these
+fathers and canons no longer prevails; they are set at nought by the
+present age, even in the countries that adhere to their religion.
+ADDISON'S Goddess has prevailed over the fathers and the canons; and men
+not only make a difference in the price regulated by the difference in
+the mode of payment; but it would be absurd to expect them to do
+otherwise. They must not only charge something for the want of the _use_
+of the money; but they must charge something additional for the _risk_
+of its loss, which may frequently arise, and most frequently does arise,
+from the misfortunes of those to whom they have assigned their goods on
+trust. The man, therefore, who purchases on trust, not only pays for the
+trust, but he also pays his due share of what the tradesman loses by
+trust; and, after all, he is not so good a customer as the man who
+purchases cheaply with ready money; for there is his name indeed in the
+tradesman's book; but with that name the tradesman cannot go to market
+to get a fresh supply.
+
+64. Infinite are the ways in which gentlemen lose by this sort of
+dealing. Servants go and order sometimes things not wanted at all; at
+other times, more than is wanted; at others, things of a higher quality;
+and all this would be obviated by purchasing with ready money; for,
+whether through the hands of the party himself, or through those of an
+inferior, there would always be an actual counting out of the money;
+somebody would _see_ the thing bought and see the money paid; and, as
+the master would give the housekeeper or steward a bag of money at the
+time, he would _see_ the money too, would set a proper value upon it,
+and would just desire to know upon what it had been expended.
+
+65. How is it that farmers are so exact, and show such a disposition to
+retrench in the article of labour, when they seem to think little, or
+nothing, about the sums which they pay in tax upon malt, wine, sugar,
+tea, soap, candles, tobacco, and various other things? You find the
+utmost difficulty in making them understand, that they are affected by
+these. The reason is, that they _see_ the money which they give to the
+labourer on each succeeding Saturday night; but they do not see that
+which they give in taxes on the articles before mentioned. Why is it
+that they make such an outcry about the six or seven millions a year
+which are paid in poor-rates, and say not a word about the sixty
+millions a year raised in other taxes? The consumer pays all; and,
+therefore, they are as much interested in the one as the other; and yet
+the farmers think of no tax but the poor tax. The reason is, that the
+latter is collected from them in _money_: they _see_ it go out of their
+hands into the hands of another; and, therefore, they are everlastingly
+anxious to reduce the poor-rates, and they take care to keep them within
+the smallest possible bounds.
+
+66. Just thus would it be with every man that never purchased but with
+ready money: he would make the amount as low as possible in proportion
+to his means: this care and frugality would make an addition to his
+means, and therefore, in the end, at the end of his life, he would have
+had a great deal more to spend, and still be as rich as if he had gone
+in trust; while he would have lived in tranquillity all the while, and
+would have avoided all the endless papers and writings and receipts and
+bills and disputes and law-suits inseparable from a system of credit.
+This is by no means a lesson of _stinginess_; by no means tends to
+inculcate a heaping up of money; for the purchasing with ready money
+really gives you more money to purchase with; you can afford to have a
+greater quantity and variety of things; and I will engage that, if
+horses or servants be your taste, the saving in this way gives you an
+additional horse or an additional servant, if you be in any profession
+or engaged in any considerable trade. In towns, it tends to accelerate
+your pace along the streets; for the temptation of the windows is
+answered in a moment by clapping your hand upon your thigh; and the
+question, 'Do I really want that?' is sure to occur to you immediately,
+because the touch of the money is sure to put that thought in your mind.
+
+67. Now, supposing you to have a plenty; to have a fortune beyond your
+wants, would not the money which you would save in this way be very well
+applied in acts of real benevolence? Can you walk many yards in the
+streets; can you ride a mile in the country; can you go to half-a-dozen
+cottages; can you, in short, open your eyes, without seeing some human
+being, some one born in the same country with yourself, and who, on that
+account alone, has some claim upon your good wishes and your charity;
+can you open your eyes without seeing some person to whom even a small
+portion of your annual savings would convey gladness of heart? Your own
+heart will suggest the answer; and, if there were no motive but this,
+what need I say more in the advice which I have here tendered to you?
+
+68. Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or,
+rather from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing
+which has been honoured by the name of '_speculation_;' but which ought
+to be called Gambling. It is a purchasing of something which you do not
+want either in your family or in the way of ordinary trade: a something
+to be sold again with a great profit; and on the sale of which there is
+a considerable hazard. When purchases of this sort are made with ready
+money, they are not so offensive to reason and not attended with such
+risk; but when they are made with money _borrowed_ for the purpose, they
+are neither more nor less than gambling transactions; and they have
+been, in this country, a source of ruin, misery, and suicide, admitting
+of no adequate description. I grant that this gambling has arisen from
+the influence of the '_Goddess_' before mentioned; I grant that it has
+arisen from the facility of obtaining the fictitious means of making the
+purchases; and I grant that that facility has been created by the system
+under the baneful influence of which we live. But it is not the less
+necessary that I beseech you not to practise such gambling; that I
+beseech you, if you be engaged in it, to disentangle yourself from it as
+soon as you can. Your life, while you are thus engaged, is the life of
+the gamester; a life of constant anxiety; constant desire to over-reach;
+constant apprehension; general gloom, enlivened, now and then, by a
+gleam of hope or of success. Even that success is sure to lead to
+further adventures; and, at last, a thousand to one, that your fate is
+that of the pitcher to the well.
+
+69. The great temptation to this gambling is, as is the case in other
+gambling, the _success of the few_. As young men who crowd to the army,
+in search of rank and renown, never look into the ditch that holds their
+slaughtered companions; but have their eye constantly fixed on the
+General-in-chief; and as each of them belongs to the _same profession_,
+and is sure to be conscious that he has equal merit, every one deems
+himself the suitable successor of him who is surrounded with _Aides des
+camps_, and who moves battalions and columns by his nod; so with the
+rising generation of 'speculators:' they see the great estates that have
+succeeded the pencil-box and the orange-basket; they see those whom
+nature and good laws made to black shoes, sweep chimnies or the streets,
+rolling in carriages, or sitting in saloons surrounded by gaudy footmen
+with napkins twisted round their thumbs; and they can see no earthly
+reason why they should not all do the same; forgetting the thousands and
+thousands, who, in making the attempt, have reduced themselves to that
+beggary which, before their attempt, they would have regarded as a thing
+wholly impossible.
+
+70. In all situations of life, avoid the _trammels of the law_. Man's
+nature must be changed before law-suits will cease; and, perhaps, it
+would be next to impossible to make them less frequent than they are in
+the present state of this country; but though no man, who has any
+property at all, can say that he will have nothing to do with law-suits,
+it is in the power of most men to avoid them in a considerable degree.
+One good rule is to have as little as possible to do with any man who is
+fond of law-suits, and who, upon every slight occasion, talks of an
+appeal to the law. Such persons, from their frequent litigations,
+contract a habit of using the technical terms of the Courts, in which
+they take a pride, and are, therefore, companions peculiarly disgusting
+to men of sense. To such men a law-suit is a luxury, instead of being as
+it is, to men of ordinary minds, a source of anxiety and a real and
+substantial scourge. Such men are always of a quarrelsome disposition,
+and avail themselves of every opportunity to indulge in that which is
+mischievous to their neighbours. In thousands of instances men go to law
+for the indulgence of mere anger. The Germans are said to bring
+_spite-actions_ against one another, and to harass their poorer
+neighbours from motives of pure revenge. They have carried this their
+disposition with them to America; for which reason no one likes to live
+in a German neighbourhood.
+
+71. Before you go to law consider well the _cost_; for if you win your
+suit and are poorer than you were before, what do you accomplish? You
+only imbibe a little additional anger against your opponent; you injure
+him, but do harm to yourself. Better to put up with the loss of one
+pound than of two, to which latter is to be added all the loss of time,
+all the trouble, and all the mortification and anxiety attending a
+law-suit. To set an attorney to work to worry and torment another man is
+a very base act; to alarm his family as well as himself, while you are
+sitting quietly at home. If a man owe you money which he cannot pay, why
+add to his distress without the chance of benefit to yourself? Thousands
+of men have injured themselves by resorting to the law; while very few
+ever bettered themselves by it, except such resort were unavoidable.
+
+72. Nothing is much more discreditable than what is called _hard
+dealing_. They say of the Turks, that they know nothing of _two prices_
+for the same article; and that to ask an abatement of the lowest
+shopkeeper is to insult him. It would be well if Christians imitated
+Mahometans in this respect. To ask one price and take another, or to
+offer one price and give another, besides the loss of time that it
+occasions, is highly dishonourable to the parties, and especially when
+pushed to the extent of solemn protestations. It is, in fact, a species
+of lying; and it answers no one advantageous purpose to either buyer or
+seller. I hope that every young man who reads this, will start in life
+with a resolution never to higgle and lie in dealings. There is this
+circumstance in favour of the bookseller's business: every book has its
+fixed price, and no one ever asks an abatement. If it were thus in all
+other trades, how much time would be saved, and how much immorality
+prevented!
+
+73. As to the spending of your time, your business or your profession
+is to claim the priority of everything else. Unless that be _duly
+attended to_, there can be no real pleasure in any other employment of
+a portion of your time. Men, however, must have some leisure, some
+relaxation from business; and in the choice of this relaxation much of
+your happiness will depend. Where fields and gardens are at hand, they
+present the most rational scenes for leisure. As to company, I have
+said enough in the former letter to deter any young man from that of
+drunkards and rioting companions; but there is such a thing as your
+quiet '_pipe-and-pot-companions_,' which are, perhaps, the most fatal
+of all. Nothing can be conceived more dull, more stupid, more the
+contrary of edification and rational amusement, than sitting, sotting,
+over a pot and a glass, sending out smoke from the head, and
+articulating, at intervals, nonsense about all sorts of things. Seven
+years service as a galley-slave would be more bearable to a man of
+sense, than seven months confinement to society like this. Yet, such is
+the effect of habit, that, if a young man become a frequenter of such
+scenes, the idle propensity sticks to him for life. Some companions,
+however, every man must have; but these every well-behaved man will find
+in private houses, where families are found residing and where the
+suitable intercourse takes place between women and men. A man that
+cannot pass an evening without drink merits the name of a sot. Why
+should there be drink for the purpose of carrying on conversation? Women
+stand in need of no drink to stimulate them to converse; and I have a
+thousand times admired their patience in sitting quietly at their work,
+while their husbands are engaged, in the same room, with bottles and
+glasses before them, thinking nothing of the expense and still less of
+the shame which the distinction reflects upon them. We have to thank the
+women for many things, and particularly for their sobriety, for fear of
+following their example in which men drive them from the table, as if
+they said to them: 'You have had enough; food is sufficient for you; but
+we must remain to fill ourselves with drink, and to talk in language
+which your ears ought not to endure.' When women are getting up to
+retire from the table, men rise _in honour of_ them; but they take
+special care not to follow their excellent example. That which is not
+fit to be uttered before women is not fit to be uttered at all; and it
+is next to a proclamation, tolerating drunkenness and indecency, to send
+women from the table the moment they have swallowed their food. The
+practice has been ascribed to a desire to leave them to themselves; but
+why should they be left to themselves? Their conversation is always the
+most lively, while their persons are generally the most agreeable
+objects. No: the plain truth is, that it is the love of the drink and of
+the indecent talk that send women from the table; and it is a practice
+which I have always abhorred. I like to see young men, especially,
+follow them out of the room, and prefer their company to that of the
+sots who are left behind.
+
+74. Another mode of spending the leisure time is that of books. Rational
+and well-informed companions may be still more instructive; but books
+never annoy; they cost little; and they are always at hand, and ready at
+your call. The sort of books must, in some degree, depend upon your
+pursuit in life; but there are some books necessary to every one who
+aims at the character of a well-informed man. I have slightly mentioned
+HISTORY and Geography in the preceding letter; but I must here observe,
+that, as to both these, you should begin with your own country, and make
+yourself well acquainted, not only with its ancient state, but with the
+_origin_ of all its principal institutions. To read of the battles which
+it has fought, and of the intrigues by which one king or one minister
+has succeeded another, is very little more profitable than the reading
+of a romance. To understand well the history of the country, you should
+first understand how it came to be divided into counties, hundreds, and
+into parishes; how judges, sheriffs, and juries, first arose; to what
+end they were all invented, and how the changes with respect to any of
+them have been produced. But it is of particular consequence that you
+ascertain the _state of the people_ in former times, which is to be
+ascertained by _comparing the then price of labour with the then price
+of food_. You hear enough, and you read enough, about the _glorious
+wars_ in the reign of KING EDWARD the THIRD; and it is very proper that
+those glories should be recorded and remembered; but you never read, in
+the works of the historians, that, in that reign, a common labourer
+earned threepence-halfpenny a day; and that a _fat sheep_ was sold, at
+the same time, for one shilling and twopence, and a fat hog, two years
+old, for three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose for
+twopence-halfpenny. You never read that women received a penny a day for
+hay-making or weeding in the corn, and that a gallon of red wine was
+sold for fourpence. These are matters which historians have deemed to be
+beneath their notice; but they are matters of real importance: they are
+matters which ought to have practical effect at this time; for these
+furnish the criterion whereby we are to judge of our condition compared
+with that of our forefathers. The poor-rates form a great feature in the
+laws and customs of this country. Put to a thousand persons who have
+read what is called the history of England; put to them the question,
+how the poor-rates came? and nine hundred and ninety-nine of the
+thousand will tell you, that they know nothing at all of the matter.
+This is not history; a list of battles and a string of intrigues are not
+history, they communicate no knowledge applicable to our present state;
+and it really is better to amuse oneself with an avowed romance, which
+latter is a great deal worse than passing one's time in counting the
+trees.
+
+75. History has been described as affording arguments of experience; as
+a record of what has been, in order to guide us as to what is likely to
+be, or what ought to be; but, from this romancing history, no such
+experience is to be derived: for it furnishes no facts on which to found
+arguments relative to the existing or future state of things. To come at
+the true history of a country you must read its laws: you must read
+books treating of its usages and customs in former times; and you must
+particularly inform yourself as to _prices of labour and of food_. By
+reading the single Act of the 23rd year of EDWARD the THIRD, specifying
+the price of labour at that time; by reading an Act of Parliament passed
+in the 24th year of HENRY the EIGHTH; by reading these two Acts, and
+then reading the CHRONICON PRECIOSUM of BISHOP FLEETWOOD, which shows
+the price of food in the former reign, you come into full possession of
+the knowledge of what England was in former times. Divers books teach
+how the divisions of the country arose, and how its great institutions
+were established; and the result of this reading is a store of
+knowledge, which will afford you pleasure for the whole of your life.
+
+76. History, however, is by no means the only thing about which every
+man's leisure furnishes him with the means of reading; besides which,
+every man has not the same taste. Poetry, geography, moral essays, the
+divers subjects of philosophy, travels, natural history, books on
+sciences; and, in short, the whole range of book-knowledge is before
+you; but there is one thing always to be guarded against; and that is,
+not to admire and applaud anything you read, merely because it is the
+_fashion_ to admire and applaud it. Read, consider well what you read,
+form _your own judgment_, and stand by that judgment in despite of the
+sayings of what are called learned men, until fact or argument be
+offered to convince you of your error. One writer praises another; and
+it is very possible for writers so to combine as to cry down and, in
+some sort, to destroy the reputation of any one who meddles with the
+combination, unless the person thus assailed be blessed with uncommon
+talent and uncommon perseverance. When I read the works of POPE and of
+SWIFT, I was greatly delighted with their lashing of DENNIS; but
+wondered, at the same time, why they should have taken so much pains in
+running down such a _fool_. By the merest accident in the world, being
+at a tavern in the woods of America, I took up an old book, in order to
+pass away the time while my travelling companions were drinking in the
+next room; but seeing the book contained the criticisms of DENNIS, I was
+about to lay it down, when the play of 'CATO' caught my eye; and having
+been accustomed to read books in which this play was lauded to the
+skies, and knowing it to have been written by ADDISON, every line of
+whose works I had been taught to believe teemed with wisdom and genius,
+I condescended to begin to read, though the work was from the pen of
+that _fool_ DENNIS. I read on, and soon began to _laugh_, not at Dennis,
+but at Addison. I laughed so much and so loud, that the landlord, who
+was in the passage, came in to see what I was laughing at. In short, I
+found it a most masterly production, one of the most witty things that I
+had ever read in my life. I was delighted with DENNIS, and was heartily
+ashamed of my former admiration of CATO, and felt no little resentment
+against POPE and SWIFT for their endless reviling of this most able and
+witty critic. This, as far as I recollect, was the first _emancipation_
+that had assisted me in my reading. I have, since that time, never taken
+any thing upon trust: I have judged for myself, trusting neither to the
+opinions of writers nor in the fashions of the day. Having been told by
+DR. BLAIR, in his lectures on Rhetoric, that, if I meant to write
+correctly, I must 'give my days and nights to ADDISON,' I read a few
+numbers of the Spectator at the time I was writing my English Grammar: I
+gave neither my nights nor my days to him; but I found an abundance of
+matter to afford examples _of false grammar_; and, upon a reperusal, I
+found that the criticisms of DENNIS might have been extended to this
+book too.
+
+77. But that which never ought to have been forgotten by those who were
+men at the time, and that which ought to be _made known to every young
+man of the present day_, in order that he may be induced to exercise his
+own judgment with regard to books, is, the transactions relative to the
+writings of SHAKSPEARE, which transactions took place about thirty years
+ago. It is still, and it was then much more, the practice to extol every
+line of SHAKSPEARE to the skies: not to admire SHAKSPEARE has been
+deemed to be a proof of want of understanding and taste. MR. GARRICK,
+and some others after him, had their own good and profitable reasons for
+crying up the works of this poet. When I was a very little boy, there
+was a _jubilee_ in honour of SHAKSPEARE, and as he was said to have
+planted a _Mulberry tree_, boxes, and other little ornamental things in
+wood, were sold all over the country, as having been made out of the
+trunk or limbs of this ancient and sacred tree. We Protestants laugh at
+the _relics_ so highly prized by Catholics; but never was a Catholic
+people half so much duped by the relics of saints, as this nation was by
+the mulberry tree, of which, probably, more wood was sold than would
+have been sufficient in quantity to build a ship of war, or a large
+house. This madness abated for some years; but, towards the end of the
+last century it broke out again with more fury than ever. SHAKSPEARE'S
+works were published by BOYDELL, an Alderman of London, at a
+subscription of _five hundred pounds for each copy_, accompanied by
+plates, each forming a large picture. Amongst the mad men of the day was
+a MR. IRELAND, who seemed to be more mad than any of the rest. His
+adoration of the poet led him to perform a pilgrimage to an old
+farm-house, near Stratford-upon-Avon, said to have been the birth-place
+of the poet. Arrived at the spot, he requested the farmer and his wife
+to let him search the house for papers, _first going upon his knees_,
+and praying, in the poetic style, the gods to aid him in his quest. He
+found no papers; but he found that the farmer's wife, in clearing out a
+garret some years before, had found some rubbishy old papers which she
+had _burnt_, and which had probably been papers used in the wrapping up
+of pigs' cheeks to keep them from the bats. 'O, wretched woman!'
+exclaimed he; 'do you know what you have done?' 'O dear, no!' said the
+woman, half frightened out of her wits: 'no harm, I hope; for the papers
+were _very old_; I dare say as old as the house itself.' This threw him
+into an additional degree of _excitement_, as it is now fashionably
+called: he raved, he stamped, he foamed, and at last quitted the house,
+covering the poor woman with very term of reproach; and hastening back
+to Stratford, took post-chaise for London, to relate to his brother
+madmen the horrible sacrilege of this heathenish woman. Unfortunately
+for MR. IRELAND, unfortunately for his learned brothers in the
+metropolis, and unfortunately for the reputation of SHAKSPEARE, MR.
+IRELAND took with him to the scene of his adoration _a son, about
+sixteen years of age_, who was articled to an attorney in London. The
+son was by no means so sharply bitten as the father; and, upon returning
+to town, he conceived the idea of _supplying the place of the invaluable
+papers_ which the farm-house heathen had destroyed. He thought, and he
+thought rightly, that he should have little difficulty in writing plays
+_just like those of Shakspeare_! To get _paper_ that should seem to have
+been made in the reign of QUEEN ELIZABETH, and _ink_ that should give to
+writing the appearance of having the same age, was somewhat difficult;
+but both were overcome. Young IRELAND was acquainted with a son of a
+bookseller, who dealt in _old books_: the blank leaves of these books
+supplied the young author with paper; and he found out the way of making
+proper ink for his purpose. To work he went, _wrote several plays_, some
+_love-letters_, and other things; and having got a Bible, extant in the
+time of SHAKSPEARE, he wrote _notes_ in the margin. All these, together
+with _sonnets_ in abundance, and other little detached pieces, he
+produced to his father, telling him he got them from a gentleman, who
+had _made him swear that he would not divulge his name_. The father
+announced the invaluable discovery to the literary world: the literary
+world rushed to him; the manuscripts were regarded as genuine by the
+most grave and learned Doctors, some of whom (and amongst these were
+DOCTORS PARR and WARTON) gave, _under their hands_, an opinion, that the
+manuscripts _must have been written_ by SHAKSPEARE; for that _no other
+man in the world could have been capable of writing them_!
+
+78. MR. IRELAND opened a subscription, published these new and
+invaluable manuscripts at an enormous price; and preparations were
+instantly made for _performing one of the plays_, called VORTIGERN. Soon
+after the acting of the play, the indiscretion of the lad caused the
+secret to explode; and, instantly, those who had declared that he had
+written as well as SHAKSPEARE, did every thing in their power _to
+destroy him_! The attorney drove him from his office; the father drove
+him from his house; and, in short, he was hunted down as if he had been
+a malefactor of the worst description. The truth of this relation is
+undeniable; it is recorded in numberless books. The young man is, I
+believe, yet alive; and, in short, no man will question any one of the
+facts.
+
+79. After this, where is the person of sense who will be guided in these
+matters by _fashion_? where is the man, who wishes not to be deluded,
+who will not, when he has read a book, _judge for himself_? After all
+these jubilees and pilgrimages; after BOYDELL'S subscription of 500_l._
+for one single copy; after it had been deemed almost impiety to doubt of
+the genius of SHAKSPEARE surpassing that of all the rest of mankind;
+after he had been called the '_Immortal Bard_,' as a matter of course,
+as we speak of MOSES and AARON, there having been but one of each in the
+world; after all this, comes a lad of sixteen years of age, writes that
+which learned Doctors declare could have been written by no man but
+SHAKSPEARE, and, when it is discovered that this laughing boy is the
+real author, the DOCTORS turn round upon him, with all the newspapers,
+magazines, and reviews, and, of course, the public at their back, revile
+him as an _impostor_; and, under that odious name, hunt him out of
+society, and doom him to starve! This lesson, at any rate, he has given
+us: not to rely on the judgment of Doctors and other pretenders to
+literary superiority. Every young man, when he takes up a book for the
+first time, ought to remember this story; and if he do remember it, he
+will disregard fashion with regard to the book, and will pay little
+attention to the decision of those who call themselves critics.
+
+80. I hope that your taste would keep you aloof from the writings of
+those detestable villains, who employ the powers of their mind in
+debauching the minds of others, or in endeavours to do it. They present
+their poison in such captivating forms, that it requires great virtue
+and resolution to withstand their temptations; and, they have, perhaps,
+done a thousand times as much mischief in the world as all the infidels
+and atheists put together. These men ought to be called _literary
+pimps_: they ought to be held in universal abhorrence, and never spoken
+of but with execration. Any appeal to bad passions is to be despised;
+any appeal to ignorance and prejudice; but here is an appeal to the
+frailties of human nature, and an endeavour to make the mind corrupt,
+just as it is beginning to possess its powers. I never have known any
+but bad men, worthless men, men unworthy of any portion of respect, who
+took delight in, or even kept in their possession, writings of the
+description to which I here allude. The writings of SWIFT have this
+blemish; and, though he is not a teacher of _lewdness_, but rather the
+contrary, there are certain parts of his poems which are much too filthy
+for any decent person to read. It was beneath him to stoop to such means
+of setting forth that wit which would have been far more brilliant
+without them. I have heard, that, in the library of what is called an
+'_illustrious_ person,' sold some time ago, there was an immense
+collection of books of this infamous description; and from this
+circumstance, if from no other, I should have formed my judgment of the
+character of that person.
+
+81. Besides reading, a young man ought to write, if he have the capacity
+and the leisure. If you wish to remember a thing well, put it into
+writing, even if you burn the paper immediately after you have done; for
+the eye greatly assists the mind. Memory consists of a concatenation of
+ideas, the place, the time, and other circumstances, lead to the
+recollection of facts; and no circumstance more effectually than stating
+the facts upon paper. A JOURNAL should be kept by every young man. Put
+down something against every day in the year, if it be merely a
+description of the weather. You will not have done this for one year
+without finding the benefit of it. It disburthens the mind of many
+things to be recollected; it is amusing and useful, and ought by no
+means to be neglected. How often does it happen that we cannot make a
+statement of facts, sometimes very interesting to ourselves and our
+friends, for the want of a record of the places where we were, and of
+things that occurred on such and such a day! How often does it happen
+that we get into disagreeable disputes about things that have passed,
+and about the time and other circumstances attending them! As a thing of
+mere curiosity, it is of some value, and may frequently prove of very
+great utility. It demands not more than a minute in the twenty-four
+hours; and that minute is most agreeably and advantageously employed. It
+tends greatly to produce regularity in the conducting of affairs: it is
+a thing demanding a small portion of attention _once in every day_; I
+myself have found it to be attended with great and numerous benefits,
+and I therefore strongly recommend it to the practice of every reader.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III
+
+TO A LOVER
+
+82. There are two descriptions of Lovers on whom all advice would be
+wasted; namely, those in whose minds passion so wholly overpowers reason
+as to deprive the party of his sober senses. Few people are entitled to
+more compassion than young men thus affected: it is a species of
+insanity that assails them; and, when it produces self-destruction,
+which it does in England more frequently than in all the other countries
+in the world put together, the mortal remains of the sufferer ought to
+be dealt with in as tender a manner as that of which the most merciful
+construction of the law will allow. If SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY'S remains
+were, as they were, in fact, treated as those of a person labouring
+under '_temporary mental derangement_,' surely the youth who destroys
+his life on account of unrequited love, ought to be considered in as
+mild a light! SIR SAMUEL was represented, in the evidence taken before
+the Coroner's Jury, to have been _inconsolable for the loss of his
+wife_; that this loss had so dreadful an effect upon his mind, that it
+_bereft him of his reason_, made life insupportable, and led him to
+commit the act of _suicide_: and, on _this ground alone_, his _remains_
+and his _estate_ were rescued from the awful, though just and wise,
+sentence of the law. But, unfortunately for the reputation of the
+administration of that just and wise law, there had been, only about two
+years before, a _poor_ man, at Manchester, _buried in crossroads_, and
+under circumstances which entitled his remains to mercy much more
+clearly than in the case of SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY.
+
+83. This unfortunate youth, whose name was SMITH, and who was a
+shoemaker, was in love with a young woman, who, in spite of all his
+importunities and his proofs of ardent passion, refused to marry him,
+and even discovered her liking for another; and he, unable to support
+life, accompanied by the thought of her being in possession of any body
+but himself, put an end to his life by the means of a rope. If, in any
+case, we are to _presume_ the existence of insanity; if, in any case, we
+are led to believe the thing _without positive proof_; if, in any case,
+there can be an apology in human nature itself, for such an act; _this
+was that case_. We all know (as I observed at the time); that is to say,
+all of us who cannot wait to calculate upon the gains and losses of the
+affair; all of us, except those who are endowed with this provident
+frigidity, know well what youthful love is; and what its torments are,
+when accompanied by even the smallest portion of jealousy. Every man,
+and especially every Englishman (for here we seldom love or hate by
+halves), will recollect how many mad pranks he has played; how many wild
+and ridiculous things he has said and done between the age of sixteen
+and that of twenty-two; how many times a kind glance has scattered all
+his reasoning and resolutions to the winds; how many times a cool look
+has plunged him into the deepest misery! Poor SMITH, who was at this age
+of love and madness, might, surely, be presumed to have done the deed in
+a moment of '_temporary mental derangement_.' He was an object of
+compassion in every humane breast: he had parents and brethren and
+kindred and friends to lament his death, and to feel shame at the
+disgrace inflicted on his lifeless body: yet, HE was pronounced to be a
+_felo de se_, or _self-murderer_, and his body was put into a hole by
+the way-side, with a stake driven down through it; while that of ROMILLY
+had mercy extended to it, on the ground that the act had been occasioned
+by '_temporary mental derangement_' caused by his grief for the death of
+his wife!
+
+84. To _reason_ with passion like that of the unfortunate SMITH, is
+perfectly useless; you may, with as much chance of success, reason and
+remonstrate with the winds or the waves: if you make impression, it
+lasts but for a moment: your effort, like an inadequate stoppage of
+waters, only adds, in the end, to the violence of the torrent: the
+current must have and will have its course, be the consequences what
+they may. In cases not quite so decided, _absence_, the sight _of new
+faces_, the sound _of new voices_, generally serve, if not as a radical
+cure, as a mitigation, at least, of the disease. But, the worst of it
+is, that, on this point, we have the girls (and women too) against us!
+For they look upon it as right that every lover should be _a little
+maddish_; and, every attempt to rescue him from the thraldom imposed by
+their charms, they look upon as an overt act of treason against their
+natural sovereignty. No girl ever liked a young man less for his having
+done things foolish and wild and ridiculous, provided she was _sure_
+that love of her had been the cause: let her but be satisfied upon this
+score, and there are very few things which she will not forgive. And,
+though wholly unconscious of the fact, she is a great and sound
+philosopher after all. For, from the nature of things, the rearing of a
+family always has been, is, and must ever be, attended with cares and
+troubles, which must infallibly produce, at times, feelings to be
+combated and overcome by nothing short of that ardent affection which
+first brought the parties together. So that, talk as long as Parson
+MALTHUS likes about 'moral _restraint_;' and report as long as the
+Committees of Parliament please about preventing '_premature_ and
+_improvident_ marriages' amongst the labouring classes, the passion that
+they would _restrain_, while it is necessary to the existence of
+mankind, is the greatest of all the compensations for the inevitable
+cares, troubles, hardships, and sorrows of life; and, as to the
+_marriages_, if they could once be rendered universally _provident_,
+every generous sentiment would quickly be banished from the world.
+
+85. The other description of lovers, with whom it is useless to reason,
+are those who love according to the _rules of arithmetic_, or who
+measure their matrimonial expectations by the _chain of the
+land-surveyor_. These are not love and marriage; they are bargain and
+sale. Young men will naturally, and almost necessarily, fix their choice
+on young women in their own rank in life; because from habit and
+intercourse they will know them best. But, if the length of the girl's
+purse, present or contingent, be a consideration with the man, or the
+length of his purse, present or contingent, be a consideration with her,
+it is an affair of bargain and sale. I know that kings, princes, and
+princesses are, in respect of marriage, restrained by the law: I know
+that nobles, if not thus restrained by positive law, are restrained, in
+fact, by the very nature of their order. And here is a disadvantage
+which, as far as real enjoyment of life is concerned, more than
+counterbalances all the advantages that they possess over the rest of
+the community. This disadvantage, generally speaking, pursues rank and
+riches downwards, till you approach very nearly to that numerous class
+who live by manual labour, becoming, however, less and less as you
+descend. You generally find even very vulgar rich men making a sacrifice
+of their natural and rational taste to their mean and ridiculous pride,
+and thereby providing for themselves an ample supply of misery for life.
+By preferring '_provident_ marriages' to marriages of love, they think
+to secure themselves against all the evils of poverty; but, _if poverty
+come_, and come it may, and frequently does, in spite of the best laid
+plans, and best modes of conduct; _if poverty come_, then where is the
+counterbalance for that ardent mutual affection, which troubles, and
+losses, and crosses always increase rather than diminish, and which,
+amidst all the calamities that can befall a man, whispers to his heart,
+that his best possession is still left him unimpaired? The
+WORCESTERSHIRE BARONET, who has had to endure the sneers of fools on
+account of his marriage with a beautiful and virtuous servant maid,
+would, were the present ruinous measures of the Government to drive him
+from his mansion to a cottage, still have a source of happiness; while
+many of those, who might fall in company with him, would, in addition to
+all their other troubles, have, perhaps, to endure the reproaches of
+wives to whom poverty, or even humble life, would be insupportable.
+
+86. If marrying for the sake of money be, under any circumstances,
+despicable, if not disgraceful; if it be, generally speaking, a species
+of legal prostitution, only a little less shameful than that which,
+under some governments, is openly licensed for the sake of a tax; if
+this be the case generally, what ought to be said of a young man, who,
+in the heyday of youth, should couple himself on to a libidinous woman,
+old enough, perhaps, to be his grandmother, ugly as the nightmare,
+offensive alike to the sight and the smell, and who should pretend to
+_love_ her too: and all this merely for the sake of her money? Why, it
+ought, and it, doubtless, would be said of him, that his conduct was a
+libel on both man and womankind; that his name ought, for ever, to be
+synonymous with baseness and nastiness, and that in no age and in no
+nation, not marked by a general depravity of manners, and total absence
+of all sense of shame, every associate, male or female, of such a man,
+or of his filthy mate, would be held in abhorrence. Public morality
+would drive such a hateful pair from society, and strict justice would
+hunt them from the face of the earth.
+
+87. BUONAPARTE could not be said to marry for _money_, but his motive
+was little better. It was for dominion, for power, for ambition, and
+that, too, of the most contemptible kind. I knew an American Gentleman,
+with whom BUONAPARTE had always been a great favourite; but the moment
+the news arrived of his divorce and second marriage, he gave him up.
+This piece of grand prostitution was too much to be defended. And the
+truth is, that BUONAPARTE might have dated his decline from the day of
+that marriage. My American friend said, 'If I had been he, I would, in
+the first place, have married the poorest and prettiest girl in all
+France.' If he had done this, he would, in all probability, have now
+been on an imperial throne, instead of being eaten by worms at the
+bottom of a very deep hole in Saint Helena; whence, however, his bones
+convey to the world the moral, that to marry for money, for ambition, or
+from any motive other than the one pointed out by affection, is not the
+road to glory, to happiness, or to peace.
+
+88. Let me now turn from these two descriptions of lovers, with whom it
+is useless to reason, and address myself to you, my reader, whom I
+suppose to be a _real_ lover, but not so smitten as to be bereft of your
+reason. You should never forget, that marriage, which is a state that
+every young person ought to have in view, is a thing to last _for life_;
+and that, generally speaking, it is to make life _happy_, or
+_miserable_; for, though a man may bring his mind to something nearly a
+state of _indifference_, even _that_ is misery, except with those who
+can hardly be reckoned amongst sensitive beings. Marriage brings
+numerous _cares_, which are amply compensated by the more numerous
+delights which are their companions. But to have the delights, as well
+as the cares, the choice of the partner must be fortunate. I say
+_fortunate_; for, after all, love, real love, impassioned affection, is
+an ingredient so absolutely necessary, that no _perfect_ reliance can
+be placed on the judgment. Yet, the judgment may do something; reason
+may have some influence; and, therefore, I here offer you my advice with
+regard to the exercise of that reason.
+
+89. The things which you ought to desire in a wife are, 1. Chastity; 2.
+sobriety; 3. industry; 4. frugality; 5. cleanliness; 6. knowledge of
+domestic affairs; 7. good temper; 8. beauty.
+
+90. CHASTITY, perfect modesty, in word, deed, and even thought, is so
+essential, that, without it, no female is fit to be a wife. It is not
+enough that a young woman abstain from everything approaching towards
+indecorum in her behaviour towards men; it is, with me, not enough that
+she cast down her eyes, or turn aside her head with a smile, when she
+hears an indelicate allusion: she ought to appear _not to understand_
+it, and to receive from it no more impression than if she were a post. A
+loose woman is a disagreeable _acquaintance_: what must she be, then, as
+a _wife_? Love is so blind, and vanity is so busy in persuading us that
+our own qualities will be sufficient to ensure fidelity, that we are
+very apt to think nothing, or, at any rate, very little, of trifling
+symptoms of levity; but if such symptoms show themselves _now_, we may
+be well assured, that we shall never possess the power of effecting a
+cure. If _prudery_ mean _false_ modesty, it is to be despised; but if it
+mean modesty pushed to the utmost extent, I confess that I like it. Your
+'_free and hearty_' girls I have liked very well to talk and laugh with;
+but never, for one moment, did it enter into my mind that I could have
+endured a 'free and hearty' girl for a wife. The thing is, I repeat, to
+_last for life_; it is to be a counterbalance for troubles and
+misfortunes; and it must, therefore, be perfect, or it had better not be
+at all. To say that one _despises_ jealousy is foolish; it is a thing to
+be lamented; but the very elements of it ought to be avoided. Gross
+indeed is the beast, for he is unworthy of the name of man; nasty indeed
+is the wretch, who can even entertain the thought of putting himself
+between a pair of sheets with a wife of whose infidelity he possesses
+the proof; but, in such cases, a man ought to be very slow to believe
+appearances; and he ought not to decide against his wife but upon the
+clearest proof. The last, and, indeed, the only effectual safeguard is,
+to _begin_ well; to make a good choice; to let the beginning be such as
+to render infidelity and jealousy next to impossible. If you begin in
+grossness; if you couple yourself on to one with whom you have taken
+liberties, infidelity is the natural and _just_ consequence. When a
+_Peer of the realm_, who had not been over-fortunate in his matrimonial
+affairs, was urging MAJOR CARTWRIGHT to seek for nothing more than
+'_moderate_ reform,' the Major (forgetting the domestic circumstances of
+his Lordship) asked him how he should relish '_moderate_ chastity' in a
+wife! The bare use of the two words, thus coupled together, is
+sufficient to excite disgust. Yet with this '_moderate_ chastity' you
+must be, and ought to be, content, if you have entered into marriage
+with one, in whom you have ever discovered the slightest approach
+towards lewdness, either in deeds, words, or looks. To marry has been
+your own act; you have made the contract for your own gratification; you
+knew the character of the other party; and the children, if any, or the
+community, are not to be the sufferers for your gross and corrupt
+passion. '_Moderate_ chastity' is all that you have, in fact, contracted
+for: you have it, and you have no reason to complain. When I come to
+address myself to the _husband_, I shall have to say more upon this
+subject, which I dismiss for the present with observing, that my
+observation has convinced me, that, when families are rendered unhappy
+from the existence of '_moderate_ chastity,' the fault, first or last,
+has been in the man, ninety-nine times out of every hundred.
+
+91. SOBRIETY. By _sobriety_ I do not mean merely an absence of _drinking
+to a state of intoxication_; for, if that be _hateful_ in a man, what
+must it be in a woman! There is a Latin proverb, which says, that wine,
+that is to say, intoxication, _brings forth truth_. Whatever it may do
+in this way, in men, in women it is sure, unless prevented by age or by
+salutary ugliness, to produce a moderate, and a _very moderate_, portion
+of chastity. There never was a drunken woman, a woman who loved strong
+drink, who was chaste, if the opportunity of being the contrary
+presented itself to her. There are cases where _health_ requires wine,
+and even small portions of more ardent liquor; but (reserving what I
+have further to say on this point, till I come to the conduct of the
+husband) _young_ unmarried women can seldom stand in need of these
+stimulants; and, at any rate, only in cases of well-known definite
+ailments. Wine! '_only_ a _glass or two_ of wine at dinner, or so'! As
+soon as have married a girl whom I had thought liable to be persuaded to
+drink, habitually, '_only_ a glass or two of wine at dinner, or so;' as
+soon as have _married_ such a girl, I would have taken a strumpet from
+the streets. And it has not required _age_ to give me this way of
+thinking: it has always been rooted in my mind from the moment that I
+began to think the girls prettier than posts. There are few things so
+disgusting as a guzzling woman. A gormandizing one is bad enough; but,
+one who tips off the liquor with an appetite, and exclaims '_good!
+good!_' by a smack of her lips, is fit for nothing but a brothel. There
+may be cases, amongst the _hard_-labouring women, such as _reapers_, for
+instance, especially when they have children at the breast; there may be
+cases, where very _hard-working_ women may stand in need of a little
+_good_ beer; beer, which, if taken in immoderate quantities, would
+produce intoxication. But, while I only allow the _possibility_ of the
+existence of such cases, I deny the necessity of any strong drink at all
+in every other case. Yet, in this metropolis, it is the general custom
+for tradesmen, journeymen, and even labourers, to have regularly on
+their tables the big brewers' poison, twice in every day, and at the
+rate of not less than a pot to a person, women, as well as men, as the
+allowance for the day. A pot of poison a day, at fivepence the pot,
+amounts to _seven pounds and two shillings_ in the year! Man and wife
+suck down, in this way, _fourteen pounds four shillings_ a year! Is it
+any wonder that they are clad in rags, that they are skin and bone, and
+that their children are covered with filth?
+
+92. But by the word SOBRIETY, in a young woman, I mean a great deal more
+than even a rigid abstinence from that love of _drink_, which I am not
+to suppose, and which I do not believe, to exist any thing like
+generally amongst the young women of this country. I mean a great deal
+more than this; I mean _sobriety of conduct_. The word _sober_, and its
+derivatives, do not confine themselves to matters of _drink_: they
+express _steadiness, seriousness, carefulness, scrupulous propriety of
+conduct_; and they are thus used amongst country people in many parts of
+England. When a Somersetshire fellow makes too free with a girl, she
+reproves him with, 'Come! be _sober_!' And when we wish a team, or any
+thing, to be moved on _steadily_ and with _great care_, we cry out to
+the carter, or other operator, '_Soberly, soberly_.' Now, this species
+of sobriety is a great qualification in the person you mean to make your
+wife. Skipping, capering, romping, rattling girls are very amusing where
+all costs and other consequences are out of the question; and they _may_
+become _sober_ in the Somersetshire sense of the word. But while you
+have _no certainty_ of this, you have a presumptive argument on the
+other side. To be sure, when girls are _mere children_, they are to play
+and romp like children. But, when they arrive at that age which turns
+their thoughts towards that sort of connexion which is to be theirs for
+life; when they begin to think of having the command of a house, however
+small or poor, it is time for them to cast away the levity of the child.
+It is natural, nor is it very wrong, that I know of, for children to
+like to gad about and to see all sorts of strange sights, though I do
+not approve of this even in children: but, if I could not have found a
+_young woman_ (and I am sure I never should have married an _old_ one)
+who I was not _sure_ possessed _all_ the qualities expressed by the word
+sobriety, I should have remained a bachelor to the end of that life,
+which, in that case, would, I am satisfied, have terminated without my
+having performed a thousandth part of those labours which have been, and
+are, in spite of all political prejudice, the wonder of all who have
+seen, or heard of, them. Scores of gentlemen have, at different times,
+expressed to me their surprise, that I was '_always in spirits_;' that
+nothing _pulled me down_; and the truth is, that, throughout nearly
+forty years of troubles, losses, and crosses, assailed all the while by
+more numerous and powerful enemies than ever man had before to contend
+with, and performing, at the same time, labours greater than man ever
+before performed; all those labours requiring mental exertion, and some
+of them mental exertion of the highest order; the truth is, that,
+throughout the whole of this long time of troubles and of labours, I
+have never known a single hour of _real anxiety_; the troubles have been
+no troubles to me; I have not known what _lowness of spirits_ meaned;
+have been more gay, and felt less care, than any bachelor that ever
+lived. 'You are _always in spirits_, Cobbett!' To be sure; for why
+should I not? _Poverty_ I have always set at defiance, and I could,
+therefore, defy the temptations of riches; and, as to _home_ and
+_children_, I had taken care to provide myself with an inexhaustible
+store of that '_sobriety_,' which I am so strongly recommending my
+reader to provide himself with; or, if he cannot do that, to deliberate
+long before he ventures on the life-enduring matrimonial voyage. This
+sobriety is a title to _trust-worthiness_; and _this_, young man, is the
+treasure that you ought to prize far above all others. Miserable is the
+husband, who, when he crosses the threshold of his house, carries with
+him doubts and fears and suspicions. I do not mean suspicions of the
+_fidelity_ of his wife, but of her care, frugality, attention to his
+interests, and to the health and morals of his children. Miserable is
+the man, who cannot leave _all unlocked_, and who is not _sure_, quite
+certain, that all is as safe as if grasped in his own hand. He is the
+happy husband, who can go away, at a moment's warning, leaving his house
+and his family with as little anxiety as he quits an inn, not more
+fearing to find, on his return, any thing wrong, than he would fear a
+discontinuance of the rising and setting of the sun, and if, as in my
+case, leaving books and papers all lying about at sixes and sevens,
+finding them arranged in proper order, and the room, during the lucky
+interval, freed from the effects of his and his ploughman's or
+gardener's dirty shoes. Such a man has no _real cares_; such a man has
+_no troubles_; and this is the sort of life that I have led. I have had
+all the numerous and indescribable delights of home and children, and,
+at the same time, all the bachelor's freedom from domestic cares: and to
+this cause, far more than to any other, my readers owe those labours,
+which I never could have performed, if even the slightest degree of want
+of confidence at home had ever once entered into my mind.
+
+93. But, in order to possess this precious _trust-worthiness_, you must,
+if you can, exercise your _reason_ in the choice of your partner. If she
+be vain of her person, very fond of dress, fond of _flattery_, at all
+given to gadding about, fond of what are called _parties of pleasure_,
+or coquetish, though in the least degree; if either of these, she never
+will be trust-worthy; worthy; she cannot change her nature; and if you
+marry her, you will be _unjust_ if you expect trust-worthiness at her
+hands. But, besides this, even if you find in her that innate
+'_sobriety_' of which I have been speaking, there requires on your part,
+and that at once too, confidence and trust without any limit. Confidence
+is, in this case, nothing unless it be reciprocal. To have a trust-worthy
+wife, you must begin by showing her, even before you are married, that
+you have no suspicions, no fears, no doubts, with regard to her. Many a
+man has been discarded by a virtuous girl, merely on account of his
+querulous conduct. All women despise jealous men; and, if they marry
+such their motive is other than that of affection. Therefore, _begin_ by
+proofs of unlimited confidence; and, as _example_ may serve to assist
+precept, and as I never have preached that which I have not practised, I
+will give you the history of my own conduct in this respect.
+
+94. When I first saw my wife, she was _thirteen years old_, and I was
+within about a month of _twenty-one_. She was the daughter of a Serjeant
+of artillery, and I was the Serjeant-Major of a regiment of foot, both
+stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the Province of
+New-Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her, for about an hour, in
+company with others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl
+for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that I had always
+said should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I
+deemed marks of that sobriety of _conduct_ of which I have said so much,
+and which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now
+dead of winter, and, of course, the snow several feet deep on the
+ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done
+my morning's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill
+at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings after I
+had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up
+two young men to join me in my walk; and our road lay by the house of
+her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow,
+scrubbing out a washing-tub. 'That's the girl for me,' said I, when we
+had got out of her hearing. One of these young men came to England soon
+afterwards; and he, who keeps an inn in Yorkshire, came over to Preston,
+at the time of the election, to verify whether I were the same man. When
+he found that I was, he appeared surprised; but what was his surprise,
+when I told him that those tall young men, whom he saw around me, were
+the _sons_ of that pretty little girl that he and I saw scrubbing out
+the washing-tub on the snow in New-Brunswick at day-break in the
+morning!
+
+95. From the day that I first spoke to her, I never had a thought of her
+ever being the wife of any other man, more than I had a thought of her
+being transformed into a chest of drawers; and I formed my resolution at
+once, to marry her as soon as we could get permission, and to get out of
+the army as soon as I could. So that this matter was, at once, settled
+as firmly as if written in the book of fate. At the end of about six
+months, my regiment, and I along with it, were removed to FREDERICKTON,
+a distance of a _hundred miles_, up the river of ST. JOHN; and, which
+was worse, the artillery were expected to go off to England a year or
+two before our regiment! The artillery went, and she along with them;
+and now it was that I acted a part becoming a real and sensible lover. I
+was aware, that, when she got to that gay place WOOLWICH, the house of
+her father and mother, necessarily visited by numerous persons not the
+most select, might become unpleasant to her, and I did not like,
+besides, that she should continue to _work hard_. I had saved a _hundred
+and fifty guineas_, the earnings of my early hours, in writing for the
+paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in addition to the savings of
+my own pay. _I sent her all my money_, before she sailed; and wrote to
+her to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a
+lodging with respectable people: and, at any rate, not to spare the
+money, by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, and to live
+without hard work, until I arrived in England; and I, in order to induce
+her to lay out the money, told her that I should get plenty more before
+I came home.
+
+96. As the malignity of the devil would have it, we were kept abroad
+_two years longer_ than our time, Mr. PITT (England not being so tame
+then as she is now) having knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka
+Sound. Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt too, I am
+afraid! At the end _of four years_, however, home I came; landed at
+Portsmouth, and got my discharge from the army by the great kindness of
+poor LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, who was then the Major of my regiment. I
+found my little girl _a servant of all work_ (and hard work it was), at
+_five pounds a year_, in the house of a CAPTAIN BRISAC; and, without
+hardly saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands _the whole
+of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken_!
+
+97. Need I tell the reader what my feelings were? Need I tell
+kind-hearted English parents what effect this anecdote _must_ have
+produced on the minds of our children? Need I attempt to describe what
+effect this example ought to have on every young woman who shall do me
+the honour to read this book? Admiration of her conduct, and
+self-gratulation on this indubitable proof of the soundness of my own
+judgment, were now added to my love of her beautiful person.
+
+98. Now, I do not say that there are not many young women of this
+country who would, under similar circumstances, have acted as my wife
+did in this case; on the contrary, I hope, and do sincerely believe,
+that there are. But when _her age_ is considered; when we reflect, that
+she was living in a place crowded, literally _crowded_, with
+gaily-dressed and handsome young men, many of whom really far richer and
+in higher rank than I was, and scores of them ready to offer her their
+hand; when we reflect that she was living amongst young women who put
+upon their backs every shilling that they could come at; when we see her
+keeping the bag of gold untouched, and working hard to provide herself
+with but mere necessary apparel, and doing this while she was passing
+from _fourteen to eighteen years of age_; when we view the whole of the
+circumstances, we must say that here is an example, which, while it
+reflects honour on her sex, ought to have weight with every young woman
+whose eyes or ears this relation shall reach.
+
+99. If any young man imagine, that this great _sobriety of conduct_ in
+young women must be accompanied with seriousness approaching to _gloom_,
+he is, according to my experience and observation, very much deceived.
+The _contrary_ is the fact; for I have found that as, amongst men, your
+jovial companions are, except over the bottle, the dullest and most
+insipid of souls; so amongst women, the gay, rattling, and laughing,
+are, unless some party of pleasure, or something out of domestic life,
+is going on, generally in the dumps and blue-devils. Some _stimulus_ is
+always craved after by this description of women; some sight to be seen,
+something to see or hear other than what is to be found _at home_,
+which, as it affords no incitement, nothing '_to raise and keep up the
+spirits_', is looked upon merely as a place _to be at_ for want of a
+better; merely a place for eating and drinking, and the like; merely a
+biding place, whence to sally in search of enjoyments. A greater curse
+than a wife of this description, it would be somewhat difficult to find;
+and, in your character of Lover, you are to provide against it. I hate a
+dull, melancholy, moping thing: I could not have existed in the same
+house with such a thing for a single month. The mopers are, too, all
+giggle at other times: the gaiety is for others, and the moping for the
+husband, to comfort him, happy man, when he is alone: plenty of smiles
+and of badinage for others, and for him to participate with others; but
+the moping is reserved exclusively for him. One hour she is capering
+about, as if rehearsing a jig; and, the next, sighing to the motion of a
+lazy needle, or weeping over a novel and this is called _sentiment_!
+Music, indeed! Give me a mother singing to her clean and fat and rosy
+baby, and making the house ring with her extravagant and hyperbolical
+encomiums on it. That is the music which is '_the food of love_;' and
+not the formal, pedantic noises, an affectation of skill in which is
+now-a-days the ruin of half the young couples in the middle rank of
+life. Let any man observe, as I so frequently have, with delight, the
+excessive fondness of the labouring people for their children. Let him
+observe with what pride they dress them out on a Sunday, with means
+deducted from their own scanty meals. Let him observe the husband, who
+has toiled all the week like a horse, nursing the baby, while the wife
+is preparing the bit of dinner. Let him observe them both abstaining
+from a sufficiency, lest the children should feel the pinchings of
+hunger. Let him observe, in short, the whole of their demeanour, the
+real mutual affection, evinced, not in words, but in unequivocal deeds.
+Let him observe these things, and, having then cast a look at the lives
+of the great and wealthy, he will say, with me, that, when a man is
+choosing his partner for life, the dread of poverty ought to be cast to
+the winds. A labourer's cottage, on a Sunday; the husband or wife having
+a baby in arms, looking at two or three older ones playing between the
+flower-borders going from the wicket to the door, is, according to my
+taste, the most interesting object that eyes ever beheld; and, it is an
+object to be beheld in no country upon earth but England. In France, a
+labourer's cottage means _a shed_ with a _dung-heap_ before the door;
+and it means much about the same in America, where it is wholly
+inexcusable. In riding once, about five years ago, from Petworth to
+Horsham, on a Sunday in the afternoon, I came to a solitary cottage
+which stood at about twenty yards distance from the road. There was the
+wife with the baby in her arms, the husband teaching another child to
+walk, while _four_ more were at play before them. I stopped and looked
+at them for some time, and then, turning my horse, rode up to the
+wicket, getting into talk by asking the distance to Horsham. I found
+that the man worked chiefly in the woods, and that he was doing pretty
+well. The wife was then only _twenty-two_, and the man only
+_twenty-five_. She was a pretty woman, even for _Sussex_, which, not
+excepting Lancashire, contains the prettiest women in England. He was a
+very fine and stout young man. 'Why,' said I, 'how many children do you
+reckon to have at last?' 'I do not care how many,' said the man: 'God
+never sends mouths without sending meat.' 'Did you ever hear,' said I,
+'of one PARSON MALTHUS?' 'No, sir.' 'Why, if he were to hear of your
+works, he would be outrageous; for he wants an act of parliament to
+prevent poor people from marrying young, and from having such lots of
+children.' 'Oh! the brute!' exclaimed the wife; while the husband
+laughed, thinking that I was joking. I asked the man whether he had ever
+had _relief from the parish_; and upon his answering in the negative, I
+took out my purse, took from it enough to bait my horse at Horsham, and
+to clear my turnpikes to WORTH, whither I was going in order to stay
+awhile, and gave him all the rest. Now, is it not a shame, is it not a
+sin of all sins, that people like these should, by acts of the
+government, be reduced to such misery as to be induced to abandon their
+homes and their country, to seek, in a foreign land, the means of
+preventing themselves and their children from starving? And this has
+been, and now is, actually the case with many such families in this same
+county of Sussex!
+
+100. An _ardent-minded_ young man (who, by-the-by, will, as I am afraid,
+have been wearied by this rambling digression) may fear, that this great
+_sobriety of conduct_ in a young woman, for which I have been so
+strenuously contending, argues a want of that _warmth_, which he
+naturally so much desires; and, if my observation and experience
+warranted the entertaining of this fear, I should say, had I to live my
+life over again, give me the _warmth_, and I will stand my chance as to
+the rest. But, this observation and this experience tell me the
+contrary; they tell me that _levity_ is, ninety-nine times out of a
+hundred, the companion of _a want of ardent feeling_. Prostitutes never
+_love_, and, for the far greater part, never did. Their passion, which
+is more _mere animal_ than any thing else, is easily gratified; they,
+like rakes, change not only without pain, but with pleasure; that is to
+say, pleasure as great as they can enjoy. Women of _light minds_ have
+seldom any _ardent_ passion; love is a mere name, unless confined to one
+object; and young women, in whom levity of conduct is observable, will
+not be thus restricted. I do not, however, recommend a young man to be
+_too severe_ in judging, where the conduct does not go beyond _mere
+levity_, and is not bordering on _loose_ conduct; for something depends
+here upon constitution and animal spirits, and something also upon the
+manners of the country. That levity, which, in a French girl, I should
+not have thought a great deal of, would have frightened me away from an
+English or an American girl. When I was in France, just after I was
+married, there happened to be amongst our acquaintance a gay, sprightly
+girl, of about seventeen. I was remonstrating with her, one day, on the
+facility with which she seemed to shift her smiles from object to
+object; and she, stretching one arm out in an upward direction, the
+other in a downward direction, raising herself upon one foot, leaning
+her body on one side, and thus throwing herself into _flying_ attitude,
+answered my grave lecture by singing, in a very sweet voice
+(significantly bowing her head and smiling at the same time), the
+following lines from the _vaudeville_, in the play of Figaro:
+
+  Si l'amour a des _ailles_;
+  N'est ce pas pour _voltiger_?
+
+That is, if love has _wings_, is it not _to flutter about_ with? The
+wit, argument, and manner, all together, silenced me. She, after I left
+France, married a very worthy man, has had a large family, and has been,
+and is, a most excellent wife and mother. But that which does sometimes
+well in France, does not do here at all. Our manners are more grave:
+steadiness is the rule, and levity the exception. Love may _voltige_ in
+France; but, in England, it cannot, with safety to the lover: and it is
+a truth which, I believe, no man of attentive observation will deny,
+that, as, in general, English wives are _more warm_ in their conjugal
+attachments than those of France, so, with regard to individuals, that
+those English women who are the _most light_ in their manners, and who
+are the _least constant_ in their attachments, have the smallest portion
+of that _warmth_, that indescribable passion which God has given to
+human beings as the great counterbalance to all the sorrows and
+sufferings of life.
+
+101. INDUSTRY. By _industry_, I do not mean merely _laboriousness_,
+merely labour or activity of body, for purposes of gain or of saving;
+for there may be industry amongst those who have more money than they
+know well what to do with: and there may be _lazy ladies_, as well as
+lazy farmers' and tradesmen's wives. There is no state of life in which
+_industry_ in the wife is not necessary to the happiness and prosperity
+of the family, at the head of the household affairs of which she is
+placed. If she be lazy, there will be lazy servants, and, which is a
+great deal worse, children habitually lazy: every thing, however
+necessary to be done, will be put off to the last moment: then it will
+be done badly, and, in many cases, not at all: the dinner will be _too
+late_; the journey or the visit will be tardy; inconveniencies of all
+sorts will be continually arising: there will always be a heavy _arrear_
+of things unperformed; and this, even amongst the most wealthy of all,
+is a great curse; for, if they have no _business_ imposed upon them by
+necessity, they _make business_ for themselves; life would be unbearable
+without it: and therefore a lazy woman must always be a curse, be her
+rank or station what it may.
+
+102. But, _who is to tell_ whether a girl will make an industrious
+woman? How is the purblind lover especially, to be able to ascertain
+whether she, whose smiles and dimples and bewitching lips have half
+bereft him of his senses; how is he to be able to judge, from any thing
+that he can see, whether the beloved object will be industrious or lazy?
+Why, it is very difficult: it is a matter that reason has very little to
+do with; but there are, nevertheless, certain outward and visible signs,
+from which a man, not wholly deprived of the use of his reason, may form
+a pretty accurate judgment as to this matter. It was a story in
+Philadelphia, some years ago, that a young man, who was courting one of
+three sisters, happened to be on a visit to her, when all the three were
+present, and when one said to the others, 'I _wonder_ where _our_ needle
+is.' Upon which he withdrew, as soon as was consistent with the rules of
+politeness, resolved never to think more of a girl who possessed a
+needle only in partnership, and who, it appeared, was not too well
+informed as to the place where even that share was deposited.
+
+103. This was, to be sure, a very flagrant instance of a want of
+industry; for, if the third part of the use of a needle satisfied her
+when single, it was reasonable to anticipate that marriage would banish
+that useful implement altogether. But such instances are seldom suffered
+to come in contact with the eyes and ears of the lover, to disguise all
+defects from whom is the great business, not only of the girl herself,
+but of her whole family. There are, however, certain _outward signs_,
+which, if attended to with care, will serve as pretty sure guides. And,
+first, if you find the _tongue_ lazy, you may be nearly certain that the
+hands and feet are the same. By laziness of the tongue I do not mean
+_silence_; I do not mean an _absence of talk_, for that is, in most
+cases, very good; but, I mean, a _slow_ and _soft utterance_; a sort of
+_sighing out_ of the words instead of _speaking_ them; a sort of letting
+the sounds fall out, as if the party were _sick at stomach_. The
+pronunciation of an industrious person is generally _quick_, _distinct_,
+and the voice, if not strong, _firm_ at the least. Not masculine; as
+feminine as possible; not a _croak_ nor a _bawl_, but a quick, distinct,
+and sound voice. Nothing is much more disgusting than what the sensible
+country people call a _maw-mouthed_ woman. A maw-mouthed man is bad
+enough: he is sure to be a lazy fellow: but, a woman of this
+description, in addition to her laziness, soon becomes the most
+disgusting of mates. In this whole world nothing is much more hateful
+than a female's under jaw, lazily moving up and down, and letting out a
+long string of half-articulate sounds. It is impossible for any man, who
+has any spirit in him, to love such a woman for any length of time.
+
+104. Look a little, also, at the labours of the _teeth_, for these
+correspond with those of the other members of the body, and with the
+operations of the mind. 'Quick at _meals_, quick at _work_,' is a saying
+as old as the hills, in this, the most industrious nation upon earth;
+and never was there a truer saying. But fashion comes in here, and
+decides that you shall not be quick at meals; that you shall sit and be
+carrying on the affair of eating for an hour, or more. Good God! what
+have I not suffered on this account! However, though she must _sit_ as
+long as the rest, and though she must join in the _performance_ (for it
+is a real performance) unto the end of the last scene, she cannot make
+her _teeth_ abandon their character. She may, and must, suffer the slice
+to linger on the plate, and must make the supply slow, in order to fill
+up the time; but when she _does_ bite, she cannot well disguise what
+nature has taught her to do; and you may be assured, that if her jaws
+move in slow time, and if she rather _squeeze_ than bite the food; if
+she so deal with it as to leave you in doubt as to whether she mean
+finally to admit or reject it; if she deal with it thus, set her down as
+being, in her very nature, incorrigibly lazy. Never mind the pieces of
+needle-work, the tambouring, the maps of the world made by her needle.
+Get to see her at work upon a mutton chop, or a bit of bread and cheese;
+and, if she deal quickly with these, you have a pretty good security for
+that activity, that _stirring_ industry, without which a wife is a
+burden instead of being a help. And, as to _love_, it cannot live for
+more than a month or two (in the breast of a man of spirit) towards a
+lazy woman.
+
+105. Another mark of industry is, a _quick step_, and a somewhat _heavy
+tread_, showing that the foot comes down with a _hearty good will_; and
+if the body lean a little forward, and the eyes keep steadily in the
+same direction, while the feet are going, so much the better, for these
+discover _earnestness_ to arrive at the intended point. I do not like,
+and I never liked, your _sauntering_, soft-stepping girls, who move as
+if they were perfectly indifferent as to the result; and, as to the
+_love_ part of the story, whoever expects ardent and lasting affection
+from one of these sauntering girls, will, when too late, find his
+mistake: the character runs the same all the way through; and no man
+ever yet saw a sauntering girl, who did not, when married, make a
+_mawkish_ wife, and a cold-hearted mother; cared very little for either
+by husband or children; and, of course, having no store of those
+blessings which are the natural resources to apply to in sickness and in
+old age.
+
+106. _Early-rising_ is another mark of industry; and though, in the
+higher situations of life, it may be of no importance in a mere
+pecuniary point of view, it is, even there, of importance in other
+respects; for it is, I should imagine, pretty difficult to keep love
+alive towards a woman who _never sees the dew_, never beholds the
+_rising sun_, and who constantly comes directly from a reeking bed to
+the breakfast table, and there chews about, without appetite, the
+choicest morsels of human food. A man might, perhaps, endure this for a
+month or two, without being disgusted; but that is ample allowance of
+time. And, as to people in the middle rank of life, where a living and a
+provision for children is to be sought by labour of some sort or other,
+late rising in the wife is _certain ruin_; and, never was there yet an
+early-rising wife, who had been a late-rising girl. If brought up to
+late rising, she will like it; it will be her _habit_; she will, when
+married, never want excuses for indulging in the habit; at first she
+will be indulged without bounds; to make a _change_ afterwards will be
+difficult; it will be deemed a _wrong_ done to her; she will ascribe it
+to diminished affection; a quarrel must ensue, or, the husband must
+submit to be ruined, or, at the very least, to see half the fruit of his
+labour snored and lounged away. And, is this being _rigid_? Is it being
+_harsh_; is it being _hard_ upon women? Is it the offspring of the
+frigid severity of age? It is none of these: it arises from an ardent
+desire to promote the happiness, and to add to the natural, legitimate,
+and salutary influence, of the female sex. The tendency of this advice
+is to promote the preservation of their health; to prolong the duration
+of their beauty; to cause them to be beloved to the last day of their
+lives; and to give them, during the whole of those lives, weight and
+consequence, of which laziness would render them wholly unworthy.
+
+107. FRUGALITY. This means the contrary of _extravagance_. It does not
+mean _stinginess_; it does not mean a pinching of the belly, nor a
+stripping of the back; but it means an abstaining from all _unnecessary_
+expenditure, and all _unnecessary_ use, of goods of any and of every
+sort; and a quality of great importance it is, whether the rank in life
+be high or low. Some people are, indeed, so rich, they have such an
+overabundance of money and goods, that how to get rid of them would, to
+a looker-on, seem to be their only difficulty. But while the
+inconvenience of even these immense masses is not too great to be
+overcome by a really extravagant woman, who jumps with joy at a basket
+of strawberries at a guinea an ounce, and who would not give a straw for
+green peas later in the year than January; while such a dame would
+lighten the bags of a loan-monger, or shorten the rent-roll of
+half-a-dozen peerages amalgamated into one possession, she would, with
+very little study and application of her talent, send a nobleman of
+ordinary estate to the poor-house or the pension list, which last may be
+justly regarded as the poor-book of the aristocracy. How many noblemen
+and gentlemen, of fine estates, have been ruined and degraded by the
+extravagance of their wives! More frequently by their _own_
+extravagance, perhaps; but, in numerous instances, by that of those
+whose duty it is to assist in upholding their stations by husbanding
+their fortunes.
+
+108. If this be the case amongst the opulent, who have estates to draw
+upon, what must be the consequences of a want of frugality in the middle
+and lower ranks of life? Here it must be fatal, and especially amongst
+that description of persons whose wives have, in many cases, the
+_receiving_ as well as the expending of money. In such a case, there
+wants nothing but extravagance in the wife to make ruin as sure as the
+arrival of old age. To obtain _security_ against this is very difficult;
+yet, if the lover be not _quite blind_, he may easily discover a
+propensity towards extravagance. The object of his addresses will, nine
+times out of ten, not be the manager of a house; but she must have her
+_dress_, and other little matters under her control. If she be _costly_
+in these; if, in these, she step above her rank, or even to the top of
+it; if she purchase all she is _able_ to purchase, and prefer the showy
+to the useful, the gay and the fragile to the less sightly and more
+durable, he may be sure that the disposition will cling to her through
+life. If he perceive in her a taste for costly food, costly furniture,
+costly amusements; if he find her love of gratification to be bounded
+only by her want of means; if he find her full of admiration of the
+trappings of the rich, and of desire to be able to imitate them, he may
+be pretty sure that she will not spare his purse, when once she gets her
+hand into it; and, therefore, if he can bid adieu to her charms, the
+sooner he does it the better.
+
+109. The outward and visible and vulgar signs of extravagance are
+_rings_, _broaches_, _bracelets_, _buckles_, _necklaces_, _diamonds_
+(real or mock), and, in short, all the _hard-ware_ which women put upon
+their persons. These things may be proper enough in _palaces_, or in
+scenes resembling palaces; but, when they make their appearance amongst
+people in the middle rank of life, where, after all, they only serve to
+show that poverty in the parties which they wish to disguise; when the
+nasty, mean, tawdry things make their appearance in this rank of life,
+they are the sure indications of a disposition that will _always be
+straining at what it can never attain_. To marry a girl of this
+disposition is really self-destruction. You never can have either
+property or peace. Earn her a horse to ride, she will want a gig: earn
+the gig, she will want a chariot: get her that, she will long for a
+coach and four: and, from stage to stage, she will torment you to the
+end of her or your days; for, still there will be somebody with a finer
+equipage than you can give her; and, as long as this is the case, you
+will never have rest. Reason would tell her, that she could never be at
+the _top_; that she must stop at some point short of that; and that,
+therefore, all expenses in the rivalship are so much thrown away. But,
+_reason_ and broaches and bracelets do not go in company: the girl who
+has not the sense to perceive that her person is disfigured, and not
+beautified, by parcels of brass and tin (for they are generally little
+better) and other hard-ware, stuck about her body; the girl that is so
+foolish as not to perceive, that, when silks and cottons and cambrics,
+in their neatest form, have done their best, nothing more is to be done;
+the girl that cannot perceive this is too great a fool to be trusted
+with the purse of any man.
+
+110. CLEANLINESS. This is a capital ingredient; for there never yet was,
+and there never will be, love of long duration, sincere and ardent love,
+in any man, towards a '_filthy mate_.' I mean any man _in England_, or
+in those parts of _America_ where the people have descended from the
+English. I do not say, that there are not men enough, even in England,
+to live _peaceably_ and even contentedly, with dirty, sluttish women;
+for, there are some who seem to like the filth well enough. But what I
+contend for is this: that there never can exist, for any length of time,
+_ardent affection_ in any man towards a woman who is filthy either in
+her person, or in her house affairs. Men may be careless as to their own
+persons; they may, from the nature of their business, or from their want
+of time to adhere to neatness in dress, be slovenly in their own dress
+and habits; but, they do not relish this in their wives, who must still
+have _charms_; and charms and filth do not go together.
+
+111. It is not _dress_ that the husband wants to be perpetual: it is not
+_finery_; but _cleanliness_ in every thing. The French women dress
+enough, especially when they _sally forth_. My excellent neighbour, Mr.
+JOHN TREDWELL, of Long Island, used to say, that the French were 'pigs
+in the parlour, and peacocks on the promenade;' an alliteration which
+'CANNING'S SELF' might have envied! This _occasional_ cleanliness is not
+the thing that an English or an American husband wants: he wants it
+always; indoors as well as out; by night as well as by day; on the floor
+as well as on the table; and, however he may grumble about the '_fuss_'
+and the '_expense_' of it, he would grumble more if he had it not. I
+once saw a picture representing the _amusements_ of Portuguese Lovers;
+that is to say, three or four young men, dressed in gold or silver laced
+clothes, each having a young girl, dressed like a princess, and
+affectionately engaged in hunting down and _killing the vermin in his
+head_! This was, perhaps, an _exaggeration_; but that it should have had
+the shadow of foundation, was enough to fill me with contempt for the
+whole nation.
+
+112. The _signs_ of cleanliness are, in the first place, a clean _skin_.
+An English girl will hardly let her lover see the stale dirt between her
+fingers, as I have many times seen it between those of French women, and
+even ladies, of all ages. An English girl will have her _face_ clean, to
+be sure, if there be soap and water within her reach; but, get a glance,
+just a glance, at her _poll_, if you have any doubt upon the subject;
+and, if you find there, or _behind the ears_, what the Yorkshire people
+call _grime_, the sooner you cease your visits the better. I hope, now,
+that no young woman will be offended at this, and think me too severe on
+her sex. I am only saying, I am only telling the women, that which _all
+men think_; and, it is a decided advantage to them to be fully informed
+of _our thoughts_ on the subject. If any one, who shall read this, find,
+upon self-examination, that she is defective in this respect, there is
+plenty of time for correcting the defect.
+
+113. In the _dress_ you can, amongst rich people, find little whereon to
+form a judgment as to cleanliness, because they have not only the dress
+prepared for them, but _put upon them_ into the bargain. But, in the
+middle rank of life, the dress is a good criterion in two respects:
+first, as to its _colour_; for, if the _white_ be a sort of _yellow_,
+cleanly hands would have been at work to prevent that. A _white-yellow_
+cravat, or shirt, on a man, speaks, at once, the character of his wife;
+and, be you assured, that she will not take with your dress pains which
+she has never taken with her own. Then, the manner _of putting on_ the
+dress is no bad foundation for judging. If it be careless, slovenly, if
+it do not fit properly, no matter for its _mean quality_: mean as it may
+be, it may be neatly and trimly put on; and, if it be not, take care of
+yourself; for, as you will soon find to your cost, a sloven in one thing
+is a sloven in all things. The country-people judge greatly from the
+state of the covering of the _ancles_ and, if that be not clean and
+tight, they conclude, that all out of sight is not what it ought to be.
+Look at the _shoes_! If they be trodden on one side, loose on the foot,
+or run down at the heel, it is a very bad sign; and, as to _slip-shod_,
+though at coming down in the morning and even before day-light, make up
+your mind to a rope, rather than to live with a slip-shod wife.
+
+114. Oh! how much do women lose by inattention to these matters! Men, in
+general, say nothing about it to their wives; but they _think_ about it;
+they envy their luckier neighbours; and in numerous cases, consequences
+the most serious arise from this apparently trifling cause. Beauty is
+valuable; it is one of the ties, and a strong tie too; that, however,
+cannot last to old age; but, the charm of cleanliness never ends but
+with life itself. I dismiss this part of my subject with a quotation
+from my 'YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN AMERICA,' containing words which I venture
+to recommend to every young woman to engrave on her heart: 'The sweetest
+flowers, when they become putrid, stink the most; and a nasty woman is
+the nastiest thing in nature.'
+
+115. KNOWLEDGE OF DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. Without more or less of this
+knowledge, _a lady_, even the wife of a peer, is but a poorish thing. It
+was the fashion, in former times, for ladies to understand a great deal
+about these affairs, and it would be very hard to make me believe that
+this did not tend to promote the interests and honour of their husbands.
+The affairs of a great family never can be _well_ managed, if left
+_wholly_ to hirelings; and there are many parts of these affairs in
+which it would be unseemly for the husband to meddle. Surely, no lady
+can be too high in rank to make it proper for her to be well acquainted
+with the characters and general demeanour of all the _female servants_.
+To receive and give them characters is too much to be left to a servant,
+however good, and of service however long. Much of the ease and
+happiness of the great and rich must depend on the character of those by
+whom they are served: they live under the same roof with them; they are
+frequently the children of their tenants, or poorer neighbours; the
+conduct of their whole lives must be influenced by the examples and
+precepts which they here imbibe; and when ladies consider how much more
+weight there must be in one word from them than in ten thousand words
+from a person who, call her what you like, is still a _fellow-servant_,
+it does appear strange that they should forego the performance of this
+at once important and pleasing part of their duty. It was from the
+mansions of noblemen and gentlemen, and not from boarding-schools, that
+farmers and tradesmen formerly took their wives; and though these days
+are gone, with little chance of returning, there is still something left
+for ladies to do in checking that torrent of immorality which is now
+crowding the streets with prostitutes and cramming the jails with
+thieves.
+
+116. I am, however, addressing myself, in this work, to persons in the
+middle rank of life; and here a _knowledge of domestic affairs_ is so
+necessary in every wife, that the lover ought to have it continually in
+his eye. Not only a _knowledge_ of these affairs; not only to know how
+things _ought to be done_, but how _to do them_; not only to know what
+ingredients ought to be put into a pie or a pudding, but to be able _to
+make_ the pie or the pudding. Young people, when they come together,
+ought not, unless they have fortunes, or are in a great way of business,
+to think about _servants_! Servants for what! To help them to eat and
+drink and sleep? When children come, there must be some _help_ in a
+farmer's or tradesman's house; but until then, what call for a servant
+in a house, the master of which has to _earn_ every mouthful that is
+consumed?
+
+117. I shall, when I come to address myself to the husband, have much
+more to say upon this subject of _keeping servants_; but, what the
+lover, if he be not quite blind, has to look to, is, that his intended
+wife know _how to do_ the work of a house, unless he have fortune
+sufficient to keep her like a lady. 'Eating and drinking,' as I observe
+in COTTAGE ECONOMY, came _three times every day_; they must come; and,
+however little we may, in the days of our health and vigour, care about
+choice food and about cookery, we very soon get _tired_ of heavy or
+burnt bread and of spoiled joints of meat: we bear them for a time, or
+for two, perhaps; but, about the third time, we lament _inwardly_; about
+the fifth time, it must be an extraordinary honey-moon that will keep us
+from complaining: if the like continue for a month or two, we begin to
+_repent_, and then adieu to all our anticipated delights. We discover,
+when it is too late, that we have not got a help-mate, but a burden;
+and, the fire of love being damped, the unfortunately educated creature,
+whose parents are more to blame than she is, is, unless she resolve to
+learn her duty, doomed to lead a life very nearly approaching to that of
+misery; for, however considerate the husband, he never can esteem her as
+he would have done, had she been skilled and able in domestic affairs.
+
+118. The mere _manual_ performance of domestic labours is not, indeed,
+absolutely necessary in the female head of the family of professional
+men, such as lawyers, doctors, and parsons; but, even here, and also in
+the case of great merchants and of gentlemen living on their fortunes,
+surely the head of the household ought to be able to give directions as
+to the purchasing of meat, salting meat, making bread, making preserves
+of all sorts, and ought to see the things done, or that they be done.
+She ought to take care that food be well cooked, drink properly prepared
+and kept; that there be always a sufficient supply; that there be good
+living without waste; and that, in her department, nothing shall be seen
+inconsistent with the rank, station, and character of her husband, who,
+if he have a skilful and industrious wife, will, unless he be of a
+singularly foolish turn, gladly leave all these things to her absolute
+dominion, controlled only by the extent of the whole expenditure, of
+which he must be the best, and, indeed, the sole, judge.
+
+119. But, in a farmer's or a tradesman's family, the _manual
+performance_ is absolutely necessary, whether there be servants or not.
+No one knows how to teach another so well as one who has done, and can
+do, the thing himself. It was said of a famous French commander, that,
+in attacking an enemy, he did not say to his men '_go_ on,' but '_come_
+on;' and, whoever have well observed the movements of servants, must
+know what a prodigious difference there is in the effect of the words,
+_go_ and _come_. A very good rule would be, to have nothing to eat, in a
+farmer's or tradesman's house, that the mistress did not know how to
+prepare and to cook; no pudding, tart, pie or cake, that she did not
+know how to make. Never fear the toil to her: exercise is good for
+health; and without _health_ there is _no beauty_; a sick beauty may
+excite pity, but pity is a short-lived passion. Besides, what is the
+labour in such a case? And how many thousands of ladies, who loll away
+the day, would give half their fortunes for that sound sleep which the
+stirring house-wife seldom fails to enjoy.
+
+120. Yet, if a young farmer or tradesman _marry_ a girl, who has been
+brought up to _play music_, to what is called _draw_, to _sing_, to
+waste paper, pen and ink, in writing long and half romantic letters, and
+to see shows, and plays, and read novels; if a young man do _marry_ such
+an unfortunate young creature, let him bear the consequences with
+temper; let him be _just_; and justice will teach him to treat her with
+great indulgence; to endeavour to cause her to learn her business as a
+wife; to be patient with her; to reflect that he has taken her, being
+apprised of her inability; to bear in mind, that he was, or seemed to
+be, pleased with her showy and useless acquirements; and that, when the
+gratification of his passion has been accomplished, he is unjust and
+cruel and unmanly, if he turn round upon her, and accuse her of a want
+of that knowledge, which he well knew that she did not possess.
+
+121. For my part, I do not know, nor can I form an idea of, a more
+unfortunate being than a girl with a mere boarding-school education, and
+without a fortune to enable her to keep a servant, when married. Of what
+_use_ are her accomplishments? Of what use her music, her drawing, and
+her romantic epistles? If she be good in _her nature_, the first little
+faint cry of her first baby drives all the tunes and all the landscapes
+and all the Clarissa Harlowes out of her head for ever. I once saw a
+very striking instance of this sort. It was a climb-over-the-wall match,
+and I gave the bride away, at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, the
+pair being as handsome a pair as ever I saw in my life. Beauty, however,
+though in double quantity, would not pay the baker and butcher; and,
+after an absence of little better than a year, I found the husband in
+prison for debt; but I there found also his wife, with her baby, and
+she, who had never, before her marriage, known what it was to get water
+to wash her own hands, and whose talk was all about music, and the like,
+was now the cheerful sustainer of her husband, and the most affectionate
+of mothers. All the _music_ and all the _drawing_, and all the plays and
+romances were gone to the winds! The husband and baby had fairly
+supplanted them; and even this prison-scene was a blessing, as it gave
+her, at this early stage, an opportunity of proving her devotion to her
+husband, who, though I have not seen him for about fifteen years, he
+being in a part of America which I could not reach when last there, has,
+I am sure, amply repaid her for that devotion. They have now a numerous
+family (not less than twelve children, I believe), and she is, I am
+told, a most excellent and able mistress of a respectable house.
+
+122. But, this is a rare instance: the husband, like his countrymen in
+general, was at once brave, humane, gentle, and considerate, and the
+love was so sincere and ardent, on both sides, that it made losses and
+sufferings appear as nothing. When I, in a sort of half-whisper, asked
+Mrs. DICKENS where her _piano_ was, she smiled, and turned her face
+towards her baby, that was sitting on her knee; as much as to say, 'This
+little fellow has beaten the piano;' and, if what I am now writing
+should ever have the honour to be read by her, let it be the bearer of a
+renewed expression of my admiration of her conduct, and of that regard
+for her kind and sensible husband, which time and distance have not in
+the least diminished, and which will be an inmate of my heart until it
+shall cease to beat.
+
+123. The like of this is, however, not to be expected: no man ought to
+think that he has even a chance of it: besides, the husband was, in this
+case, a man of learning and of great natural ability: he has not had to
+get his bread by farming or trade; and, in all probability, his wife has
+had the leisure to practise those acquirements which she possessed at
+the time of her marriage. But, can this be the case with the farmer or
+the tradesman's wife? She has to _help to earn_ a provision for her
+children; or, at the least, to help to earn a store for sickness or old
+age. She, therefore, ought to be qualified to begin, at once, to assist
+her husband in his earnings: the way in which she can most efficiently
+assist, is by taking care of his property; by expending his money to the
+greatest advantage; by wasting nothing; by making the table sufficiently
+abundant with the least expense. And how is she to do these things,
+unless she have been _brought up_ to understand domestic affairs? How is
+she to do these things, if she have been taught to think these matters
+beneath her study? How is any man to expect her to do these things, if
+she have been so bred up as to make her habitually look upon them as
+worthy the attention of none but low and _ignorant_ women?
+
+124. _Ignorant_, indeed! Ignorance consists in a want of knowledge of
+those things which your calling or state of life naturally supposes you
+to understand. A ploughman is not an _ignorant man_ because he does not
+know how to read: if he knows how to plough, he is not to be called an
+ignorant man; but, a wife may be justly called an ignorant woman, if she
+does not know how to provide a dinner for her husband. It is cold
+comfort for a hungry man, to tell him how delightfully his wife plays
+and sings: lovers may live on very aërial diet; but husbands stand in
+need of the solids; and young women may take my word for it, that a
+constantly clean board, well cooked victuals, a house in order, and a
+cheerful fire, will do more in preserving a husband's heart, than all
+the '_accomplishments_,' taught in all the '_establishments_' in the
+world.
+
+125. GOOD TEMPER. This is a very difficult thing to ascertain
+beforehand. Smiles are so cheap; they are so easily put on for the
+occasion; and, besides, the frowns are, according to the lover's whim,
+interpreted into the contrary. By '_good temper_,' I do not mean _easy
+temper_, a serenity which nothing disturbs, for that is a mark of
+laziness. _Sulkiness_, if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a
+temper to be avoided by all means. A sulky man is bad enough; what,
+then, must be a sulky woman, and that woman _a wife_; a constant inmate,
+a companion day and night! Only think of the delight of sitting at the
+same table, and sleeping in the same bed, for a week, and not exchange a
+word all the while! Very bad to be scolding for such a length of time;
+but this is far better than the sulks. If you have your eyes, and look
+sharp, you will discover symptoms of this, if it unhappily exist. She
+will, at some time or other, show it towards some one or other of the
+family; or, perhaps, towards yourself; and you may be quite sure that,
+in this respect, marriage will not mend her. Sulkiness arises from
+capricious displeasure, displeasure not founded in reason. The party
+takes offence unjustifiably; is unable to frame a complaint, and
+therefore expresses displeasure by silence. The remedy for sulkiness is,
+to suffer it to take its _full swing_; but it is better not to have the
+disease in your house; and to be _married to it_ is little short of
+madness.
+
+126. _Querulousness_ is a great fault. No man, and, especially, no
+_woman_, likes to hear eternal plaintiveness. That she complain, and
+roundly complain, of your want of punctuality, of your coolness, of your
+neglect, of your liking the company of others: these are all very well,
+more especially as they are frequently but too just. But an everlasting
+complaining, without rhyme or reason, is a bad sign. It shows want of
+patience, and, indeed, want of sense. But, the contrary of this, a _cold
+indifference_, is still worse. 'When will you come again? You can never
+find time to come here. You like any company better than mine.' These,
+when groundless, are very teasing, and demonstrate a disposition too
+full of anxiousness; but, from a girl who always receives you with the
+same _civil_ smile, lets you, at your own good pleasure, depart with the
+same; and who, when you take her by the hand, holds her cold fingers as
+straight as sticks, I say (or should if I were young), God, in his
+mercy, preserve me!
+
+127. _Pertinacity_ is a very bad thing in anybody, and especially in a
+young woman; and it is sure to increase in force with the age of the
+party. To have the last word is a poor triumph; but with some people it
+is a species of disease of the mind. In a wife it must be extremely
+troublesome; and, if you find an ounce of it in the maid, it will become
+a pound in the wife. An eternal _disputer_ is a most disagreeable
+companion; and where young women thrust their _say_ into conversations
+carried on by older persons, give their opinions in a positive manner,
+and court a contest of the tongue, those must be very bold men who will
+encounter them as wives.
+
+128. Still, of all the faults as to _temper_, your _melancholy_ ladies
+have the worst, unless you have the same mental disease. Most wives are,
+at times, _misery-makers_; but these carry it on as a regular trade.
+They are always unhappy about _something_, either past, present, or to
+come. Both arms full of children is a pretty efficient remedy in most
+cases; but, if the ingredients be wanting, a little _want_, a little
+_real trouble_, a little _genuine affliction_ must, if you would effect
+a cure, be resorted to. But, this is very painful to a man of any
+feeling; and, therefore, the best way is to avoid a connexion, which is
+to give you a life of wailing and sighs.
+
+129. BEAUTY. Though I have reserved this to the last of the things to be
+desired in a wife, I by no means think it the last in point of
+importance. The less favoured part of the sex say, that 'beauty is but
+_skin-deep_;' and this is very true; but, it is very _agreeable_,
+though, for all that. Pictures are only paint-deep, or pencil-deep; but
+we admire them, nevertheless. "Handsome is that handsome _does_," used
+to say to me an old man, who had marked me out for his not over handsome
+daughter. 'Please your _eye_ and plague your heart' is an adage that
+want of beauty invented, I dare say, more than a thousand years ago.
+These adages would say, if they had but the courage, that beauty is
+inconsistent with chastity, with sobriety of conduct, and with all the
+female virtues. The argument is, that beauty exposes the possessor _to
+greater temptation_ than women not beautiful are exposed to; and that,
+_therefore_, their fall is more probable. Let us see a little how this
+matter stands.
+
+130. It is certainly true, that pretty girls will have more, and more
+ardent, admirers than ugly ones; but, as to the _temptation_ when in
+their unmarried state, there are few so very ugly as to be exposed to no
+_temptation_ at all; and, which is the most likely to resist; she who
+has a choice of lovers, or she who if she let the occasion slip may
+never have it again? Which of the two is most likely to set a high value
+upon her reputation, she whom all beholders admire, or she who is
+admired, at best, by mere chance? And as to women in the married state,
+this argument assumes, that, when they fall, it is from their own
+vicious disposition; when the fact is, that, if you search the annals of
+conjugal infidelity, you will find, that, nine times out of ten, the
+_fault is in the husband_. It is his neglect, his flagrant disregard,
+his frosty indifference, his foul example; it is to these that, nine
+times out of ten, he owes the infidelity of his wife; and, if I were to
+say ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the facts, if verified, would, I
+am certain, bear me out. And whence this neglect, this disregard, this
+frosty indifference; whence this foul example? Because it is easy, in so
+many cases, to find some woman more beautiful than the wife. This is no
+_justification_ for the husband to plead; for he has, with his eyes
+open, made a solemn contract: if he have not beauty enough to please
+him, he should have sought it in some other woman: if, as is frequently
+the case, he have preferred rank or money to beauty, he is an
+unprincipled man, if he do any thing to make her unhappy who has brought
+him the rank or the money. At any rate, as conjugal infidelity is, in so
+many cases; as it is _generally_ caused by the want of affection and due
+attention in the husband, it follows, of course, that it must more
+frequently happen in the case of ugly than in that of handsome women.
+
+131. In point of _dress_, nothing need be said to convince any
+reasonable man, that beautiful women will be less expensive in this
+respect than women of a contrary description. Experience teaches us,
+that ugly women are always the most studious about their dress; and, if
+we had never observed upon the subject, _reason_ would tell us, that it
+must be so. Few women are handsome without knowing it; and if they know
+that their features naturally attract admiration, will they desire to
+draw it off, and to fix it on lace and silks and jewels?
+
+132. As to _manners_ and _temper_ there are certainly some handsome
+women who are conceited and arrogant; but, as they have all the best
+reasons in the world for being pleased with themselves, they afford you
+the best chance of general good humour; and this good humour is a very
+valuable commodity in the married state. Some that are called handsome,
+and that are such at the first glance, are dull, inanimate things, that
+might as well have been made of wax, or of wood. But, the truth is, that
+this is _not beauty_, for this is not to be found _only_ in the _form_
+of the features, but in the movements of them also. Besides, here nature
+is very impartial; for she gives animation promiscuously to the handsome
+as well as to the ugly; and the want of this in the former is surely as
+bearable as in the latter.
+
+133. But, the great use of female beauty, the great practical advantage
+of it is, that it naturally and unavoidably tends to _keep the husband
+in good humour with himself_, to make him, to use the dealer's phrase,
+_pleased with his bargain_. When old age approaches, and the parties
+have become endeared to each other by a long series of joint cares and
+interests, and when children have come and bound them together by the
+strongest ties that nature has in store; at this age the features and
+the person are of less consequence; but, in the _young days_ of
+matrimony, when the roving eye of the bachelor is scarcely become steady
+in the head of the husband, it is dangerous for him to see, every time
+he stirs out, a face more captivating than that of the person to whom he
+is bound for life. Beauty is, in some degree, a matter of _taste_: what
+one man admires, another does not; and it is fortunate for us that it is
+thus. But still there are certain things that all men admire; and a
+husband is always pleased when he perceives that a portion, at least, of
+these things are in his own possession: he takes this possession as a
+_compliment to himself_: there must, he will think the world will
+believe, have been _some merit in him_, some charm, seen or unseen, to
+have caused him to be blessed with the acquisition.
+
+134. And then there arise so many things, sickness, misfortune in
+business, losses, many many things, wholly unexpected; and, there are so
+many circumstances, perfectly _nameless_, to communicate to the
+new-married man the fact, that it is not a real _angel_ of whom he has
+got the possession; there are so many things of this sort, so many and
+such powerful dampers of the passions, and so many incentives to _cool
+reflection_; that it requires something, and a good deal too, to keep
+the husband in countenance in this his altered and enlightened state.
+The passion of women does not cool so soon: the lamp of their love burns
+more steadily, and even brightens as it burns: and, there is, the young
+man may be assured, a vast difference in the effect of the fondness of a
+pretty woman and that of one of a different description; and, let reason
+and philosophy say what they will, a man will come down stairs of a
+morning better pleased after seeing the former, than he would after
+seeing the latter, in her _night-cap_.
+
+135. To be sure, when a man has, from whatever inducement, once married
+a woman, he is unjust and cruel if he even _slight_ her on account of
+her want of beauty, and, if he treat her harshly, on this account, he is
+a brute. But, it requires a greater degree of reflection and
+consideration than falls to the lot of men in general to make them act
+with justice in such a case; and, therefore, the best way is to guard,
+if you can, against the temptation to commit such injustice, which is to
+be done in no other way, than by not marrying any one that you _do not
+think handsome_.
+
+136. I must not conclude this address to THE LOVER without something on
+the subject of _seduction_ and _inconstancy_. In, perhaps, nineteen
+cases out of twenty, there is, in the unfortunate cases of illicit
+gratification, no seduction at all, the passion, the absence of virtue,
+and the crime, being all mutual. But, there are other cases of a very
+different description; and where a man goes coolly and deliberately to
+work, first to gain and rivet the affections of a young girl, then to
+take advantage of those affections to accomplish that which he knows
+must be her ruin, and plunge her into misery for life; when a man does
+this merely for the sake of a momentary gratification, he must be either
+a selfish and unfeeling brute, unworthy of the name of man, or he must
+have a heart little inferior, in point of obduracy, to that of the
+murderer. Let young women, however, be aware; let them be well aware,
+that few, indeed, are the cases in which this apology can possibly avail
+them. Their character is not solely theirs, but belongs, in part, to
+their family and kindred. They may, in the case contemplated, be objects
+of compassion with the world; but what contrition, what repentance, what
+remorse, what that even the tenderest benevolence can suggest, is to
+heal the wounded hearts of humbled, disgraced, but still affectionate,
+parents, brethren and sisters?
+
+137. As to _constancy_ in Lovers, though I do not approve of the saying,
+'At lovers' lies Jove laughs;' yet, when people are young, one object
+may supplant another in their affections, not only without criminality
+in the party experiencing the change, but without blame; and it is
+honest, and even humane, to act upon the change; because it would be
+both foolish and cruel to marry one girl while you liked another better:
+and the same holds good with regard to the other sex. Even when
+_marriage_ has been _promised_, and that, too, in the most solemn
+manner, it is better for both parties to break off, than to be coupled
+together with the reluctant assent of either; and I have always thought,
+that actions for damages, on this score, if brought by the girl, show a
+want of delicacy as well as of spirit; and, if brought by the man,
+excessive meanness. Some damage may, indeed, have been done to the
+complaining party; but no damage equal to what that party would have
+sustained from a marriage, to which the other party would have yielded
+by a sort of compulsion, producing to almost a certainty what Hogarth,
+in his _Marriage à la Mode_, most aptly typifies by two curs, of
+different sexes, fastened together by what sportsmen call _couples_,
+pulling different ways, and snarling and barking and foaming like
+furies.
+
+138. But when promises have been made to a young woman; when they have
+been relied on for any considerable time; when it is manifest that her
+peace and happiness, and, perhaps, her life, depend upon their
+fulfilment; when things have been carried to this length, the change in
+the Lover ought to be announced in the manner most likely to make the
+disappointment as supportable as the case will admit of; for, though it
+is better to break the promise than to marry one while you like another
+better; though it is better for both parties, you have no right to break
+the heart of her who has, and that, too, with your accordance, and,
+indeed, at your instigation, or, at least, by your encouragement,
+confided it to your fidelity. You cannot help your change of affections;
+but you can help making the transfer in such a way as to cause the
+destruction, or even probable destruction, nay, if it were but the deep
+misery, of her, to gain whose heart you had pledged your own. You ought
+to proceed by slow degrees; you ought to call time to your aid in
+executing the painful task; you ought scrupulously to avoid every thing
+calculated to aggravate the sufferings of the disconsolate party.
+
+139. A striking, a monstrous, instance of conduct the contrary of this
+has recently been placed upon the melancholy records of the Coroner of
+Middlesex; which have informed an indignant public, that a young man,
+having first secured the affections of a virtuous young woman, next
+promised her marriage, then caused the banns to be published, and then,
+on the very day appointed for the performance of the ceremony, married
+another woman, in the same church; and this, too, without, as he avowed,
+any provocation, and without the smallest intimation or hint of his
+intention to the disappointed party, who, unable to support existence
+under a blow so cruel, put an end to that existence by the most deadly
+and the swiftest poison. If any thing could wipe from our country the
+stain of having given birth to a monster so barbarous as this, it would
+be the abhorrence of him which the jury expressed; and which, from every
+tongue, he ought to hear to the last moment of his life.
+
+140. Nor has a man any right to _sport_ with the affections of a young
+woman, though he stop short of _positive promises_. Vanity is generally
+the tempter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being admired by
+the women: a very despicable species of vanity, but frequently greatly
+mischievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, actually, in so many
+words, promise to marry; but the general tenor of your language and
+deportment has that meaning; you know that your meaning is so
+understood; and if you have not such meaning; if you be fixed by some
+previous engagement with, or greater liking for, another; if you know
+you are here sowing the seeds of disappointment; and if you, keeping
+your previous engagement or greater liking a secret, persevere, in spite
+of the admonitions of conscience, you are guilty of deliberate
+deception, injustice and cruelty: you make to God an ungrateful return
+for those endowments which have enabled you to achieve this inglorious
+and unmanly triumph; and if, as is frequently the case, you _glory_ in
+such triumph, you may have person, riches, talents to excite envy; but
+every just and humane man will abhor your heart.
+
+141. There are, however, certain cases in which you deceive, or nearly
+deceive, _yourself_; cases in which you are, by degrees and by
+circumstances, deluded into something very nearly resembling sincere
+love for a second object, the first still, however, maintaining her
+ground in your heart; cases in which you are not actuated by vanity, in
+which you are not guilty of injustice and cruelty; but cases in which
+you, nevertheless, _do wrong_: and as I once did a wrong of this sort
+myself, I will here give a history of it, as a warning to every young
+man who shall read this little book; that being the best and, indeed,
+the only atonement, that I can make, or ever could have made, for this
+only _serious sin_ that I ever committed against the female sex.
+
+142. The Province of New Brunswick, in North America, in which I passed
+my years from the age of eighteen to that of twenty-six, consists, in
+general, of heaps of rocks, in the interstices of which grow the pine,
+the spruce, and various sorts of fir trees, or, where the woods have
+been burnt down, the bushes of the raspberry or those of the
+huckleberry. The province is cut asunder lengthwise, by a great river,
+called the St. John, about two hundred miles in length, and, at half way
+from the mouth, full a mile wide. Into this main river run innumerable
+smaller rivers, there called CREEKS. On the sides of these creeks the
+land is, in places, clear of rocks; it is, in these places, generally
+good and productive; the trees that grow here are the birch, the maple,
+and others of the deciduous class; natural meadows here and there
+present themselves; and some of these spots far surpass in rural beauty
+any other that my eyes ever beheld; the creeks, abounding towards their
+sources in water-falls of endless variety, as well in form as in
+magnitude, and always teeming with fish, while water-fowl enliven their
+surface, and while wild-pigeons, of the gayest plumage, flutter, in
+thousands upon thousands, amongst the branches of the beautiful trees,
+which, sometimes, for miles together, form an arch over the creeks.
+
+143. I, in one of my rambles in the woods, in which I took great
+delight, came to a spot at a very short distance from the source of one
+of these creeks. Here was every thing to delight the eye, and especially
+of one like me, who seem to have been born to love rural life, and trees
+and plants of all sorts. Here were about two hundred acres of natural
+meadow, interspersed with patches of maple-trees in various forms and of
+various extent; the creek (there about thirty miles from its point of
+joining the St. John) ran down the middle of the spot, which formed a
+sort of dish, the high and rocky hills rising all round it, except at
+the outlet of the creek, and these hills crowned with lofty pines: in
+the hills were the sources of the creek, the waters of which came down
+in cascades, for any one of which many a nobleman in England would, if
+he could transfer it, give a good slice of his fertile estate; and in
+the creek, at the foot of the cascades, there were, in the season,
+salmon the finest in the world, and so abundant, and so easily taken, as
+to be used for manuring the land.
+
+144. If nature, in her very best humour, had made a spot for the express
+purpose of captivating me, she could not have exceeded the efforts which
+she had here made. But I found something here besides these rude works
+of nature; I found something in the fashioning of which _man_ had had
+something to do. I found a large and well-built log dwelling house,
+standing (in the month of September) on the edge of a very good field of
+Indian Corn, by the side of which there was a piece of buck-wheat just
+then mowed. I found a homestead, and some very pretty cows. I found all
+the things by which an easy and happy farmer is surrounded: and I found
+still something besides all these; something that was destined to give
+me a great deal of pleasure and also a great deal of pain, both in their
+extreme degree; and both of which, in spite of the lapse of forty years,
+now make an attempt to rush back into my heart.
+
+145. Partly from misinformation, and partly from miscalculation, I had
+lost my way; and, quite alone, but armed with my sword and a brace of
+pistols, to defend myself against the bears, I arrived at the log-house
+in the middle of a moonlight night, the hoar frost covering the trees
+and the grass. A stout and clamorous dog, kept off by the gleaming of my
+sword, waked the master of the house, who got up, received me with great
+hospitality, got me something to eat, and put me into a feather-bed, a
+thing that I had been a stranger to for some years. I, being very tired,
+had tried to pass the night in the woods, between the trunks of two
+large trees, which had fallen side by side, and within a yard of each
+other. I had made a nest for myself of dry fern, and had made a covering
+by laying boughs of spruce across the trunks of the trees. But unable to
+sleep on account of the cold; becoming sick from the great quantity of
+water that I had drank during the heat of the day, and being, moreover,
+alarmed at the noise of the bears, and lest one of them should find me
+in a defenceless state, I had roused myself up, and had crept along as
+well as I could. So that no hero of eastern romance ever experienced a
+more enchanting change.
+
+146. I had got into the house of one of those YANKEE LOYALISTS, who, at
+the close of the revolutionary war (which, until it had succeeded, was
+called a rebellion) had accepted of grants of land in the King's
+Province of New Brunswick; and who, to the great honour of England, had
+been furnished with all the means of making new and comfortable
+settlements. I was suffered to sleep till breakfast time, when I found a
+table, the like of which I have since seen so many in the United States,
+loaded with good things. The master and the mistress of the house, aged
+about fifty, were like what an English farmer and his wife were half a
+century ago. There were two sons, tall and stout, who appeared to have
+come in from work, and the youngest of whom was about my age, then
+twenty-three. But there was _another member_ of the family, aged
+nineteen, who (dressed according to the neat and simple fashion of New
+England, whence she had come with her parents five or six years before)
+had her long light-brown hair twisted nicely up, and fastened on the top
+of her head, in which head were a pair of lively blue eyes, associated
+with features of which that softness and that sweetness, so
+characteristic of American girls, were the predominant expressions, the
+whole being set off by a complexion indicative of glowing health, and
+forming, figure, movements, and all taken together, an assemblage of
+beauties, far surpassing any that I had ever seen but _once_ in my life.
+That _once_ was, too, _two years agone_; and, in such a case and at such
+an age, two years, two whole years, is a long, long while! It was a
+space as long as the eleventh part of my then life! Here was the
+_present_ against the _absent_: here was the power of the _eyes_ pitted
+against that of the _memory_: here were all the senses up in arms to
+subdue the influence of the thoughts: here was vanity, here was passion,
+here was the spot of all spots in the world, and here were also the
+life, and the manners and the habits and the pursuits that I delighted
+in: here was every thing that imagination can conceive, united in a
+conspiracy against the poor little brunette in England! What, then, did
+I fall in love at once with this bouquet of lilies and roses? Oh! by no
+means. I was, however, so enchanted with _the place_; I so much enjoyed
+its tranquillity, the shade of the maple trees, the business of the
+farm, the sports of the water and of the woods, that I stayed at it to
+the last possible minute, promising, at my departure, to come again as
+often as I possibly could; a promise which I most punctually fulfilled.
+
+147. Winter is the great season for jaunting and _dancing_ (called
+_frolicking_) in America. In this Province the river and the creeks were
+the only _roads_ from settlement to settlement. In summer we travelled
+in _canoes_; in winter in _sleighs_ on the ice or snow. During more than
+two years I spent all the time I could with my Yankee friends: they were
+all fond of me: I talked to them about country affairs, my evident
+delight in which they took as a compliment to themselves: the father and
+mother treated me as one of their children; the sons as a brother; and
+the daughter, who was as modest and as full of sensibility as she was
+beautiful, in a way to which a chap much less sanguine than I was would
+have given the tenderest interpretation; which treatment I, especially
+in the last-mentioned case, most cordially repaid.
+
+148. It is when you meet in company with others of your own age that you
+are, in love matters, put, most frequently, to the test, and exposed to
+detection. The next door neighbour might, in that country, be ten miles
+off. We used to have a frolic, sometimes at one house and sometimes at
+another. Here, where female eyes are very much on the alert, no secret
+can long be kept; and very soon father, mother, brothers and the whole
+neighbourhood looked upon the thing as certain, not excepting herself,
+to whom I, however, had never once even talked of marriage, and had
+never even told her that I _loved_ her. But I had a thousand times done
+these by _implication_, taking into view the interpretation that she
+would naturally put upon my looks, appellations and acts; and it was of
+this, that I had to accuse myself. Yet I was not a _deceiver_; for my
+affection for her was very great: I spent no really pleasant hours but
+with her: I was uneasy if she showed the slightest regard for any other
+young man: I was unhappy if the smallest matter affected her health or
+spirits: I quitted her in dejection, and returned to her with eager
+delight: many a time, when I could get leave but for a day, I paddled in
+a canoe two whole succeeding nights, in order to pass that day with her.
+If this was not love, it was first cousin to it; for as to any
+_criminal_ intention I no more thought of it, in her case, than if she
+had been my sister. Many times I put to myself the questions: 'What am I
+at? Is not this wrong? _Why do I go?_' But still I went.
+
+149. Then, further in my excuse, my _prior engagement_, though carefully
+left unalluded to by both parties, was, in that thin population, and
+owing to the singular circumstances of it, and to the great talk that
+there always was about me, _perfectly well known_ to her and all her
+family. It was matter of so much notoriety and conversation in the
+Province, that GENERAL CARLETON (brother of the late Lord Dorchester),
+who was the Governor when I was there, when he, about fifteen years
+afterwards, did me the honour, on his return to England, to come and see
+me at my house in Duke Street, Westminster, asked, before he went away,
+to see my _wife_, of whom _he had heard so much_ before her marriage. So
+that here was no _deception_ on my part: but still I ought not to have
+suffered even the most distant hope to be entertained by a person so
+innocent, so amiable, for whom I had so much affection, and to whose
+heart I had no right to give a single twinge. I ought, from the very
+first, to have prevented the possibility of her ever feeling pain on my
+account. I was young, to be sure; but I was old enough to know what was
+my duty in this case, and I ought, dismissing my own feelings, to have
+had the resolution to perform it.
+
+150. The _last parting_ came; and now came my just punishment! The time
+was known to every body, and was irrevocably fixed; for I had to move
+with a regiment, and the embarkation of a regiment is an _epoch_ in a
+thinly settled province. To describe this parting would be too painful
+even at this distant day, and with this frost of age upon my head. The
+kind and virtuous father came forty miles to see me just as I was going
+on board in the river. _His_ looks and words I have never forgotten. As
+the vessel descended, she passed the mouth of _that creek_ which I had
+so often entered with delight; and though England, and all that England
+contained, were before me, I lost sight of this creek with an aching
+heart.
+
+151. On what trifles turn the great events in the life of man! If I had
+received a _cool_ letter from my intended wife; if I had only heard a
+rumour of any thing from which fickleness in her might have been
+inferred; if I had found in her any, even the smallest, abatement of
+affection; if she had but let go any one of the hundred strings by which
+she held my heart: if any of these, never would the world have heard of
+me. Young as I was; able as I was as a soldier; proud as I was of the
+admiration and commendations of which I was the object; fond as I was,
+too, of the command, which, at so early an age, my rare conduct and
+great natural talents had given me; sanguine as was my mind, and
+brilliant as were my prospects: yet I had seen so much of the
+meannesses, the unjust partialities, the insolent pomposity, the
+disgusting dissipations of that way of life, that I was weary of it: I
+longed, exchanging my fine laced coat for the Yankee farmer's home-spun,
+to be where I should never behold the supple crouch of servility, and
+never hear the hectoring voice of authority, again; and, on the lonely
+banks of this branch-covered creek, which contained (she out of the
+question) every thing congenial to my taste and dear to my heart, I,
+unapplauded, unfeared, unenvied and uncalumniated, should have lived and
+died.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV
+
+TO A HUSBAND
+
+152. It is in this capacity that your conduct will have the greatest
+effect on your happiness; and a great deal will depend on the manner in
+which you _begin_. I am to suppose that you have made a _good choice_;
+but a good young woman may be made, by a weak, a harsh, a neglectful, an
+extravagant, or a profligate husband, a really bad wife and mother. All
+in a wife, beyond her own natural disposition and education is, nine
+times out of ten, the work of her husband.
+
+153. The first thing of all, be the rank in life what it may, is to
+convince her of the necessity of _moderation in expense_; and to make
+her clearly see the justice of beginning to act upon the presumption,
+that there are _children coming_, that they are to be provided for, and
+that she is to _assist_ in the making of that provision. Legally
+speaking, we have a right to do what we please with our own property,
+which, however, is not our own, unless it exceed our debts. And, morally
+speaking, we, at the moment of our marriage, contract a debt with the
+naturally to be expected fruit of it; and, therefore (reserving further
+remarks upon this subject till I come to speak of the education of
+children), the scale of expense should, at the beginning, be as low as
+that of which a due attention to rank in life will admit.
+
+154. The great danger of all is, beginning with _servants_, or a
+_servant_. Where there are riches, or where the business is so great as
+to demand _help_ in the carrying on of the affairs of a house, one or
+more female servants must be kept; but, where the work of a house can be
+done by one pair of hands, why should there be two; especially as you
+cannot have the hands without having the _mouth_, and, which is
+frequently not less costly, inconvenient and injurious, the _tongue_?
+When children come, there must, at times, be some foreign aid; but,
+until then, what need can the wife of a young tradesman, or even farmer
+(unless the family be great) have of a servant? The wife is young, and
+why is she not to work as well as the husband? What justice is there in
+wanting you to keep two women instead of one? You have not married them
+both in form; but, if they be inseparable, you have married them in
+substance; and if you are free from the crime of bigamy, you have the
+far most burthensome part of its consequences.
+
+155. I am well aware of the unpopularity of this doctrine; well aware of
+its hostility to prevalent habits; well aware that almost every
+tradesman and every farmer, though with scarcely a shilling to call his
+own; and that every clerk, and every such person, begins by keeping a
+servant, and that the latter is generally provided before the wife be
+installed: I am well aware of all this; but knowing, from long and
+attentive observation, that it is the great bane of the marriage life;
+the great cause of that penury, and of those numerous and tormenting
+embarrassments, amidst which conjugal felicity can seldom long be kept
+alive, I give the advice, and state the reasons on which it was founded.
+
+156. In London, or near it, a maid servant cannot be kept at an expense
+so low as that of _thirty pounds a year_; for, besides her wages, board
+and lodging, there must be a _fire_ solely for her; or she must sit with
+the husband and wife, hear every word that passes between them, and
+between them and their friends; which will, of course, greatly add to
+the pleasures of their fire-side! To keep her tongue still would be
+impossible, and, indeed, unreasonable; and if, as may frequently happen,
+she be prettier than the wife, she will know how to give the suitable
+interpretation to the looks which, to a next to a certainty, she will
+occasionally get from him, whom, as it were in mockery, she calls by the
+name of '_master_.' This is almost downright bigamy; but this can never
+do; and, therefore, she must have a _fire to herself_. Besides the blaze
+of coals, however, there is another sort of _flame_ that she will
+inevitably covet. She will by no means be sparing of the coals; but,
+well fed and well lodged, as _she_ will be, whatever you may be, she
+will naturally sigh for the fire of love, for which she carries in her
+bosom a match always ready prepared. In plain language, you have a man
+to keep, a part, at least, of every week; and the leg of lamb, which
+might have lasted you and your wife for three days, will, by this
+gentleman's sighs, be borne away in one. Shut the door against this
+intruder; out she goes herself; and, if she go empty-handed, she is no
+true Christian, or, at least, will not be looked upon as such by the
+charitable friend at whose house she meets the longing soul, dying
+partly with love and partly with hunger.
+
+157. The cost, altogether, is nearer fifty pounds a year than thirty.
+How many thousands of tradesmen and clerks, and the like, who might have
+passed through life without a single embarrassment, have lived in
+continual trouble and fear, and found a premature grave, from this very
+cause, and this cause alone! When I, on my return from America, in 1800,
+lived a short time in Saint James's Street, following my habit of early
+rising, I used to see the servant maids, at almost every house,
+dispensing charity at the expense of their masters, long before they,
+good men, opened their eyes, who thus did deeds of benevolence, not only
+without boasting of them, but without knowing of them. Meat, bread,
+cheese, butter, coals, candles; all came with equal freedom from these
+liberal hands. I have observed the same, in my early walks and rides, in
+every part of this great place and its environs. Where there is _one_
+servant it is worse than where there are _two_ or more; for, happily for
+their employers, they do not always agree. So that the oppression is
+most heavy on those who are the least able to bear it: and particularly
+on _clerk_, and such like people, whose wives seem to think, that,
+because the husband's work is of a genteel description, they ought to
+live the life of _ladies_. Poor fellows! their work is not hard and
+rough, to be sure; but, it is _work_, and work for many hours too, and
+painful enough; and as to their income, it scarcely exceeds, on an
+average, the double, at any rate, of that of a journeyman carpenter,
+bricklayer, or tailor.
+
+158. Besides, the man and wife will live on cheaper diet and drink than
+a servant will live. Thousands, who would never have had beer in their
+house, have it for the servant, who will not live without it. However
+frugal your wife, her frugality is of little use, if she have one of
+these inmates to provide for. Many a hundred thousand times has it
+happened that the butcher and the butter-man have been applied to solely
+because there was a servant to satisfy. You cannot, with this clog
+everlastingly attached to you, be frugal, if you would: you can save
+nothing against the days of expense, which are, however, pretty sure to
+come. And why should you bring into your house a trouble like this; an
+absolute annoyance; a something for your wife to watch, to be a
+constraint upon her, to thwart her in her best intentions, to make her
+uneasy, and to sour her temper? Why should you do this foolish thing?
+Merely to comply with corrupt fashion; merely from false shame, and
+false and contemptible pride? If a young man were, on his marriage, to
+find any difficulty in setting this ruinous fashion at defiance, a very
+good way would be to count down to his wife, at the end of every week,
+the amount of the expense of a servant for that week, and request her to
+deposit it in her drawer. In a short time she would find the sum so
+large, that she would be frightened at the thoughts of a servant; and
+would never dream of one again, except in case of absolute necessity,
+and then for as short a time as possible.
+
+159. But the wife may not be _able_ to do all the work to be done in the
+house. Not _able_! A young woman not able to cook and wash, and mend and
+make, and clean the house and make the bed for one young man and
+herself, and that young man her husband too, who is quite willing (if he
+be worth a straw) to put up with cold dinner, or with a crust; to get up
+and light her fire; to do any thing that the mind can suggest to spare
+her labour, and to conduce to her convenience! Not _able_ to do this?
+Then, if she brought no fortune, and he had none, she ought not to have
+been _able to marry_: and, let me tell you, young man, a _small fortune_
+would not put a servant-keeping wife upon an equality with one who
+required no such inmate.
+
+160. If, indeed, the work of a house were _harder_ than a young woman
+could perform without pain, or great fatigue; if it had a tendency to
+impair her health or deface her beauty; then you might hesitate: but, it
+is not too hard, and it tends to preserve health, to keep the spirits
+buoyant, and, of course, to preserve beauty. You often hear girls, while
+scrubbing or washing, singing till they are out of breath; but never
+while they are at what they call _working_ at the needle. The American
+wives are most exemplary in this respect. They have none of that false
+pride, which prevents thousands in England from doing that which
+interest, reason, and even their own inclination would prompt them to
+do. They work, not from necessity; not from compulsion of any sort; for
+their husbands are the most indulgent in the whole world. In the towns
+they go to the market, and cheerfully carry home the result: in the
+country, they not only do the work in the house, but extend their
+labours to the garden, plant and weed and hoe, and gather and preserve
+the fruits and the herbs; and this, too, in a climate far from being so
+favourable to labour as that of England; and they are amply repaid for
+these by those gratifications which their excellent economy enables
+their husbands to bestow upon them, and which it is their universal
+habit to do with a liberal hand.
+
+161. But did I _practise_ what I am here preaching? Aye, and to the full
+extent. Till I had a second child, no servant ever entered my house,
+though well able to keep one; and never, in my whole life, did I live in
+a house so clean, in such trim order, and never have I eaten or drunk,
+or slept or dressed, in a manner so perfectly to my fancy, as I did
+then. I had a great deal of business to attend to, that took me a great
+part of the day from home; but, whenever I could spare a minute from
+business, the child was in my arms; I rendered the mother's labour as
+light as I could; any bit of food satisfied me; when watching was
+necessary, we shared it between us; and that famous GRAMMAR for teaching
+French people English, which has been for thirty years, and still is,
+the great work of this kind, throughout all America, and in every nation
+in Europe, was written by me, in hours not employed in business, and, in
+great part, during my share of the night-watchings over a sick, and then
+only child, who, after lingering many months, died in my arms.
+
+162. This was the way that we went on: this was the way that we _began_
+the married life; and surely, that which we did with pleasure no young
+couple, unendowed with fortune, ought to be ashamed to do. But she may
+be _ill_; the time may be near at hand, or may have actually arrived,
+when she must encounter that particular pain and danger of which _you
+have been the happy cause_! Oh! that is quite another matter! And if you
+now exceed in care, in watchings over her, in tender attention to all
+her wishes, in anxious efforts to quiet her fears; if you exceed in
+pains and expense to procure her relief and secure her life; if you, in
+any of these, exceed that which I would recommend, you must be romantic
+indeed! She deserves them all, and more than all, ten thousand times
+told. And now it is that you feel the blessing conferred by her economy.
+That heap of money, which might have been squandered on, or by, or in
+consequence of, an useless servant, you now have in hand wherewith to
+procure an abundance of that skill and that attendance of which she
+stands in absolute need; and she, when restored to you in smiling
+health, has the just pride to reflect, that she may have owed her life
+and your happiness to the effects of her industry.
+
+163. It is the _beginning_ that is every thing in this important case;
+and you will have, perhaps, much to do to convince her, not that what
+you recommend is advantageous; not that it is right; but to convince her
+that she can do it without sinking below the station that she ought to
+maintain. She would cheerfully do it; but there are her _next-door
+neighbours_, who do not do it, though, in all other respects, on a par
+with her. It is not laziness, but pernicious fashion, that you will have
+to combat. But the truth is, that there ought to be _no combat_ at all;
+this important matter ought to be settled and fully agreed on
+_beforehand_. If she really love you, and have common sense, she will
+not hesitate a moment; and if she be deficient in either of these
+respects; and if you be so mad in love as to be unable to exist without
+her, it is better to cease to exist at once, than to become the toiling
+and embarrassed slave of a wasting and pillaging servant.
+
+164. The next thing to be attended to is, your _demeanor_ towards a
+young wife. As to oldish ones, or widows, time and other things have, in
+most cases, blunted their feelings, and rendered harsh or stern demeanor
+in the husband a matter not of heart-breaking consequence. But with a
+young and inexperienced one, the case is very different; and you should
+bear in mind, that the first frown that she receives from _you_ is a
+dagger to her heart. Nature has so ordered it, that men shall become
+less ardent in their passion after the wedding day; and that women shall
+not. Their ardour increases rather than the contrary; and they are
+surprisingly quick-sighted and inquisitive on this score. When the
+_child_ comes, it divides this ardour with the father; but until then
+you have it all; and if you have a mind to be happy, repay it with all
+your soul. Let what may happen to put you out of humour with others, let
+nothing put you out of humour with her. Let your words and looks and
+manners be just what they were before you called her wife.
+
+165. But now, and throughout your life, show your affection for her, and
+your admiration of her, not in nonsensical compliment; not in picking up
+her handkerchief, or her glove, or in carrying her fan or parasol; not,
+if you have the means, in hanging trinkets and baubles upon her; not in
+making yourself a fool by winking at, and seeming pleased at, her
+foibles, or follies, or faults; but show them by acts of real goodness
+towards her; prove by unequivocal deeds the high value that you set on
+her health and life and peace of mind; let your praise of her go to the
+full extent of her deserts, but let it be consistent with truth and with
+sense, and such as to convince her of your sincerity. He who is the
+flatterer of his wife only prepares her ears for the hyperbolical stuff
+of others. The kindest appellation that her Christian name affords is
+the best you can use, especially before faces. An everlasting '_my
+dear_' is but a sorry compensation for a want of that sort of love that
+makes the husband cheerfully toil by day, break his rest by night,
+endure all sorts of hardships, if the life or health of his wife demand
+it. Let your deeds, and not your words, carry to her heart a daily and
+hourly confirmation of the fact, that you value her health and life and
+happiness beyond all other things in the world; and let this be manifest
+to her, particularly at those times when life is always more or less in
+danger.
+
+166. I began my young marriage days in and near Philadelphia. At one of
+those times to which I have just alluded, in the middle of the burning
+hot month of July, I was greatly afraid of fatal consequences to my wife
+for want of sleep, she not having, after the great danger was over, had
+any sleep for more than forty-eight hours. All great cities, in hot
+countries, are, I believe, full of dogs; and they, in the very hot
+weather, keep up, during the night, a horrible barking and fighting and
+howling. Upon the particular occasion to which I am adverting, they made
+a noise so terrible and so unremitted, that it was next to impossible
+that even a person in full health and free from pain should obtain a
+minute's sleep. I was, about nine in the evening, sitting by the bed: 'I
+do think,' said she, 'that I could go to sleep _now_, if it were not
+_for the dogs_.' Down stairs I went, and out I sallied, in my shirt and
+trowsers, and without shoes and stockings; and, going to a heap of
+stones lying beside the road, set to work upon the dogs, going backward
+and forward, and keeping them at two or three hundred yards' distance
+from the house. I walked thus the whole night, barefooted, lest the
+noise of my shoes might possibly reach her ears; and I remember that the
+bricks of the causeway were, even in the night, so hot as to be
+disagreeable to my feet. My exertions produced the desired effect: a
+sleep of several hours was the consequence; and, at eight o'clock in the
+morning, off went I to a day's business, which was to end at six in the
+evening.
+
+167. Women are all patriots of the soil; and when her neighbours used to
+ask my wife whether _all_ English husbands were like hers, she boldly
+answered in the affirmative. I had business to occupy the whole of my
+time, Sundays and weekdays, except sleeping hours; but I used to make
+time to assist her in the taking care of her baby, and in all sorts of
+things: get up, light her fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm
+water in cold weather, take the child while she dressed herself and got
+the breakfast ready, then breakfast, get her in water and wood for the
+day, then dress myself neatly, and sally forth to my business. The
+moment that was over I used to hasten back to her again; and I no more
+thought of spending a moment _away from her_, unless business compelled
+me, than I thought of quitting the country and going to sea. The
+_thunder_ and _lightning_ are tremendous in America, compared with what
+they are in England. My wife was, at one time, very much afraid of
+thunder and lightning; and as is the feeling of all such women, and,
+indeed, all men too, she wanted company, and particularly her husband,
+in those times of danger. I knew well, of course, that my presence would
+not diminish the danger; but, be I at what I might, if within reach of
+home, I used to quit my business and hasten to her, the moment I
+perceived a thunder storm approaching. Scores of miles have I, first and
+last, _run_ on this errand, in the streets of Philadelphia! The
+Frenchmen, who were my scholars, used to laugh at me exceedingly on this
+account; and sometimes, when I was making an appointment with them, they
+would say, with a smile and a bow, '_Sauve la tonnerre toujours,
+Monsieur Cobbett_.'
+
+168. I never _dangled_ about at the heels of my wife; seldom, very
+seldom, ever _walked out_, as it is called, with her; I never 'went _a
+walking_' in the whole course of my life; never went to walk without
+having some _object_ in view other than the walk; and, as I never could
+walk at a slow pace, it would have been _hard work_ for her to keep up
+with me; so that, in the nearly forty years of our married life, we have
+not walked out together, perhaps, twenty times. I hate a _dangler_, who
+is more like a footman than a husband. It is very cheap to be kind in
+_trifles_; but that which rivets the affections is not to be purchased
+with money. The great thing of all, however, is to prove your anxiety at
+those times of peril to her, and for which times you, nevertheless,
+wish. Upon those occasions I was never from home, be the necessity for
+it ever so great: it was my rule, that every thing must give way to
+that. In the year 1809, some English local militiamen were _flogged_, in
+the Isle of Ely, in England, under a guard of _Hanoverians_, then
+stationed in England. I, reading an account of this in a London
+newspaper, called the COURIER, expressed my indignation at it in such
+terms as it became an Englishman to do. The Attorney General, Gibbs, was
+set on upon me; he harassed me for nearly a year, then brought me to
+trial, and I was, by Ellenborough, Grose, Le Blanc, and Bailey,
+sentenced to _two years' imprisonment_ in Newgate, to pay a fine to _the
+king_ of _a thousand pounds_, and to be held in heavy bail for _seven
+years_ after the expiration of the imprisonment! Every one regarded it
+as a sentence of _death_. I lived in the country at the time, seventy
+miles from London; I had a farm on my hands; I had a family of small
+children, amongst whom I had constantly lived; I had a most anxious and
+devoted wife, who was, too, in that state, which rendered the separation
+more painful ten-fold. I was put into a place amongst _felons_, from
+which I had to rescue myself at the price of _twelve guineas a week_ for
+the whole of the two years. The _King_, poor man! was, at the close of
+my imprisonment, not _in a condition_ to receive the _thousand pounds_;
+but his son, the present king, punctually received it _'in his name and
+behalf_;' and he keeps it still.
+
+169. The sentence, though it proved not to be one of _death_, was, in
+effect, one of _ruin_, as far as then-possessed property went. But this
+really appeared as nothing, compared with the circumstance, that I must
+now have _a child born in a felons' jail_, or be absent from the scene
+at the time of the birth. My wife, who had come to see me for the last
+time previous to her lying-in, perceiving my deep dejection at the
+approach of her departure for Botley, resolved not to go; and actually
+went and took a lodging as near to Newgate as she could find one, in
+order that the communication between us might be as speedy as possible;
+and in order that I might see the doctor, and receive assurances from
+him relative to her state. The nearest lodging that she could find was
+in Skinner-street, at the corner of a street leading to Smithfield. So
+that there she was, amidst the incessant rattle of coaches and butchers'
+carts, and the noise of cattle, dogs, and bawling men; instead of being
+in a quiet and commodious country-house, with neighbours and servants
+and every thing necessary about her. Yet, so great is the power of the
+mind in such cases, she, though the circumstances proved uncommonly
+perilous, and were attended with the loss of the child, bore her
+sufferings with the greatest composure, because, at any minute she could
+send a message to, and hear from, me. If she had gone to Botley, leaving
+me in that state of anxiety in which she saw me, I am satisfied that she
+would have died; and that event taking place at such a distance from me,
+how was I to contemplate her corpse, surrounded by her distracted
+children, and to have escaped death, or madness, myself? If such was not
+the effect of this merciless act of the government towards me, that
+amiable body may be well assured that I have _taken and recorded the
+will for the deed_, and that as such it will live in my memory as long
+as that memory shall last.
+
+170. I make no apology for this account of my own conduct, because
+example is better than precept, and because I believe that my example
+may have weight with many thousands, as it has had in respect to early
+rising, abstinence, sobriety, industry, and mercy towards the poor. It
+is not, then, dangling about after a wife; it is not the loading her
+with baubles and trinkets; it is not the jaunting of her about from show
+to show, and from what is called pleasure to pleasure. It is none of
+these that endears you to her: it is the adherence to that part of the
+promise you have made her: 'With my _body_ I thee _worship_;' that is to
+say, _respect_ and _honour_ by personal attention and acts of affection.
+And remember, that the greatest possible proof that you can give of real
+and solid affection is to give her your _time_, when not wanted in
+matters of business; when not wanted for the discharge of some _duty_,
+either towards the public or towards private persons. Amongst duties of
+this sort, we must, of course, in some ranks and circumstances of life,
+include the intercourse amongst friends and neighbours, which may
+frequently and reasonably call the husband from his home: but what are
+we to think of the husband who is in the habit of leaving his own
+fire-side, after the business of the day is over, and seeking
+promiscuous companions in the ale or the coffee house? I am told that,
+in France, it is rare to meet with a husband who does not spend every
+evening of his life in what is called a _caffé_; that is to say, a place
+for no other purpose than that of gossipping, drinking and gaming. And
+it is with great sorrow that I acknowledge that many English husbands
+indulge too much in a similar habit. Drinking clubs, smoking clubs,
+singing clubs, clubs of odd-fellows, whist clubs, sotting clubs: these
+are inexcusable, they are censurable, they are at once foolish and
+wicked, even in single men; what must they be, then, in _husbands_; and
+how are they to answer, not only to their wives, but to their children,
+for this profligate abandonment of their homes; this breach of their
+solemn vow made to the former, this evil example to the latter?
+
+171. Innumerable are the miseries that spring from this cause. The
+_expense_ is, in the first place, very considerable. I much question
+whether, amongst tradesmen, a _shilling_ a night pays the average score;
+and that, too, for that which is really _worth_ nothing at all, and
+cannot, even by possibility, be attended with any one single advantage,
+however small. Fifteen pounds a year thus thrown away, would amount, in
+the course of a tradesman's life, to a decent fortune for a child. Then
+there is the injury to _health_ from these night adventures; there are
+the _quarrels_, there is the vicious habit of loose and filthy talk;
+there are the slanders and the back-bitings; there is the admiration of
+contemptible wit, and there are the scoffings at all that is sober and
+serious.
+
+172. And does the husband who thus abandons his wife and children
+imagine that she will not, in some degree at least, follow his example?
+If he do, he is very much deceived. If she imitate him even in drinking,
+he has no great reason to complain; and then the cost may be _two
+shillings_ the night instead of one, equal in amount to the cost of all
+the bread wanted in the family, while the baker's bill is, perhaps,
+unpaid. Here are the slanderings, too, going on at home; for, while the
+husbands are assembled, it would be hard if the wives were not to do the
+same; and the very least that is to be expected is, that the _tea-pot_
+should keep pace with the porter-pot or grog-glass. Hence crowds of
+female acquaintances and intruders, and all the consequent and
+inevitable squabbles which form no small part of the torment of the life
+of man.
+
+173. If you have _servants_, they know to a moment the time of your
+absence; and they regulate their proceedings accordingly. 'Like master
+like man,' is an old and true proverb; and it is natural, if not just,
+that it should be thus; for it would be unjust if the careless and
+neglectful sot were served as faithfully as the vigilant, attentive and
+sober man. Late hours, cards and dice, are amongst the consequences of
+the master's absence; and why not, seeing that he is setting the
+example? Fire, candle, profligate visitants, expences, losses, children
+ruined in habits and morals, and, in short, a train of evils hardly to
+be enumerated, arise from this most vicious habit of the master spending
+his leisure time from home. But beyond all the rest is the
+_ill-treatment of the wife_. When left to ourselves we all seek the
+company that we _like best_; the company in which we _take the most
+delight_: and therefore every husband, be his state of life what it may,
+who spends his leisure time, or who, at least, is in the habit of doing
+it, in company other than that of his wife and family, tells her and
+them, as plainly by deeds as he could possibly do by words, that he
+_takes more delight in other company than in theirs_. Children repay
+this with _disregard_ for their father; but to a wife of any
+sensibility, it is either a dagger to her heart or an incitement to
+revenge, and revenge, too, of a species which a young woman will seldom
+be long in want of the means to gratify. In conclusion of these remarks
+respecting _absentee husbands_, I would recommend all those who are
+prone to, or likely to fall into, the practice, to remember the words of
+Mrs. SULLEN, in the BEAUX' STRATAGEM: 'My husband,' says she, addressing
+a footman whom she had taken as a paramour, 'comes reeling home at
+midnight, tumbles in beside me as a salmon flounces in a net, oversets
+the economy of my bed, belches the fumes of his drink in my face, then
+twists himself round, leaving me half naked, and listening till morning
+to that tuneful nightingale, his nose.' It is at least forty-three years
+since I read the BEAUX' STRATAGEM, and I now quote from memory; but the
+passage has always occurred to me whenever I have seen a sottish
+husband; and though that species of revenge, for the taking of which the
+lady made this apology, was carrying the thing too far, yet I am ready
+to confess, that if I had to sit in judgment on her for taking even this
+revenge, my sentence would be very lenient; for what right has such a
+husband to expect _fidelity_? He has broken his vow; and by what rule of
+right has she to be bound to hers? She thought that she was marrying _a
+man_; and she finds that she was married to a beast. He has, indeed,
+committed no offence that _the law of the land_ can reach; but he has
+violated the vow by which he obtained possession of her person; and, in
+the eye of justice, the compact between them is dissolved.
+
+174. The way to avoid the sad consequences of which I have been speaking
+is _to begin well_: many a man has become a sottish husband, and brought
+a family to ruin, without being sottishly _inclined_, and without
+_liking_ the gossip of the ale or coffee house. It is by slow degrees
+that the mischief is done. He is first inveigled, and, in time, he
+really likes the thing; and, when arrived at that point, he is
+incurable. Let him resolve, from the very first, _never to spend an hour
+from home_, unless business, or, at least, some necessary and rational
+purpose demand it. Where ought he to be, but with the person whom he
+himself hath chosen to be his partner for life, and the mother of his
+children? What _other company_ ought he to deem so good and so fitting
+as this? With whom else can he so pleasantly spend his hours of leisure
+and relaxation? Besides, if he quit her to seek company more agreeable,
+is not she set at large by that act of his? What justice is there in
+confining her at home without any company at all, while he rambles forth
+in search of company more gay than he finds at home?
+
+175. Let the young married man try the thing; let him resolve not to be
+seduced from his home; let him never go, in one single instance,
+unnecessarily from his own fire-side. _Habit_ is a powerful thing; and
+if he begin right, the pleasure that he will derive from it will induce
+him to continue right. This is not being '_tied to the apron-strings_,'
+which means quite another matter, as I shall show by-and-by. It is being
+at the husband's place, whether he have children or not. And is there
+any want of matter for conversation between a man and his wife? Why not
+talk of the daily occurrences to her, as well as to any body else; and
+especially to a company of tippling and noisy men? If you excuse
+yourself by saying that you go _to read the newspaper_, I answer, _buy
+the newspaper_, if you must read it: the cost is not half of what you
+spend per day at the pot-house; and then you have it your own, and may
+read it at your leisure, and your wife can read it as well as yourself,
+if read it you must. And, in short, what must that man be made of, who
+does not prefer sitting by his own fire-side with his wife and children,
+reading to them, or hearing them read, to hearing the gabble and
+balderdash of a club or a pot-house company!
+
+176. Men must frequently be from home at all hours of the day and night.
+Sailors, soldiers, merchants, all men out of the common track of labour,
+and even some in the very lowest walks, are sometimes compelled by their
+affairs, or by circumstances, to be from their homes. But what I protest
+against is, the _habit_ of spending _leisure_ hours from home, and near
+to it; and doing this without any necessity, and by _choice_: liking the
+next door, or any house in the same street, better than your own. When
+absent from _necessity_, there is no wound given to the heart of the
+wife; she concludes that you would be with her if you could, and that
+satisfies; she laments the absence, but submits to it without
+complaining. Yet, in these cases, her feelings ought to be consulted as
+much as possible; she ought to be fully apprised of the probable
+duration of the absence, and of the time of return; and if these be
+dependent on circumstances, those circumstances ought to be fully
+stated; for you have no right to keep her mind upon the rack, when you
+have it in your power to put it in a state of ease. Few men have been
+more frequently taken from home by business, or by a necessity of some
+sort, than I have; and I can positively assert, that, as to my return, I
+never once disappointed my wife in the whole course of our married life.
+If the time of return was contingent, I never failed to keep her
+informed _from day to day_: if the time was fixed, or when it became
+fixed, my arrival was as sure as my life. Going from London to Botley,
+once, with Mr. FINNERTY, whose name I can never pronounce without an
+expression of my regard for his memory, we stopped at ALTON, to dine
+with a friend, who, delighted with Finnerty's talk, as every body else
+was, kept us till ten or eleven o'clock, and was proceeding to _the
+other bottle_, when I put in my protest, saying, 'We must go, my wife
+will be frightened.' 'Blood, man,' said Finnerty, 'you do not mean to go
+home to-night!' I told him I did; and then sent my son, who was with us,
+to order out the post-chaise. We had twenty-three miles to go, during
+which we debated the question, whether Mrs. COBBETT would be up to
+receive us, I contending for the affirmative, and he for the negative.
+She was up, and had a nice fire for us to sit down at. She had not
+committed the matter to a servant: her servants and children were all in
+bed; and she was up, to perform the duty of receiving her husband and
+his friend. 'You did not expect him?' said Finnerty. 'To be sure I did,'
+said she; 'he never disappointed me in his life.'
+
+177. Now, if all young men knew how much value women set upon this
+species of fidelity, there would be fewer unhappy couples than there
+are. If men have appointments with _lords_, they never dream of breaking
+them; and I can assure them that wives are as sensitive in this respect
+as lords. I had seen many instances of conjugal unhappiness arising out
+of that carelessness which left wives in a state of uncertainty as to
+the movements of their husbands; and I took care, from the very outset,
+to guard against it. For no man has a right to sport with the feelings
+of any innocent person whatever, and particularly with those of one who
+has committed her happiness to his hands. The truth is, that men in
+general look upon women as having no feelings different from their own;
+and they know that they themselves would regard such disappointments as
+nothing. But this is a great mistake: women feel more acutely than men;
+their love is more ardent, more pure, more lasting, and they are more
+frank and sincere in the utterance of their feelings. They ought to be
+treated with due consideration had for all their amiable qualities and
+all their weaknesses, and nothing by which their minds are affected
+ought to be deemed a _trifle_.
+
+178. When we consider what a young woman gives up on her wedding day;
+she makes a surrender, an absolute surrender, of her liberty, for the
+joint lives of the parties; she gives the husband the absolute right of
+causing her to live in what place, and in what manner and what society,
+he pleases; she gives him the power to take from her, and to use, for
+his own purposes, all her goods, unless reserved by some legal
+instrument; and, above all, she surrenders to him _her person_. Then,
+when we consider the pains which they endure for us, and the large share
+of all the anxious parental cares that fall to their lot; when we
+consider their devotion to us, and how unshaken their affection remains
+in our ailments, even though the most tedious and disgusting; when we
+consider the offices that they perform, and cheerfully perform, for us,
+when, were we left to one another, we should perish from neglect; when
+we consider their devotion to their children, how evidently they love
+them better, in numerous instances, than their own lives; when we
+consider these things, how can a just man think any thing a trifle that
+affects their happiness? I was once going, in my gig, up the hill, in
+the village of FRANKFORD, near Philadelphia, when a little girl, about
+two years old, who had toddled away from a small house, was lying
+basking in the sun, in the middle of the road. About two hundred yards
+before I got to the child, the teams, five big horses in each, of three
+wagons, the drivers of which had stopped to drink at a tavern on the
+brow of the hill, started off, and came, nearly abreast, galloping down
+the road. I got my gig off the road as speedily as I could; but expected
+to see the poor child crushed to pieces. A young man, a journeyman
+carpenter, who was shingling a shed by the side of the road, seeing the
+child, and seeing the danger, though a stranger to the parents, jumped
+from the top of the shed, ran into the road, and snatched up the child,
+from scarcely an inch before the hoof of the leading horse. The horse's
+leg knocked him down; but he, catching the child by its clothes, flung
+it back, out of the way of the other horses, and saved himself by
+rolling back with surprising agility. The mother of the child, who had,
+apparently, been washing, seeing the teams coming, and seeing the
+situation of the child, rushed out, and catching up the child, just as
+the carpenter had flung it back, and hugging it in her arms, uttered _a
+shriek_ such as I never heard before, never heard since, and, I hope,
+shall never hear again; and then she dropped down, as if perfectly dead!
+By the application of the usual means, she was restored, however, in a
+little while; and I, being about to depart, asked the carpenter if he
+were a married man, and whether he were a relation of the parents of the
+child. He said he was neither: 'Well, then,' said I, 'you merit the
+gratitude of every father and mother in the world, and I will show mine,
+by giving you what I have,' pulling out the nine or ten dollars that I
+had in my pocket. 'No; I thank you, Sir,' said he: 'I have only done
+what it was my duty to do.'
+
+179. Bravery, disinterestedness, and maternal affection surpassing
+these, it is impossible to imagine. The mother was going right in
+amongst the feet of these powerful and wild horses, and amongst the
+wheels of the wagons. She had no thought for herself; no feeling of fear
+for her own life; her _shriek_ was the sound of inexpressible joy; joy
+too great for her to support herself under. Perhaps ninety-nine mothers
+out of every hundred would have acted the same part, under similar
+circumstances. There are, comparatively, very few women not replete with
+maternal love; and, by-the-by, take you care, if you meet with a girl
+who '_is not fond of children_,' not to marry her _by any means_. Some
+few there are who even make a boast that they 'cannot bear children,'
+that is, cannot _endure_ them. I never knew a man that was good for
+_much_ who had a dislike to little children; and I never knew a woman of
+that taste who was good for any thing at all. I have seen a few such in
+the course of my life, and I have never wished to see one of them a
+second time.
+
+180. Being fond of little children argues no _effeminacy_ in a man, but,
+as far as my observation has gone, the contrary. A regiment of soldiers
+presents no bad school wherein to study character. Soldiers have
+leisure, too, to play with children, as well as with 'women and dogs,'
+for which the proverb has made them famed. And I have never observed
+that effeminacy was at all the marked companion of fondness for little
+children. This fondness manifestly arises from a compassionate feeling
+towards creatures that are helpless, and that must be innocent. For my
+own part, how many days, how many months, all put together, have I spent
+with babies in my arms! My time, when at home, and when babies were
+going on, was chiefly divided between the pen and the baby. I have fed
+them and put them to sleep hundreds of times, though there were servants
+to whom the task might have been transferred. Yet, I have not been
+effeminate; I have not been idle; I have not been a waster of time; but
+I should have been all these if I had disliked babies, and had liked the
+porter pot and the grog glass.
+
+181. It is an old saying, 'Praise the child, and you make love to the
+mother;' and it is surprising how far this will go. To a fond mother you
+can do nothing so pleasing as to praise the baby, and, the younger it
+is, the more she values the compliment. Say fine things to her, and take
+no notice of her baby, and she will despise you. I have often beheld
+this, in many women, with great admiration; and it is a thing that no
+husband ought to overlook; for if the wife wish her child to be admired
+by others, what must be the ardour of her wishes with regard to _his_
+admiration. There was a drunken dog of a Norfolk man in our regiment,
+who came from Thetford, I recollect, who used to say, that his wife
+would forgive him for spending all the pay, and the washing money into
+the bargain, 'if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was
+pretty.' Now, though this was a very profligate fellow, he had
+_philosophy_ in him; and certain it is, that there is nothing worthy of
+the name of conjugal happiness, unless the husband clearly evince that
+he is fond of his children, and that, too, from their very birth.
+
+182. But though all the aforementioned considerations demand from us the
+kindest possible treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful
+deportment at her hands. He is not to be her slave; he is not to yield
+to her against the dictates of his own reason and judgment; it is her
+duty to obey all his lawful commands; and, if she have sense, she will
+perceive that it is a disgrace to herself to acknowledge, as a husband,
+a thing over which she has an absolute controul. It should always be
+recollected that _you_ are the party whose body must, if any do, lie in
+jail for debt, and for debts of her contracting, too, as well as of your
+own contracting. Over her _tongue_, too, you possess a clear right to
+exercise, if necessary, some controul; for if she use it in an
+unjustifiable manner, it is against _you_, and not against her, that the
+law enables, and justly enables, the slandered party to proceed; which
+would be monstrously unjust, if the law were not founded on the _right_
+which the husband has to control, if necessary, the tongue of the wife,
+to compel her to keep it within the limits prescribed by the law. A
+charming, a most enchanting, life, indeed, would be that of a husband,
+if he were bound to cohabit with and to maintain one for all the debts
+and all the slanders of whom he was answerable, and over whose conduct
+he possessed no compulsory controul.
+
+183. Of the _remedies_ in the case of _really bad_ wives, squanderers,
+drunkards, adultresses, I shall speak further on; it being the habit of
+us all to put off to the last possible moment the performance of
+disagreeable duties. But, far short of these vices, there are several
+faults in a wife that may, if not cured in time, lead to great
+unhappiness, great injury to the interests as well as character of her
+husband and children; and which faults it is, therefore, the husband's
+duty to correct. A wife may be chaste, sober in the full sense of the
+word, industrious, cleanly, frugal, and may be devoted to her husband
+and her children to a degree so enchanting as to make them all love her
+beyond the power of words to express. And yet she may, partly under the
+influence of her natural disposition, and partly encouraged by the great
+and constant homage paid to her virtues, and presuming, too, on the pain
+with which she knows her will would be thwarted; she may, with all her
+virtues, be thus led to _a bold interference in the affairs of her
+husband_; may attempt to dictate to him in matters quite out of her own
+sphere; and, in the pursuit of the gratification of her love of power
+and command, may wholly overlook the acts of folly or injustice which
+she would induce her husband to commit, and overlook, too, the
+contemptible thing that she is making the man whom it is her duty to
+honour and obey, and the abasement of whom cannot take place without
+some portion of degradation falling upon herself. At the time when 'THE
+BOOK' came out, relative to the late ill-treated QUEEN CAROLINE, I was
+talking upon the subject, one day, with _a parson_, who had not read the
+Book, but who, as was the fashion with all those who were looking up to
+the government, condemned the Queen unheard. 'Now,' said I, 'be not so
+shamefully unjust; but _get the book_, _read_ it, _and then_ give your
+judgment.'--'Indeed,' said his wife, who was sitting by, 'but HE
+SHA'N'T,' pronouncing the words _sha'n't_ with an emphasis and a voice
+tremendously masculine. 'Oh!' said I, 'if he SHA'N'T, that is another
+matter; but, if he sha'n't read, if he sha'n't hear the evidence, he
+sha'n't be looked upon, by me, as a just judge; and I sha'n't regard
+him, in future, as having any opinion of his own in any thing.' All
+which the husband, the poor henpecked thing, heard without a word
+escaping his lips.
+
+184. A husband thus under command, is the most contemptible of God's
+creatures. Nobody can place reliance on him for any thing; whether in
+the capacity of employer or employed, you are never sure of him. No
+bargain is firm, no engagement sacred, with such a man. Feeble as a reed
+before the boisterous she-commander, he is bold in injustice towards
+those whom it pleases her caprice to mark out for vengeance. In the eyes
+of neighbours, for _friends_ such a man cannot have, in the eyes of
+servants, in the eyes of even the beggars at his door, such a man is a
+mean and despicable creature, though he may roll in wealth and possess
+great talents into the bargain. Such a man has, in fact, no property; he
+has nothing that he can rightly call _his own_; he is a beggarly
+dependent under his own roof; and if he have any thing of the man left
+in him, and if there be rope or river near, the sooner he betakes him to
+the one or the other the better. How many men, how many families, have I
+known brought to utter ruin only by the husband suffering himself to be
+subdued, to be cowed down, to be held in fear, of even a virtuous wife!
+What, then, must be the lot of him who submits to a commander who, at
+the same time, sets all virtue at defiance!
+
+185. Women are a _sisterhood_. They make _common cause_ in behalf of the
+_sex_; and, indeed, this is natural enough, when we consider the vast
+power that the _law_ gives us over them. The law is for us, and they
+combine, wherever they can, to mitigate its effects. This is perfectly
+natural, and, to a certain extent, laudable, evincing fellow-feeling and
+public spirit: but when carried to the length of '_he sha'n't_,' it is
+despotism on the one side and slavery on the other. Watch, therefore,
+the incipient steps of encroachment; and they come on so slowly, so
+softly, that you must be sharp-sighted if you perceive them; but the
+moment you _do perceive them_: your love will blind for too long a time;
+but the moment you do perceive them, put at once an effectual stop to
+their progress. Never mind the pain that it may give you: a day of pain
+at this time will spare you years of pain in time to come. Many a man
+has been miserable, and made his wife miserable too, for a score or two
+of years, only for want of resolution to bear one day of pain: and it is
+a great deal to bear; it is a great deal to do to thwart the desire of
+one whom you so dearly love, and whose virtues daily render her more and
+more dear to you. But (and this is one of the most admirable of the
+mother's traits) as she herself will, while the tears stream from her
+eyes, force the nauseous medicine down the throat of her child, whose
+every cry is a dagger to her heart; as she herself has the courage to do
+this for the sake of her child, why should you flinch from the
+performance of a still more important and more sacred duty towards
+herself, as well as towards you and your children?
+
+186. Am I recommending _tyranny_? Am I recommending _disregard_ of the
+wife's opinions and wishes? Am I recommending a _reserve_ towards her
+that would seem to say that she was not trust-worthy, or not a party
+interested in her husband's affairs? By no means: on the contrary,
+though I would keep any thing disagreeable from her, I should not enjoy
+the prospect of good without making her a participator. But reason says,
+and God has said, that it is the duty of wives to be obedient to their
+husbands; and the very nature of things prescribes that there must be _a
+head_ of every house, and an _undivided_ authority. And then it is so
+clearly _just_ that the authority should rest with him on whose head
+rests the whole responsibility, that a woman, when patiently reasoned
+with on the subject, must be a virago in her very nature not to submit
+with docility to the terms of her marriage vow.
+
+187. There are, in almost every considerable neighbourhood, a little
+squadron of she-commanders, generally the youngish wives of old or
+weak-minded men, and generally without children. These are the
+tutoresses of the young wives of the vicinage; they, in virtue of their
+experience, not only school the wives, but scold the husbands; they
+teach the former how to encroach and the latter how to yield: so that if
+you suffer this to go quietly on, you are soon under the care of a
+_comité_ as completely as if you were insane. You want no _comité_:
+reason, law, religion, the marriage vow; all these have made you head,
+have given you full power to rule your family, and if you give up your
+right, you deserve the contempt that assuredly awaits you, and also the
+ruin that is, in all probability, your doom.
+
+188. Taking it for granted that you will not suffer more than a second
+or third session of the female _comité_, let me say a word or two about
+the conduct of men in deciding between the conflicting opinions of
+husbands and wives. When a wife has _a point to carry_, and finds
+herself hard pushed, or when she thinks it necessary to call to her aid
+all the force she can possibly muster, one of her resources is, the vote
+on her side of all her husband's visiting friends. 'My husband thinks so
+and so, and I think so and so; now, Mr. Tomkins, don't you think _I am
+right_?' To be sure he does; and so does Mr. Jenkins, and so does
+Wilkins, and so does Mr. Dickins, and you would swear that they were all
+her _kins_. Now this is very foolish, to say the least of it. None of
+these complaisant _kins_ would like this in their own case. It is the
+fashion to say _aye_ to all that a woman asserts, or contends for,
+especially in contradiction to her husband; and a very pernicious
+fashion it is. It is, in fact, not to pay her a compliment worthy of
+acceptance, but to treat her as an empty and conceited fool; and no
+sensible woman will, except from mere inadvertence, make the appeal.
+This fashion, however, foolish and contemptible as it is in itself, is
+attended, very frequently, with serious consequences. Backed by the
+opinions of her husband's friends, the wife returns to the charge with
+redoubled vigour and obstinacy; and if you do not yield, ten to one but
+a _quarrel_ is the result; or, at least, something approaching towards
+it. A gentleman at whose house I was, about five years ago, was about to
+take a farm for his eldest son, who was a very fine young man, about
+eighteen years old. The mother, who was as virtuous and as sensible a
+woman as I have ever known, wished him to be 'in the law.' There were
+six or eight intimate friends present, and all unhesitatingly joined the
+lady, thinking it a pity that HARRY, who had had 'such a good
+education,' should be _buried_ in a farm-house. 'And don't _you_ think
+so too, Mr. Cobbett,' said the lady, with great earnestness. 'Indeed,
+Ma'am,' said I, 'I should think it very great presumption in me to offer
+any opinion at all, and especially in opposition to the known decision
+of the father, who is the best judge, and the only rightful judge, in
+such a case.' This was a very sensible and well-behaved woman, and I
+still respect her very highly; but I could perceive that I instantly
+dropped out of her good graces. Harry, however, I was glad to hear, went
+'to be _buried_ in the farm-house.'
+
+189. 'A house divided against itself,' or, rather, _in_ itself, 'cannot
+stand;' and it _is_ divided against itself if there be a _divided
+authority_. The wife ought to be _heard_, and _patiently_ heard; she
+ought to be reasoned with, and, if possible, convinced; but if, after
+all endeavours in this way, she remain opposed to the husband's opinion,
+his will _must_ be obeyed; or he, at once, becomes nothing; she is, in
+fact, the _master_, and he is nothing but an insignificant inmate. As to
+matters of little comparative moment; as to what shall be for dinner; as
+to how the house shall be furnished; as to the management of the house
+and of menial servants; as to these matters, and many others, the wife
+may have her way without any danger; but when the questions are, what is
+to be the _calling_ to be pursued; what is to be the _place of
+residence_; what is to be the _style_ of living and _scale_ of expence;
+what is to be done with _property_; what the manner and place of
+educating children; what is to be their _calling_ or state of life; who
+are to be employed or entrusted by the husband; what are the principles
+that he is to adopt as to public matters; whom he is to have for
+coadjutors or friends; all these must be left solely to the husband; in
+all these he must have his will; or there never can be any harmony in
+the family.
+
+190. Nevertheless, in some of these concerns, wives should be heard with
+a great deal of attention, especially in the affairs of choosing your
+male acquaintances and friends and associates. Women are more
+quick-sighted than men; they are less disposed to confide in persons
+upon a first acquaintance; they are more suspicious as to motives; they
+are less liable to be deceived by professions and protestations; they
+watch words with a more scrutinizing ear, and looks with a keener eye;
+and, making due allowance for their prejudices in particular cases,
+their opinions and remonstrances, with regard to matters of this sort,
+ought not to be set at naught without great deliberation. LOUVET, one of
+the Brissotins, who fled for their lives in the time of ROBESPIERRE;
+this LOUVET, in his narrative, entitled '_Mes Perils_' and which I read,
+for the first time, to divert my mind from the perils of the
+yellow-fever, in Philadelphia, but with which I was so captivated as to
+have read it many times since; this writer, giving an account of his
+wonderful dangers and escapes, relates, that being on his way to Paris
+from the vicinity of Bordeaux, and having no regular _passport_, fell
+lame, but finally crept on to a miserable pot-house, in a small town in
+the Limosin. The landlord questioned him with regard to who and what he
+was and whence he came and was satisfied with his answers. But the
+landlady, who had looked sharply at him on his arrival, whispered a
+little boy, who ran away, and quickly returned with the mayor of the
+town. LOUVET soon discovered that there was no danger in the mayor, who
+could not decipher his forged passport, and who, being well plied with
+wine, wanted to hear no more of the matter. The landlady, perceiving
+this, slipped out and brought a couple of aldermen, who asked _to see
+the passport_. 'O, yes; but _drink first_.' Then there was a laughing
+story to tell over again, at the request of the half-drunken mayor; then
+a laughing and more drinking; the passport in LOUVET'S hand, but _never
+opened_, and, while another toast was drinking, the passport slid back
+quietly into the pocket; the woman looking furious all the while. At
+last, the mayor, the aldermen, and the landlord, all nearly drunk, shook
+hands with LOUVET, and wished him a good journey, swore he was a _true
+sans culotte_; but, he says, that the 'sharp-sighted woman, who was to
+be deceived by none of his stories or professions, saw him get off with
+deep and manifest disappointment and chagrin.' I have thought of this
+many times since, when I have had occasion to witness the
+quick-sightedness and penetration of women. The same quality that makes
+them, as they notoriously are, more quick in discovering expedients in
+cases of difficulty, makes them more apt to penetrate into motives and
+character.
+
+191. I now come to a matter of the greatest possible importance; namely,
+that great troubler of the married state, that great bane of families,
+JEALOUSY; and I shall first speak of _jealousy_ in the _wife_. This is
+always an unfortunate thing, and sometimes fatal. Yet, if there be a
+great propensity towards it, it is very difficult to be prevented. One
+thing, however, every husband can do in the way of prevention; and that
+is, _to give no ground for it_. And here, it is not sufficient that he
+strictly adhere to his marriage vow; he ought further to abstain from
+every art, however free from guilt, calculated to awaken the slightest
+degree of suspicion in a mind, the peace of which he is bound by every
+tie of justice and humanity not to disturb, or, if he can avoid it, to
+suffer it to be disturbed by others. A woman that is very fond of her
+husband, and this is the case with nine-tenths of English and American
+women, does not like to share with another any, even the smallest
+portion, not only of his affection, but of his assiduities and applause;
+and, as the bestowing of them on another, and receiving payment in kind,
+can serve no purpose other than of gratifying one's _vanity_, they ought
+to be abstained from, and especially if the gratification be to be
+purchased with even the chance of exciting uneasiness in her, whom it is
+your sacred duty to make as happy as you can.
+
+192. For about two or three years after I was married, I, retaining some
+of my military manners, used, both in France and America, to _romp_ most
+famously with the girls that came in my way; till one day, at
+Philadelphia, my wife said to me, in a very gentle manner, 'Don't do
+that: _I do not like it_.' That was quite enough: I had never _thought_
+on the subject before: one hair of her head was more dear to me than all
+the other women in the world, and this I knew that she knew; but I now
+saw that this was not all that she had a right to from me; I saw, that
+she had the further claim upon me that I should abstain from every thing
+that might induce others to believe that there was any other woman for
+whom, even if I were at liberty, I had any affection. I beseech young
+married men to bear this in mind; for, on some trifle of this sort, the
+happiness or misery of a long life frequently turns. If the mind of a
+wife be disturbed on this score, every possible means ought to be used
+to restore it to peace; and though her suspicions be perfectly
+groundless; though they be wild as the dreams of madmen; though they may
+present a mixture of the furious and the ridiculous, still they are to
+be treated with the greatest lenity and tenderness; and if, after all,
+you fail, the frailty is to be lamented as a misfortune, and not
+punished as a fault, seeing that it _must_ have its foundation in a
+feeling towards you, which it would be the basest of ingratitude, and
+the most ferocious of cruelty, to repay by harshness of any description.
+
+193. As to those husbands who make the _unjust_ suspicions of their
+wives a _justification_ for making those suspicions just; as to such as
+can make a sport of such suspicions, rather brag of them than otherwise,
+and endeavour to aggravate rather than assuage them; as to such I have
+nothing to say, they being far without the scope of any advice that I
+can offer. But to such as are not of this description, I have a remark
+or two to offer with respect to measures of _prevention_.
+
+194. And, first, I never could see the _sense_ of its being a piece of
+etiquette, a sort of mark of _good breeding_, to make it a rule that man
+and wife are not to sit side by side in a mixed company; that if a party
+walk out, the wife is to give her arm to some other than her husband;
+that if there be any other hand near, _his_ is not to help to a seat or
+into a carriage. I never could see the _sense_ of this; but I have
+always seen the _nonsense_ of it plainly enough; it is, in short,
+amongst many other foolish and mischievous things that we do in aping
+the manners of those whose riches (frequently ill-gotten) and whose
+power embolden them to set, with impunity, pernicious examples; and to
+their examples this nation owes more of its degradation in morals than
+to any other source. The truth is, that this is a piece _of false
+refinement_: it, being interpreted, means, that so free are the parties
+from a liability to suspicion, so innately virtuous and pure are they,
+that each man can safely trust his wife with another man, and each woman
+her husband with another woman. But this piece of false refinement, like
+all others, overshoots its mark; it says too much; for it says that the
+parties have _lewd thoughts in their minds_. This is not the _fact_,
+with regard to people in general; but it must have been the origin of
+this set of consummately ridiculous and contemptible rules.
+
+195. Now I would advise a young man, especially if he have a pretty
+wife, not to commit her unnecessarily to the care of any other man; not
+to be separated from her in this studious and ceremonious manner; and
+not to be ashamed to prefer her company and conversation to that of any
+other woman. I never could discover any _good-breeding_ in setting
+another man, almost expressly, to poke his nose up in the face of my
+wife, and talk nonsense to her; for, in such cases, nonsense it
+generally is. It is not a thing of much consequence, to be sure; but
+when the wife is young, especially, it is not seemly, at any rate, and
+it cannot possibly lead to any good, though it may not lead to any great
+evil. And, on the other hand, you may be quite sure that, whatever she
+may _seem_ to think of the matter, she will not like _you_ the better
+for your attentions of this sort to other women, especially if they be
+young and handsome: and as this species of fashionable nonsense can do
+you no good, why gratify your love of talk, or the vanity of any woman,
+at even the risk of exciting uneasiness in that mind of which it is your
+most sacred duty to preserve, if you can, the uninterrupted
+tranquillity.
+
+196. The truth is, that the greatest security of all against jealousy in
+a wife is to show, to _prove_, by your _acts_, by your words also, but
+more especially by your _acts_, that you prefer her to all the world;
+and, as I said before, I know of no act that is, in this respect, equal
+to spending in her company every moment of your _leisure_ time. Every
+body knows, and young wives better than any body else, that people, who
+can choose, will be where _they like best to be_, and that they will be
+along with those _whose company they best like_. The matter is very
+plain, then, and I do beseech you to bear it in mind. Nor do I see the
+use, or sense, of keeping a great deal of _company_, as it is called.
+What company can a young man and woman want more than their two selves,
+and their children, if they have any? If here be not company enough, it
+is but a sad affair. The pernicious _cards_ are brought forth by the
+company-keeping, the rival expenses, the sittings up late at night, the
+seeing of '_the ladies home_,' and a thousand squabbles and disagreeable
+consequences. But, the great thing of all is, that this hankering after
+company, proves, clearly proves, that _you want something beyond the
+society of your wife_; and that she is sure to feel most acutely: the
+bare fact contains an imputation against her, and it is pretty sure to
+lay the foundation of jealousy, or of something still worse.
+
+197. If acts of kindness in you are necessary in all cases, they are
+especially so in cases of her _illness_, from whatever cause arising. I
+will not suppose myself to be addressing any husband capable of being
+_unconcerned_ while his wife's life is in the most distant danger from
+illness, though it has been my very great mortification to know in my
+life time, two or three brutes of this description; but, far short of
+this degree of brutality, a great deal of fault may be committed. When
+men are ill, they feel every neglect with double anguish, and, what then
+must be in such cases the feelings of women, whose ordinary feelings are
+so much more acute than those of men; what must be their feelings in
+case of neglect in illness, and especially if the neglect come _from the
+husband_! Your own heart will, I hope, tell you what those feelings must
+be, and will spare me the vain attempt to describe them; and, if it do
+thus instruct you, you will want no arguments from me to induce you, at
+such a season, to prove the sincerity of your affection by every kind
+word and kind act that your mind can suggest. This is the time to try
+you; and, be you assured, that the impression left on her mind now will
+be the true and _lasting_ impression; and, if it be good, will be a
+better preservative against her being jealous, than ten thousand of your
+professions ten thousand times repeated. In such a case, you ought to
+spare no expense that you can possibly afford; you ought to neglect
+nothing that your means will enable you to do; for, what is the use of
+money if it be not to be expended in this case? But, more than all the
+rest, is your own _personal_ attention. This is the valuable thing; this
+is the great balm to the sufferer, and, it is efficacious in proportion
+as it is proved to be sincere. Leave nothing to other hands that you can
+do yourself; the mind has a great deal to do in all the ailments of the
+body, and, bear in mind, that, whatever be the event, you have a more
+than ample reward. I cannot press this point too strongly upon you; the
+bed of sickness presents no charms, no allurements, and women know this
+well; they watch, in such a case, your every word and every look: and
+now it is that their confidence is secured, or their suspicions excited,
+for life.
+
+198. In conclusion of these remarks, as to jealousy in a wife, I cannot
+help expressing my abhorrence of those husbands who treat it as a matter
+for ridicule. To be sure, infidelity in a man is less heinous than
+infidelity in the wife; but still, is the marriage vow nothing? Is a
+promise solemnly made before God, and in the face of the world, nothing?
+Is a violation of a contract, and that, too, with a feebler party,
+nothing of which a man ought to be ashamed? But, besides all these,
+there is the _cruelty_. First, you win, by great pains, perhaps, a
+woman's affections; then, in order to get possession of her person, you
+marry her; then, after enjoyment, you break your vow, you bring upon her
+the mixed pity and jeers of the world, and thus you leave her to weep
+out her life. Murder is more horrible than this, to be sure, and the
+criminal _law_, which punishes divers other crimes, does not reach this;
+but, in the eye of reason and of moral justice, it is surpassed by very
+few of those crimes. _Passion_ may be pleaded, and so it may, for almost
+every other crime of which man can be guilty. It is not a crime _against
+nature_; nor are any of these which men commit in consequence of their
+necessities. _The temptation is great_; and is not the temptation great
+when men thieve or rob? In short, there is no excuse for an act so
+unjust and so cruel, and the world is just as to this matter; for, I
+have always observed, that, however men are disposed to _laugh_ at these
+breaches of vows in men, the act seldom fails to produce injury to the
+whole character; it leaves, after all the joking, a stain, and, amongst
+those who depend on character for a livelihood, it often produces ruin.
+At the very least, it makes an unhappy and wrangling family; it makes
+children despise or hate their fathers, and it affords an example at the
+thought of the ultimate consequences of which a father ought to shudder.
+In such a case, children will take part, and they ought to take part,
+with the mother: she is the injured party; the shame brought upon her
+attaches, in part, to them: they feel the injustice done them; and, if
+such a man, when the grey hairs, and tottering knees, and piping voice
+come, look round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, be just, and
+acknowledge that he has now the due reward of his own wanton cruelty to
+one whom he had solemnly sworn to love and to cherish to the last hour
+of his or her life.
+
+199. But, bad as is conjugal infidelity in the _husband_, it is much
+worse in the _wife_: a proposition that it is necessary to maintain by
+the force of reason, because _the women_, as a sisterhood, are prone to
+deny the truth of it. They say that _adultery_ is _adultery_, in men as
+well as in them; and that, therefore, the offence is _as great_ in the
+one case as in the other. As a crime, abstractedly considered, it
+certainly is; but, as to the _consequences_, there is a wide difference.
+In both cases, there is the breach of a solemn vow, but, there is this
+great distinction, that the husband, by his breach of that vow, only
+brings _shame_ upon his wife and family; whereas the wife, by a breach
+of her vow, may bring the husband a spurious offspring to maintain, and
+may bring that spurious offspring to rob of their fortunes, and in some
+cases of their bread, her legitimate children. So that here is a great
+and evident wrong done to numerous parties, besides the deeper disgrace
+inflicted in this case than in the other.
+
+200. And why is the disgrace _deeper_? Because here is a total want of
+_delicacy_; here is, in fact, _prostitution_; here is grossness and
+filthiness of mind; here is every thing that argues baseness of
+character. Women should be, and they are, except in few instances, far
+more reserved and more delicate than men; nature bids them be such; the
+habits and manners of the world confirm this precept of nature; and
+therefore, when they commit this offence, they excite loathing, as well
+as call for reprobation. In the countries where a _plurality of wives_
+is permitted, there is no _plurality of husbands_. It is there thought
+not at all indelicate for a man to have several wives; but the bare
+thought of a woman having _two husbands_ would excite horror. The
+_widows_ of the Hindoos burn themselves in the pile that consumes their
+husbands; but the Hindoo _widowers_ do not dispose of themselves in this
+way. The widows devote their bodies to complete destruction, lest, even
+after the death of their husbands, they should be tempted to connect
+themselves with other men; and though this is carrying delicacy far
+indeed, it reads to Christian wives a lesson not unworthy of their
+attention; for, though it is not desirable that their bodies should be
+turned into handfuls of ashes, even that transmutation were preferable
+to that infidelity which fixes the brand of shame on the cheeks of their
+parents, their children, and on those of all who ever called them
+friend.
+
+201. For these plain and forcible reasons it is that this species of
+offence is far more heinous in the wife than in the husband; and the
+people of all civilized countries act upon this settled distinction. Men
+who have been guilty of the offence are not cut off from society, but
+women who have been guilty of it are; for, as we all know well, no
+woman, married or single, of _fair reputation_, will risk that
+reputation by being ever seen, if she can avoid it, with a woman who has
+ever, at any time, committed this offence, which contains in itself, and
+by universal award, a sentence of social excommunication for life.
+
+202. If, therefore, it be the duty of the husband to adhere strictly to
+his marriage vow: if his breach of that vow be naturally attended with
+the fatal consequences above described: how much more imperative is the
+duty on the wife to avoid, even the semblance of a deviation from that
+vow! If the man's misconduct, in this respect, bring shame on so many
+innocent parties, what shame, what dishonour, what misery follow such
+misconduct in the wife! Her parents, those of her husband, all her
+relations, and all her friends, share in her dishonour. And _her
+children_! how is she to make atonement to them! They are commanded to
+honour their father and their mother; but not such a mother as this,
+who, on the contrary, has no claim to any thing from them but hatred,
+abhorrence, and execration. It is she who has broken the ties of nature;
+she has dishonoured her own offspring; she has fixed a mark of reproach
+on those who once made a part of her own body; nature shuts her out of
+the pale of its influence, and condemns her to the just detestation of
+those whom it formerly bade love her as their own life.
+
+203. But as the crime is so much more heinous, and the punishment so
+much more severe, in the case of the wife than it is in the case of the
+husband, so the caution ought to be greater in making the accusation, or
+entertaining the suspicion. Men ought to be very slow in entertaining
+such suspicions: they ought to have clear _proof_ before they can
+_suspect_; a proneness to such suspicions is a very unfortunate turn of
+the mind; and, indeed, few characters are more despicable than that of a
+_jealous-headed husband_; rather than be tied to the whims of one of
+whom, an innocent woman of spirit would earn her bread over the
+washing-tub, or with a hay-fork, or a reap-hook. With such a man there
+can be no peace; and, as far as children are concerned, the false
+accusation is nearly equal to the reality. When a wife discovers her
+jealousy, she merely imputes to her husband inconstancy and breach of
+his marriage vow; but jealousy in him imputes to her a willingness to
+palm a spurious offspring upon him, and upon her legitimate children, as
+robbers of their birthright; and, besides this, grossness, filthiness,
+and prostitution. She imputes to him injustice and cruelty: but he
+imputes to her that which banishes her from society; that which cuts her
+off for life from every thing connected with female purity; that which
+brands her with infamy to her latest breath.
+
+204. Very slow, therefore, ought a husband to be in entertaining even
+the thought of this crime in his wife. He ought to be _quite sure_
+before he take the smallest step in the way of accusation; but if
+unhappily he have the proof, no consideration on earth ought to induce
+him to cohabit with her one moment longer. Jealous husbands are not
+despicable because they have _grounds_; but because they _have not
+grounds_; and this is generally the case. When they have grounds, their
+own honour commands them to cast off the object, as they would cut out a
+corn or a cancer. It is not the jealousy in itself, which is despicable;
+but the _continuing to live in that state_. It is no dishonour to be a
+slave in Algiers, for instance; the dishonour begins only where you
+remain a slave _voluntarily_; it begins the moment you can escape from
+slavery, and do not. It is despicable unjustly to be jealous of your
+wife; but it is infamy to cohabit with her if you _know_ her to be
+guilty.
+
+205. I shall be told that the _law_ compels you to live with her, unless
+you be _rich_ enough to disengage yourself from her; but the law does
+not compel you to remain _in the same country with her_; and, if a man
+have no other means of ridding himself of such a curse, what are
+mountains or seas or traverse? And what is the risk (if such there be)
+of exchanging a life of bodily ease for a life of labour? What are
+these, and numerous other ills (if they happen) superadded? Nay, what is
+death itself, compared with the baseness, the infamy, the never-ceasing
+shame and reproach of living under the same roof with a prostituted
+woman, and calling her your _wife_? But, there are _children_, and what
+are to become of these? To be taken away from the prostitute, to be
+sure; and this is a duty which you owe to them: the sooner they forget
+her the better, and the farther they are from her, the sooner that will
+be. There is no excuse for continuing to live with an adultress; no
+inconvenience, no loss, no suffering, ought to deter a man from
+delivering himself from such a state of filthy infamy; and to suffer his
+children to remain in such a state, is a crime that hardly admits of
+adequate description; a jail is paradise compared with such a life, and
+he who can endure this latter, from the fear of encountering hardship,
+is a wretch too despicable to go by the name of man.
+
+206. But, now, all this supposes, that the husband has _well and truly
+acted his part_! It supposes, not only that he has been faithful; but,
+that he has not, in any way, been the cause of temptation to the wife to
+be unfaithful. If he have been cold and neglectful; if he have led a
+life of irregularity; if he have proved to her that _home_ was not his
+delight; if he have made his house the place of resort for loose
+companions; if he have given rise to a taste for visiting, junketting,
+parties of pleasure and gaiety; if he have introduced the habit of
+indulging in what are called '_innocent freedoms_;' if these, or any of
+these, _the fault is his_, he must take the consequences, and he has _no
+right_ to inflict punishment on the offender, the offence being in fact
+of his own creating. The laws of God, as well as the laws of man, have
+given him all power in this respect: it is for him to use that power for
+the honour of his wife as well as for that of himself: if he neglect to
+use it, all the consequences ought to fall on him; and, as far as my
+observation has gone, in nineteen out of twenty cases of infidelity in
+wives, the crimes have been _fairly ascribable to the husbands_. Folly
+or misconduct in the husband, cannot, indeed, justify or even palliate
+infidelity in the wife, whose very nature ought to make her recoil at
+the thought of the offence; but it may, at the same time, deprive him of
+the right of inflicting punishment on her: her kindred, her children,
+and the world, will justly hold her in abhorrence; but the husband must
+hold his peace.
+
+207. '_Innocent freedoms!_' I know of none that a wife can indulge in.
+The words, as applied to the demeanour of a married woman, or even a
+single one, imply a contradiction. For _freedom_, thus used, means an
+exemption or departure from the _strict rules of female reserve_; and, I
+do not see how this can be _innocent_. It may not amount to _crime_,
+indeed; but, still it is not _innocent_; and the use of the phrase is
+dangerous. If it had been my fortune to be yoked to a person, who liked
+'innocent freedoms,' I should have unyoked myself in a very short time.
+But, to say the truth, it is all a man's own fault. If he have not sense
+and influence enough to prevent 'innocent freedoms,' even _before_
+marriage, he will do well to let the thing alone, and leave wives to be
+managed by those who have. But, men will talk to your wife, and natter
+her. To be sure they will, if she be young and pretty; and would you go
+and pull her away from them? O no, by no means; but you must have very
+little sense, or must have made very little use of it, if her manner do
+not soon convince them that they employ their flattery in vain.
+
+208. So much of a man's happiness and of his _efficiency_ through life
+depends upon his mind being quite free from all anxieties of this sort,
+that too much care cannot be taken to guard against them; and, I repeat,
+that the great preservation of all is, the young couple living as much
+as possible _at home_, and having as few visitors as possible. If they
+do not prefer the company of each other to that of all the world
+besides; if either of them be weary of the company of the other; if they
+do not, when separated by business or any other cause, think with
+pleasure of the time of meeting again, it is a bad omen. Pursue this
+course when young, and the very thought of jealousy will never come into
+your mind; and, if you do pursue it, and show by your _deeds_ that you
+value your wife as you do your own life, you must be pretty nearly an
+idiot, if she do not think you to be the wisest man in the world. The
+_best_ man she will be sure to think you, and she will never forgive any
+one that calls your talents or your wisdom in question.
+
+209. Now, will you say that, if to be happy, nay, if to avoid misery and
+ruin in the married state, requires all these precautions, all these
+cares, to fail to any extent in any of which is to bring down on a man's
+head such fearful consequences; will you say that, if this be the case,
+_it is better to remain single_? If you should say this, it is my
+business to show that you are in error. For, in the first place, it is
+against nature to suppose that children can cease to be born; they must
+and will come; and then it follows, that they must come by promiscuous
+intercourse, or by particular connexion. The former nobody will contend
+for, seeing that it would put us, in this respect, on a level with the
+brute creation. Then, as the connexion is to be _particular_, it must be
+_during pleasure_, or for the _joint lives of the parties_. The former
+would seldom hold for any length of time: the tie would seldom be
+durable, and it would be feeble on account of its uncertain duration.
+Therefore, to be a _father_, with all the lasting and delightful ties
+attached to the name, you must first be a husband; and there are very
+few men in the world who do not, first or last, desire to be _fathers_.
+If it be said, that marriage ought not to be for life, but that its
+duration ought to be subject to the will, the _mutual will_ at least, of
+the parties; the answer is, that it would seldom be of long duration.
+Every trifling dispute would lead to a separation; a hasty word would be
+enough. Knowing that the engagement is for life, prevents disputes too;
+it checks anger in its beginnings. Put a rigging horse into a field with
+a weak fence, and with captivating pasture on the other side, and he is
+continually trying to get out; but, let the field be walled round, he
+makes the best of his hard fare, and divides his time between grazing
+and sleeping. Besides, there could be no _families_, no assemblages of
+persons worthy of that name; all would be confusion and indescribable
+intermixture: the names of _brother_ and _sister_ would hardly have a
+meaning; and, therefore, there must be marriage, or there can be nothing
+worthy of the name of family or of father.
+
+210. The _cares_ and _troubles_ of the married life are many; but, are
+those of the single life few? Take the _farmer_, and it is nearly the
+same with the tradesman; but, take the farmer, for instance, and let
+him, at the age of twenty-five, go into business unmarried. See his maid
+servants, probably rivals for his smiles, but certainly rivals in the
+charitable distribution of his victuals and drink amongst those of their
+own rank: behold _their_ guardianship of his pork-tub, his bacon rack,
+his butter, cheese, milk, poultry, eggs, and all the rest of it: look at
+_their_ care of all his household stuff, his blankets, sheets,
+pillow-cases, towels, knives and forks, and particularly of his
+_crockery ware_, of which last they will hardly exceed a single
+cart-load of broken bits in the year. And, how nicely they will get up
+and take care of his linen and other wearing apparel, and always have it
+ready for him without his thinking about it! If absent at market, or
+especially at a distant fair, how scrupulously they will keep all their
+cronies out of his house, and what special care they will take of his
+_cellar_, more particularly that which holds the strong beer! And his
+groceries and his spirits and his _wine_ (for a bachelor can _afford_
+it), how safe these will all be! Bachelors have not, indeed, any more
+than married men, a security for _health_; but if our young farmer be
+sick, there are his couple of maids to take care of him, to administer
+his medicine, and to perform for him all other nameless offices, which
+in such a case are required; and what is more, take care of every thing
+down stairs at the same time, especially his desk with the money in it!
+Never will they, good-humoured girls as they are, scold him for coming
+home too late; but, on the contrary, like him the better for it; and if
+he have drunk a little too much, so much the better, for then he will
+sleep late in the morning, and when he comes out at last, he will find
+that his men have been _so hard_ at work, and that all his animals have
+been taken such good care of!
+
+211. Nonsense! a bare glance at the thing shows, that a farmer, above
+all men living, can never carry on his affairs with profit without a
+wife, or a mother, or a daughter, or some such person; and _mother_ and
+_daughter_ imply matrimony. To be sure, a wife would cause some
+_trouble_, perhaps, to this young man. There might be the midwife and
+nurse to gallop after at midnight; there might be, and there ought to
+be, if called for, a little complaining of late hours; but, good God!
+what are these, and all the other _troubles_ that could attend a married
+life; what are they, compared to the one single circumstance of the want
+of a wife at your bedside during one single night of illness! A nurse!
+what is a nurse to do for you? Will she do the things that a wife will
+do? Will she watch your looks and your half-uttered wishes? Will she use
+the urgent persuasions so often necessary to save life in such cases?
+Will she, by her acts, convince you that it is not a toil, but a
+delight, to break her rest for your sake? In short, now it is that you
+find that what the women themselves say is strictly true, namely, that
+without wives, _men are poor helpless mortals_.
+
+212. As to the _expense_, there is no comparison between that of a woman
+servant and a wife, in the house of a farmer or a tradesman. The wages
+of the former is not the expense; it is the want of a _common interest_
+with you, and this you can obtain in no one but a wife. But there are
+_the children_. I, for my part, firmly believe that a farmer, married at
+twenty-five, and having ten children during the first ten years, would
+be able to save more money during these years, than a bachelor, of the
+same age, would be able to save, on the same farm, in a like space of
+time, he keeping only one maid servant. One single fit of illness, of
+two months' duration, might sweep away more than all the children would
+cost in the whole ten years, to say nothing of the continual waste and
+pillage, and the idleness, going on from the first day of the ten years
+to the last.
+
+213. Besides, is the money _all_? What a life to lead!! No one to talk
+to without going from home, or without getting some one to come to you;
+no friend to sit and talk to: pleasant evenings to pass! Nobody to share
+with you your sorrows or your pleasures: no soul having a common
+interest with you: all around you taking care of themselves, and no care
+of you: no one to cheer you in moments of depression: to say all in a
+word, no one to _love_ you, and no prospect of ever seeing any such one
+to the end of your days. For, as to parents and brethren, if you have
+them, they have other and very different ties; and, however laudable
+your feelings as son and brother, those feelings are of a different
+character. Then as to gratifications, from which you will hardly abstain
+altogether, are they generally of little expense? and are they attended
+with no trouble, no vexation, no disappointment, no _jealousy_ even, and
+are they never followed by shame or remorse?
+
+214. It does very well in bantering songs, to say that the bachelor's
+life is '_devoid of care_.' My observation tells me the contrary, and
+reason concurs, in this regard, with experience. The bachelor has no one
+on whom he can in all cases rely. When he quits his home, he carries
+with him cares that are unknown to the married man. If, indeed, like the
+common soldier, he have merely a lodging-place, and a bundle of clothes,
+given in charge to some one, he may be at his ease; but if he possess
+any thing of a home, he is never sure of its safety; and this
+uncertainty is a great enemy to cheerfulness. And as to _efficiency_ in
+life, how is the bachelor to equal the married man? In the case of
+farmers and tradesmen, the latter have so clearly the advantage over the
+former, that one need hardly insist upon the point; but it is, and must
+be, the same in all the situations of life. To provide for a wife and
+children is the greatest of all possible spurs to exertion. Many a man,
+naturally prone to idleness, has become active and industrious when he
+saw children growing up about him; many a dull sluggard has become, if
+not a bright man, at least a bustling man, when roused to exertion by
+his love. Dryden's account of the change wrought in CYMON, is only a
+strong case of the kind. And, indeed, if a man will not exert himself
+for the sake of a wife and children, he can have no exertion in him; or
+he must be deaf to all the dictates of nature.
+
+215. Perhaps the world never exhibited a more striking proof of the
+truth of this doctrine than that which is exhibited in me; and I am sure
+that every one will say, without any hesitation, that a fourth part of
+the labours I have performed, never would have been performed, _if I had
+not been a married man_. In the first place, they could not; for I
+should, all the early part of my life, have been rambling and roving
+about as most bachelors are. I should have had _no home_ that I cared a
+straw about, and should have wasted the far greater part of my time. The
+great affair of home being _settled_, having the home secured, I had
+leisure to employ my mind on things which it delighted in. I got rid at
+once of all cares, all _anxieties_, and had only to provide for the very
+moderate wants of that home. But the children began to come. They
+sharpened my industry: they spurred me on. To be sure, I had other and
+strong motives: I wrote for fame, and was urged forward by
+ill-treatment, and by the desire to triumph over my enemies; but, after
+all, a very large part of my _nearly a hundred volumes_ may be fairly
+ascribed to the wife and children.
+
+216. I might have done _something_; but, perhaps, not a _thousandth_
+part of what I have done; not even a thousandth part: for the chances
+are, that I, being fond of a military life, should have ended my days
+ten or twenty years ago, in consequence of wounds, or fatigue, or, more
+likely, in consequence of the persecutions of some haughty and insolent
+fool, whom nature had formed to black my shoes, and whom a system of
+corruption had made my commander. _Love_ came and rescued me from this
+state of horrible slavery; placed the whole of my time at my own
+disposal; made me as free as air; removed every restraint upon the
+operations of my mind, naturally disposed to communicate its thoughts to
+others; and gave me, for my leisure hours, a companion, who, though
+deprived of all opportunity of acquiring what is _called learning_, had
+so much good sense, so much useful knowledge, was so innocent, so just
+in all her ways, so pure in thought, word and deed, so disinterested, so
+generous, so devoted to me and her children, so free from all disguise,
+and, withal, so beautiful and so talkative, and in a voice so sweet, so
+cheering, that I must, seeing the health and the capacity which it had
+pleased God to give me, have been a _criminal_, if I had done much less
+than that which I have done; and I have always said, that, if my country
+feel any gratitude for my labours, that gratitude is due to her full as
+much as to me.
+
+217. _'Care'!_ What _care_ have I known! I have been buffeted about by
+this powerful and vindictive Government; I have repeatedly had the fruit
+of my labour snatched away from me by it; but I had a partner that never
+frowned, that was never melancholy, that never was subdued in spirit,
+that never abated a smile, on these occasions, that fortified me, and
+sustained me by her courageous example, and that was just as busy and as
+zealous in taking care of the remnant as she had been in taking care of
+the whole; just as cheerful, and just as full of caresses, when brought
+down to a mean hired lodging, as when the mistress of a fine country
+house, with all its accompaniments; and, whether from her words or her
+looks, no one could gather that she regretted the change. What '_cares_'
+have I had, then? What have I had worthy of the name of '_cares_'?
+
+218. And, how is it _now_? How is it when the _sixty-fourth year_ has
+come? And how should I have been without this wife and these children? I
+_might_ have amassed a tolerable heap of _money_; but what would that
+have done for me? It might have _bought_ me plenty of _professions_ of
+attachment; plenty of persons impatient for my exit from the world; but
+not one single grain of sorrow, for any anguish that might have attended
+my approaching end. To me, no being in this world appears so wretched as
+an _Old Bachelor_. Those circumstances, those changes in his person and
+in his mind, which, in the husband, increase rather than diminish the
+attentions to him, produce all the want of feeling attendant on disgust;
+and he beholds, in the conduct of the mercenary crew that generally
+surround him, little besides an eager desire to profit from that event,
+the approach of which, nature makes a subject of sorrow with him.
+
+219. Before I quit this part of my work, I cannot refrain from offering
+my opinion with regard to what is due from husband to wife, when the
+_disposal of his property_ comes to be thought of. When marriage is an
+affair settled by deeds, contracts, and lawyers, the husband, being
+bound beforehand, has really no _will_ to make. But where he has _a
+will_ to make, and a faithful wife to leave behind him, it is his first
+duty to provide for her future well-being, to the utmost of his power.
+If she brought him _no money_, she brought him _her person_; and by
+delivering that up to him, she established a claim to his careful
+protection of her to the end of her life. Some men think, or act as if
+they thought, that, if a wife bring no money, and if the husband gain
+money by his business or profession, that money is _his_, and not hers,
+because she has not been doing any of those things for which the money
+has been received. But is this way of thinking _just_? By the marriage
+vow, the husband endows the wife _with all his worldly goods_; and not a
+bit too much is this, when she is giving him the command and possession
+of her person. But does she _not help to acquire the money_? Speaking,
+for instance, of the farmer or the merchant, the wife does not, indeed,
+go to plough, or to look after the ploughing and sowing; she does not
+purchase or sell the stock; she does not go to the fair or the market;
+but she enables him to do all these without injury to his affairs at
+home; she is the guardian of his property; she preserves what would
+otherwise be lost to him. The barn and the granary, though they _create_
+nothing, have, in the bringing of food to our mouths, as much merit as
+the fields themselves. The wife does not, indeed, assist in the
+merchant's counting-house; she does not go upon the exchange; she does
+not even know what he is doing; but she keeps his house in order; she
+rears up his children; she provides a scene of suitable resort for his
+friends; she insures him a constant retreat from the fatigues of his
+affairs; she makes his home pleasant, and she is the guardian of his
+income.
+
+220. In both these cases, the wife _helps to gain the money_; and in
+cases where there is no gain, where the income is by descent, or is
+fixed, she helps to prevent it from being squandered away. It is,
+therefore, as much _hers_ as it is the husband's; and though _the law_
+gives him, in many cases, the power of keeping her share from her, no
+just man will ever avail himself of that power. With regard to the
+_tying up_ of widows from marrying again, I will relate what took place
+in a case of this kind, in America. A merchant, who had, during his
+married state, risen from poverty to very great riches, and who had,
+nevertheless, died at about forty years of age, left the whole of his
+property to his wife for her life, and at her disposal at her death,
+_provided that she did not marry_. The consequence was, that she took a
+husband _without marrying_, and, at her death (she having no children),
+gave the whole of the property to the second husband! So much for
+_posthumous jealousy_!
+
+221. Where there are _children_, indeed, it is the duty of the husband
+to provide, in certain cases, against _step-fathers_, who are very prone
+not to be the most just and affectionate parents. It is an unhappy
+circumstance, when a dying father is compelled to have fears of this
+sort. There is seldom _an apology_ to be offered for a mother that will
+hazard the happiness of her children by a second marriage. The _law_
+allows it, to be sure; but there is, as Prior says, 'something beyond
+the letter of the law.' I know what ticklish ground I am treading on
+here; but, though it is _as lawful_ for a woman to take a second husband
+as for a man to take a second wife, the cases are different, and widely
+different, in the eye of morality and of reason; for, as adultery in the
+wife is a greater offence than adultery in the husband; as it is more
+gross, as it includes _prostitution_; so a second marriage in the woman
+is more gross than in the man, argues great deficiency in that
+_delicacy_, that _innate_ modesty, which, after all, is the _great
+charm_, the charm of charms, in the female sex. I do not _like_ to hear
+a man _talk_ of his _first wife_, especially in the presence of a
+second; but to hear a woman thus _talk_ of her _first husband_, has
+never, however beautiful and good she might be, failed to sink her in my
+estimation. I have, in such cases, never been able to keep out of my
+mind that _concatenation of ideas_, which, in spite of custom, in spite
+of the frequency of the occurrence, leave an impression deeply
+disadvantageous to the party; for, after the greatest of ingenuity has
+exhausted itself in the way of apology, it comes to this at last, that
+the person has _a second time_ undergone that surrender, to which
+nothing but the most ardent affection, could ever reconcile a chaste and
+delicate woman.
+
+222. The usual apologies, that 'a _lone woman_ wants a _protector_; that
+she cannot _manage her estate_; that she cannot _carry on her business_;
+that she wants a _home for her children_'; all these apologies are not
+worth a straw; for what is the amount of them? Why, that she _surrenders
+her person_ to secure these ends! And if we admit the validity of such
+apologies, are we far from apologising for the kept-mistress, and even
+the prostitute? Nay, the former of these _may_ (if she confine herself
+to _one man_) plead more boldly in her defence; and even the latter may
+plead that hunger, which knows no law, and no decorum, and no delicacy.
+These unhappy, but justly-reprobated and despised parties, are allowed
+no apology at all: though reduced to the begging of their bread, the
+world grants them no excuse. The sentence on them is: 'You shall suffer
+every hardship; you shall submit to hunger and nakedness; you shall
+perish by the way-side, rather than you shall _surrender your person_ to
+the _dishonour of the female sex_.' But can we, without crying
+injustice, pass this sentence upon them, and, at the same time hold it
+to be proper, decorous, and delicate, that widows shall _surrender their
+persons_ for _worldly gain_, for the sake of _ease_, or for any
+consideration whatsoever?
+
+223. It is disagreeable to contemplate the possibility of cases of
+_separation_; but amongst the evils of life, such have occurred, and
+will occur; and the injured parties, while they are sure to meet with
+the pity of all just persons, must console themselves that they have not
+merited their fate. In the making one's choice, no human foresight or
+prudence can, in all cases, guard against an unhappy result. There is
+one species of husbands to be occasionally met with in all countries,
+meriting particular reprobation, and causing us to lament, that there is
+no law to punish offenders so enormous. There was a man in Pennsylvania,
+apparently a very amiable young man, having a good estate of his own,
+and marrying a most beautiful woman of his own age, of rich parents, and
+of virtue perfectly spotless. He very soon took to both _gaming_ and
+_drinking_ (the last being the most fashionable vice of the country); he
+neglected his affairs and his family; in about four years spent his
+estate, and became a dependent on his wife's father, together with his
+wife and three children. Even this would have been of little
+consequence, as far as related to expense; but he led the most
+scandalous life, and was incessant in his demands of money for the
+purposes of that infamous life. All sorts of means were resorted to to
+reclaim him, and all in vain; and the wretch, availing himself of the
+pleading of his wife's affection, and of his _power over the children_
+more especially, continued for ten or twelve years to plunder the
+parents, and to disgrace those whom it was his bounden duty to assist in
+making happy. At last, going out in the dark, in a boat, and being
+partly drunk, he went to the bottom of the Delaware, and became food for
+otters or fishes, to the great joy of all who knew him, excepting only
+his amiable wife. I can form an idea of no baseness equal to this. There
+is more of _baseness_ in this character than in that of the robber. The
+man who obtains the means of indulging in vice, by robbery, exposes
+himself to the inflictions of the law; but though he merits punishment,
+he merits it less than the base miscreant who obtains his means by his
+_threats to disgrace his own wife, children_, and _the wife's parents_.
+The short way in such a case, is the best; set the wretch at _defiance_;
+resort to the strong arm of the law wherever it will avail you; drive
+him from your house like a mad dog; for, be assured, that a being so
+base and cruel is never to be reclaimed: all your efforts at persuasion
+are useless; his promises and vows are made but to be broken; all your
+endeavours to keep the thing from the knowledge of the world, only
+prolong his plundering of you; and many a tender father and mother have
+been ruined by such endeavours; the whole story _must come out at last_,
+and it is better to come out before you be ruined, than after your ruin
+is completed.
+
+224. However, let me hope, that those who read this work will always be
+secure against evils like these; let me hope, that the young men who
+read it will abstain from those vices which lead to such fatal results;
+that they will, before they utter the marriage vow, duly reflect on the
+great duties that that vow imposes on them; that they will repel, from
+the outset, every temptation to any thing tending to give pain to the
+defenceless persons whose love for them have placed them at their mercy;
+and that they will imprint on their own minds this truth, that a _bad
+husband_ was never yet _a happy man_.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V
+
+TO A FATHER
+
+225. 'Little children,' says the Scripture, 'are like arrows in the
+hands of the giant, and blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of
+them'; a beautiful figure to describe, in forcible terms, the support,
+the power, which a father derives from being surrounded by a family. And
+what father, thus blessed, is there who does not feel, in this sort of
+support, a _reliance_ which he feels in no other? In regard to this sort
+of support there is no uncertainty, no doubts, no misgivings; it is
+_yourself_ that you see in your children: their bosoms are the safe
+repository of even the whispers of your mind: they are the great and
+unspeakable delight of your youth, the pride of your prime of life, and
+the props of your old age. They proceed from that love, the pleasures of
+which no tongue or pen can adequately describe, and the various
+blessings which they bring are equally incapable of description.
+
+226. But, to make them blessings, you must act your part well; for they
+may, by your neglect, your ill-treatment, your evil example, be made to
+be the _contrary of blessings_; instead of pleasure, they may bring you
+pain; instead of making your heart glad, the sight of them may make it
+sorrowful; instead of being the staff of your old age, they may bring
+your gray hairs in grief to the grave.
+
+227. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance, that you here act
+well your part, omitting nothing, even from the very beginning, tending
+to give you great and unceasing influence over their minds; and, above
+all things, to ensure, if possible, _an ardent love of their mother_.
+Your first duty towards them is resolutely to prevent their drawing the
+means of life _from any breast but hers_. That is their _own_; it is
+their _birthright_; and if that fail from any natural cause, the place
+of it ought to be supplied by those means which are frequently resorted
+to without employing a _hireling breast_. I am aware of the too frequent
+practice of the contrary; I am well aware of the offence which I shall
+here give to many; but it is for me to do my duty, and to set, with
+regard to myself, consequences at defiance.
+
+228. In the first place, no food is so congenial to the child as the
+milk of its own mother; its quality is made by nature to suit the age of
+the child; it comes with the child, and is calculated precisely for its
+stomach. And, then, what sort of a mother must that be who can endure
+the thought of seeing her child at another breast! The suckling may be
+attended with great pain, and it is so attended in many cases; but this
+pain is a necessary consequence of pleasures foregone; and, besides, it
+has its accompanying pleasures too. No mother ever suffered more than my
+wife did from suckling her children. How many times have I seen her,
+when the child was beginning to draw, bite her lips while the tears ran
+down her cheeks! Yet, having endured this, the smiles came and dried up
+the tears; and the little thing that had caused the pain received
+abundant kisses as its punishment.
+
+229. Why, now, did I not love her _the more_ for this? Did not this tend
+to rivet her to my heart? She was enduring this _for me_; and would not
+this endearing thought have been wanting, if I had seen the baby at a
+breast that I had hired and _paid for_; if I had had _two women_, one to
+bear the child and another to give it milk? Of all the sights that this
+world affords, the most delightful in my eyes, even to an unconcerned
+spectator, is, a mother with her clean and fat baby lugging at her
+breast, leaving off now-and-then and smiling, and she, occasionally,
+half smothering it with kisses. What must that sight be, then, to the
+_father_ of the child?
+
+230. Besides, are we to overlook the great and wonderful effect that
+this has on the minds of children? As they succeed each other, they see
+with their own eyes, the pain, the care, the caresses, which their
+mother has endured for, or bestowed, on them; and nature bids them love
+her accordingly. To love her ardently becomes part of their very nature;
+and when the time comes that her advice to them is necessary as a guide
+for their conduct, this deep and early impression has all its natural
+weight, which must be wholly wanting if the child be banished to a
+hireling breast, and only brought at times into the presence of the
+mother, who is, in fact, no mother, or, at least, but half a one. The
+children who are thus banished, love (as is natural and just) the
+foster-mother better than the real mother as long as they are at the
+breast. When this ceases, they are _taught_ to love their own mother
+most; but this _teaching_ is of a cold and formal kind. They may, and
+generally do, in a short time, care little about the foster-mother; the
+_teaching_ weans all their affection from her, but it does not
+_transfer_ it to the other.
+
+231. I had the pleasure to know, in Hampshire, a lady who had brought up
+a family of ten children _by hand_, as they call it. Owing to some
+defect, she could not suckle her children; but she wisely and heroically
+resolved, that her children should hang upon no _other breast_, and that
+she would not participate in the crime of robbing another child of its
+birthright, and, as is mostly the case, of _its life_. Who has not seen
+these banished children, when brought and put into the arms of their
+mothers, screaming to get from them, and stretch out their little hands
+to get back into the arms of the nurse, and when safely got there,
+hugging the hireling as if her bosom were a place of _refuge_? Why, such
+a sight is, one would think, enough to strike a mother dead. And what
+sort of a husband and father, I want to know, must that be, who can
+endure the thought of his child loving another woman more than its own
+mother and his wife?
+
+232. And besides all these considerations, is there no crime in robbing
+the child of the nurse, and in exposing it to perish? It will not do to
+say that the child of the nurse may be dead, and thereby leave her
+breast for the use of some other. Such cases must happen too seldom to
+be at all relied on; and, indeed, every one must see, that, generally
+speaking, there must be a child _cast off_ for every one that is put to
+a hireling breast. Now, without supposing it possible, that the hireling
+will, in any case, contrive to _get rid_ of her own child, every man who
+employs such hireling, must know, that he is exposing such child to
+destruction; that he is assisting to rob it of the means of life; and,
+of course, assisting to procure its death, as completely as a man can,
+in any case, assist in causing death by starvation; a consideration
+which will make every just man in the world recoil at the thought of
+employing a hireling breast. For he is not to think of pacifying his
+conscience by saying, that _he_ knows nothing about the hireling's
+child. He does know; for he must know, that she _has_ a child, and that
+he is a principal in robbing it of the means of life. He does not cast
+it off and leave it to perish himself, but he causes the thing to be
+done; and to all intents and purposes, he is a principal in the cruel
+and cowardly crime.
+
+233. And if an argument could possibly be yet wanting to the husband; if
+his feelings were so stiff as still to remain unmoved, must not the wife
+be aware that whatever _face_ the world may put upon it, however custom
+may seem to bear her out; must she not be aware that every one must see
+the main _motive_ which induces her to banish from her arms that which
+has formed part of her own body? All the pretences about her sore
+breasts and her want of strength are vain: nature says that she is to
+endure the pains as well as the pleasures: whoever has heard the
+bleating of the ewe for her lamb, and has seen her _reconciled_, or at
+least pacified, by having presented to her the skin or some of the blood
+of her _dead_ lamb: whoever has witnessed the difficulty of inducing
+either ewe or cow to give her milk to an alien young one: whoever has
+seen the valour of the timid hen in defending her brood, and has
+observed that she never swallows a morsel that is fit for her young,
+until they be amply satisfied: whoever has seen the wild birds, though,
+at other times, shunning even the distant approach of man, flying and
+screaming round his head, and exposing themselves to almost certain
+death in defence of their nests: whoever has seen these things, or any
+one of them, must question the _motive_ that can induce a mother to
+banish a child from her own breast to that of one who has already been
+so unnatural as to banish hers. And, in seeking for a motive
+_sufficiently powerful_ to lead to such an act, women must excuse men,
+if they be not satisfied with the ordinary pretences; they must excuse
+_me_, at any rate, if I do not stop even at love of ease and want of
+maternal affection, and if I express my fear, that, superadded to the
+unjustifiable motives, there is one which is calculated to excite
+disgust; namely, a desire to be quickly freed from that restraint which
+the child imposes, and to _hasten back_, unbridled and undisfigured, to
+those enjoyments, to have an eagerness for which, or to wish to excite a
+desire for which, a really delicate woman will shudder at the thought of
+being suspected.
+
+234. I am well aware of the hostility that I have here been exciting;
+but there is another, and still more furious, bull to take by the horns,
+and which would have been encountered some pages back (that being the
+proper place), had I not hesitated between my duty and my desire to
+avoid giving offence; I mean the employing of _male-operators_, on those
+occasions where females used to be employed. And here I have _every
+thing_ against me; the now general custom, even amongst the most chaste
+and delicate women; the ridicule continually cast on old midwives; the
+interest of a profession, for the members of which I entertain more
+respect and regard than for those of any other; and, above all the rest,
+_my own example to the contrary_, and my knowledge that every husband
+has the same apology that I had. But because I acted wrong myself, it is
+not less, but rather more, my duty to endeavour to dissuade others from
+doing the same. My wife had suffered very severely with her second
+child, which, at last, was still-born. The next time I pleaded for _the
+doctor_; and, after every argument that I could think of, obtained a
+reluctant consent. Her _life_ was so dear to me, that every thing else
+appeared as nothing. Every husband has the same apology to make; and
+thus, from the good, and not from the bad, feelings of men, the practice
+has become far too general, for me to hope even to narrow it; but,
+nevertheless, I cannot refrain from giving my opinion on the subject.
+
+235. We are apt to talk in a very unceremonious style of our _rude_
+ancestors, of their _gross_ habits, their _want of delicacy_ in their
+language. No man shall ever make me believe, that those, who reared the
+cathedral of ELY (which I saw the other day), were _rude_, either in
+their manners or in their minds and words. No man shall make me believe,
+that our ancestors were a rude and beggarly race, when I read in an act
+of parliament, passed in the reign of Edward the Fourth, regulating the
+dresses of the different ranks of the people, and forbidding the
+LABOURERS to wear coats of cloth that cost _more_ than _two shillings a
+yard_ (equal to _forty shillings_ of our present money), and forbidding
+their wives and daughters to wear sashes, or girdles, _trimmed with gold
+or silver_. No man shall make me believe that this was a _rude_ and
+beggarly race, compared with those who now shirk and shiver about in
+canvass frocks and rotten cottons. Nor shall any man persuade me that
+that was a _rude_ and beggarly state of things, in which (reign of
+Edward the Third) an act was passed regulating the wages of labour, and
+ordering that a woman, for _weeding in the corn_, should receive a penny
+a day, while a _quart of red wine_ was sold for _a penny_, and a pair of
+men's shoes for _two-pence_. No man shall make me believe that
+_agriculture_ was in a _rude_ state, when an act like this was passed,
+or that our ancestors of that day were _rude_ in their minds, or in
+their thoughts. Indeed, there are a thousand proofs, that, whether in
+regard to domestic or foreign affairs, whether in regard to internal
+freedom and happiness, or to weight in the world, England was at her
+zenith about the reign of Edward the Third. The _Reformation_, as it is
+called, gave her a complete pull down. She revived again in the reigns
+of the Stuarts, as far as related to internal affairs; but the
+'_Glorious Revolution_' and its debt and its taxes, have, amidst the
+false glare of new palaces, roads, and canals, brought her down until
+she is become the land of domestic misery and of foreign impotence and
+contempt; and, until she, amidst all her boasted improvements and
+refinements, tremblingly awaits her fall.
+
+236. However, to return from this digression, _rude_ and _unrefined_ as
+our mothers might be, plain and unvarnished as they might be in their
+language, accustomed as they might be to call things by their names,
+though they were not so _very delicate_ as to use the word
+_small-clothes_; and to be quite unable, in speaking of horn-cattle,
+horses, sheep, the canine race, and poultry, to designate them by their
+sexual appellations; though they might not absolutely faint at hearing
+these appellations used by others; _rude_ and _unrefined_ and
+_indelicate_ as they might be, they did not suffer, in the cases alluded
+to, the approaches of _men_, which approaches are unceremoniously
+suffered, and even sought, by their polished and refined and delicate
+daughters; and of unmarried men too, in many cases; and of very young
+men.
+
+237. From all antiquity this office was allotted to _woman_. Moses's
+life was saved by the humanity of the Egyptian _midwife_; and to the
+employment of females in this memorable case, the world is probably
+indebted for that which has been left it by that greatest of all
+law-givers, whose institutes, _rude_ as they were, have been the
+foundation of all the wisest and most just laws in all the countries of
+Europe and America. It was the _fellow feeling_ of the midwife for the
+poor mother that saved Moses. And none but a _mother_ can, in such
+cases, feel to the full and effectual extent that which the operator
+ought to feel. She has been in the same state _herself_; she knows more
+about the matter, except in cases of very rare occurrence, than any
+_man_, however great his learning and experience, can ever know. She
+knows all the previous symptoms; she can judge more correctly than man
+can judge in such a case; she can put questions to the party, which a
+man cannot put; the communication between the two is wholly without
+reserve; the _person_ of the one is given up to the other, as completely
+as her own is under her command. This never can be the case with a
+man-operator; for, after all that can be said or done, the native
+feeling of women, in whatever rank of life, will, in these cases,
+restrain them from saying and doing, before a man, even before a
+_husband_, many things which they ought to say and do. So that, perhaps,
+even with regard to the bare question of comparative safety to life, the
+midwife is the preferable person.
+
+238. But safety to life is not ALL. The preservation of life is not to
+be preferred to EVERY THING. Ought not a man to prefer death to the
+commission of treason against his country? Ought not a man to die,
+rather than save his life by the prostitution of his wife to a tyrant,
+who insists upon the one or the other? Every man and every woman will
+answer in the affirmative to both these questions. There are, then,
+cases where people ought to submit to _certain death_. Surely, then, the
+mere _chance_, the mere _possibility_ of it, ought not to outweigh the
+mighty considerations on the other side; ought not to overcome that
+inborn modesty, that sacred reserve as to their _persons_, which, as I
+said before, is the charm of charms of the female sex, and which our
+mothers, _rude_ as they are called by us, took, we may be satisfied, the
+best and most effectual means of preserving.
+
+239. But is there, after all, any thing _real_ in this _greater
+security_ for the life of either mother or child? If, then, risk were so
+great as to call upon women to overcome this natural repugnance to
+suffer the approaches of a man, that risk must be _general_; it must
+apply to _all_ women; and, further, it must, ever since the creation of
+man, _always_ have so applied. Now, resorting to the employment of
+_men_-operators has not been in vogue in Europe more than about seventy
+years, and has not been _general_ in England more than about thirty or
+forty years. So that the _risk_ in employing midwives must, of late
+years, have become vastly greater than it was even when I was a boy,
+or the whole race must have been extinguished long ago. And, then, how
+puzzled we should be to account for the building of all the cathedrals,
+and all the churches, and the draining of all the marshes, and all the
+fens, more than a thousand years before the word '_accoucheur_' ever
+came from the lips of woman, and before the thought came into her mind?
+And here, even in the use of this _word_, we have a specimen of the
+_refined delicacy_ of the present age; here we have, varnish the matter
+over how we may, modesty in the _word_ and grossness in the _thought_.
+Farmers' wives, daughters, and maids, cannot now allude to, or hear
+named, without _blushing_, those affairs of the homestead, which they,
+within my memory, used to talk about as freely as of milking or
+spinning; but, have they become more _really modest_ than their mothers
+were? Has this _refinement_ made them more _continent_ than those _rude_
+mothers? A jury at Westminster gave, about six years ago, _damages_ to a
+man, calling himself a gentleman, against a farmer, because the latter,
+for the purpose for which such animals are kept, had a _bull_ in his
+yard, on which the windows of the gentleman looked! The plaintiff
+alleged, that this was _so offensive_ to his _wife_ and _daughters_,
+that, if the defendant were not compelled to desist, he should be
+obliged to _brick up his windows, or to quit the house_! If I had been
+the father of these, at once, _delicate_ and _curious_ daughters, I
+would not have been the herald of their purity of mind; and if I had
+been the suitor of one of them, I would have taken care to give up the
+suit with all convenient speed; for how could I reasonably have hoped
+ever to be able to prevail on delicacy, _so exquisite_, to commit itself
+to a pair of bridal sheets? In spite, however, of all this '_refinement_
+in the human mind,' which is everlastingly dinned in our ears; in spite
+of the '_small-clothes_,' and of all the other affected stuff, we have
+this conclusion, this indubitable _proof_, of the falling off in _real_
+delicacy; namely, that common prostitutes, formerly unknown, now swarm
+in our towns, and are seldom wanting even in our villages; and where
+there was _one_ illegitimate child (including those coming before the
+time) only fifty years ago, there are now _twenty_.
+
+240. And who can say how far the employment of _men_, in the cases
+alluded to, may have _assisted_ in producing this change, so disgraceful
+to the present age, and so injurious to the female sex? The prostitution
+and the swarms of illegitimate children have a natural and inevitable
+tendency to lessen that respect, and that kind and indulgent feeling,
+which is due from all men to virtuous women. It is well known that the
+unworthy members of any profession, calling, or rank in life, cause, by
+their acts, the whole body to sink in the general esteem; it is well
+known, that the habitual dishonesty of merchants trading abroad, the
+habitual profligate behaviour of travellers from home, the frequent
+proofs of abject submission to tyrants; it is well known, that these may
+give the character of dishonesty, profligacy, or cowardice, to a whole
+nation. There are, doubtless, many men in Switzerland, who abhor the
+infamous practices of men _selling themselves_, by whole regiments, to
+fight for any foreign state that will pay them, no matter in what cause,
+and no matter whether against their own parents or brethren; but the
+censure falls upon the _whole nation_: and '_no money, no Swiss_,' is a
+proverb throughout the world. It is, amidst those scenes of prostitution
+and bastardy, impossible for men in general to respect the female sex to
+the degree that they formerly did; while numbers will be apt to adopt
+the unjust sentiment of the old bachelor, POPE, that '_every woman is,
+at heart, a rake_.'
+
+241. Who knows, I say, in what degree the employment of _men_-operators
+may have tended to produce this change, so injurious to the female sex?
+Aye, and to encourage unfeeling and brutal men to propose that the dead
+bodies of females, if _poor_, should be _sold_ for the purpose of
+exhibition and dissection before an audience of men; a proposition that
+our '_rude_ ancestors' would have answered, not by words, but by blows!
+Alas! our women may talk of 'small-clothes' as long as they please; they
+may blush to scarlet at hearing animals designated by their sexual
+appellations; it may, to give the world a proof of our excessive modesty
+and delicacy, even pass a law (indeed we have done it) to punish 'an
+_exposure of the person_'; but as long as our streets swarm with
+prostitutes, our asylums and private houses with bastards; as long as we
+have _man_-operators in the delicate cases alluded to, and as long as
+the exhibiting of the dead body of a virtuous female before an audience
+of men shall not be punished by the law, and even with death; as long as
+we shall appear to be satisfied in this state of things, it becomes us,
+at any rate, to be silent about purity of mind, improvement of manners,
+and an increase of refinement and _delicacy_.
+
+242. This practice has brought the '_doctor_' into _every family_ in the
+kingdom, which is of itself no small evil. I am not thinking of the
+_expense_; for, in cases like these, nothing in that way ought to be
+spared. If necessary to the safety of his wife, a man ought not only to
+part with his last shilling, but to pledge his future labour. But we all
+know that there are _imaginary ailments_, many of which are absolutely
+created by the habit of talking with or about the '_doctor_.' Read the
+'DOMESTIC MEDICINE,' and by the time that you have done, you will
+imagine that you have, at times, all the diseases of which it treats.
+This practice has added to, has doubled, aye, has augmented, I verily
+believe, ten-fold the number of the gentlemen who are, in common
+parlance, called '_doctors_'; at which, indeed, I, on my own private
+account, ought to rejoice; for, _invariably_ I have, even in the worst
+of times, found them every where amongst my staunchest and kindest
+friends. But though these gentlemen are not to blame for this, any more
+than attorneys are for their increase in number; and amongst these
+gentlemen, too, I have, with very few exceptions, always found sensible
+men and zealous friends; though the parties pursuing these professions
+are not to blame; though the increase of attorneys has arisen from the
+endless number and the complexity of the laws, and from the ten-fold mass
+of crimes caused by poverty arising from oppressive taxation; and though
+the increase of 'doctors' has arisen from the diseases and the imaginary
+ailments arising from that effeminate luxury which has been created by
+the drawing of wealth from the many, and giving it to the few; and, as
+the lower classes will always endeavour to imitate the higher, so the
+'_accoucheur_' has, along with the '_small-clothes_,' descended from the
+loan-monger's palace down to the hovel of the pauper, there to take his
+fee out of the poor-rates; though these parties are not to blame, the
+thing is not less an evil. Both professions have lost in character, in
+proportion to the increase in the number of its members; peaches, if
+they grew on hedges, would rank but little above the berries of the
+bramble.
+
+243. But to return once more to the matter of _risk_ of life; can it be
+that _nature_ has so ordered it, that, as a _general thing_, the life of
+either mother or child shall be in _danger_, even if there were no
+attendant at all? _Can this be?_ Certainly it cannot: _safety_ must be
+the rule, and _danger_ the exception; this _must_ be the case, or the
+world never could have been peopled; and, perhaps, in ninety-nine cases
+out of every hundred, if nature were left _wholly to herself_, all would
+be right. The great doctor in these cases, is, comforting, consoling,
+cheering up. And who can perform this office like _women_? who have for
+these occasions a language and sentiments which seem to have been
+invented for the purpose; and be they what they may as to general
+demeanour and character, they have all, upon these occasions, one common
+feeling, and that so amiable, so excellent, as to admit of no adequate
+description. They completely forget, for the time, all rivalships, all
+squabbles, all animosities, all _hatred_ even; every one feels as if it
+were her own particular concern.
+
+244. These, we may be well assured, are the proper attendants on these
+occasions; the mother, the aunt, the sister, the cousin, and female
+neighbour; these are the suitable attendants, having some experienced
+woman to afford extraordinary aid, if such be necessary; and in the few
+cases where the preservation of life demands the surgeon's skill, he is
+always at hand. The contrary practice, which we got from the French, is
+not, however, _so general_ in France as in England. We have outstripped
+all the world in this, as we have in every thing which proceeds from
+luxury and effeminacy on the one hand, and from poverty on the other;
+the millions have been stripped of their means to heap wealth on the
+thousands, and have been corrupted in manners, as well as in morals, by
+vicious examples set them by the possessors of that wealth. As reason
+says that the practice of which I complain cannot be cured without a
+total change in society, it would be presumption in me to expect such
+cure from any efforts of mine. I therefore must content myself with
+hoping that such change will come, and with declaring, that if I had to
+live my life over again, I would act upon the opinions which I have
+thought it my bounden duty here to state and endeavour to maintain.
+
+245. Having gotten over these thorny places as quickly as possible, I
+gladly come back to the BABIES; with regard to whom I shall have no
+prejudices, no affectation, no false pride, no sham fears to encounter;
+every heart (except there be one made of flint) being with me here.
+'Then were there brought unto him _little children_, that he should put
+his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus
+said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me; for
+of such is the kingdom of heaven.' A figure most forcibly expressive of
+the character and beauty of innocence, and, at the same time, most aptly
+illustrative of the doctrine of regeneration. And where is the man; the
+_woman_ who is not fond of babies is not worthy the name; but where is
+the _man_ who does not feel his heart softened; who does not feel
+himself become gentler; who does not lose all the hardness of his
+temper; when, in any way, for any purpose, or by any body, an appeal is
+made to him in behalf of these so helpless and so perfectly innocent
+little creatures?
+
+246. SHAKSPEARE, who is cried up as the great interpreter of the human
+heart, has said, that the man in whose soul there is no _music_, or love
+of music, is 'fit for murders, treasons, stratagems, and spoils.' 'Our
+_immortal_ bard,' as the profligate SHERIDAN used to call him in public,
+while he laughed at him in private; our '_immortal_ bard' seems to have
+forgotten that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were flung into the
+fiery furnace (made seven times hotter than usual) amidst the sound of
+the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music;
+he seems to have forgotten that it was a music and a dance-loving damsel
+that chose, as a recompense for her elegant performance, the bloody head
+of John the Baptist, brought to her in a charger; he seems to have
+forgotten that, while Rome burned, Nero fiddled: he did not know,
+perhaps, that cannibals always dance and sing while their victims are
+roasting; but he might have known, and he must have known, that
+England's greatest tyrant, Henry VIII., had, as his agent in blood,
+Thomas Cromwell, expressed it, 'his _sweet soul_ enwrapped in the
+_celestial_ sounds of music;' and this was just at the time when the
+ferocious tyrant was ordering Catholics and Protestants to be tied back
+to back on the same hurdle, dragged to Smithfield on that hurdle, and
+there tied to, and burnt from, the same stake. Shakspeare must have
+known these things, for he lived immediately after their date; and if he
+had lived in our day, he would have seen instances enough of 'sweet
+souls' enwrapped in the same manner, and capable, if not of deeds
+equally bloody, of others, discovering a total want of feeling for
+sufferings not unfrequently occasioned by their own wanton waste, and
+waste arising, too, in part, from their taste for these 'celestial
+sounds.'
+
+247. O no! the heart of man is not to be known by this test: a _great_
+fondness for music is a mark of great weakness, great vacuity of mind:
+not of hardness of heart; not of vice; not of downright folly; but of a
+want of capacity, or inclination, for sober thought. This is not always
+the case: accidental circumstances almost force the taste upon people:
+but, generally speaking, it is a preference of sound to sense. But the
+man, and especially the _father_, who is not fond of _babies_; who does
+not feel his heart softened when he touches their almost boneless limbs;
+when he sees their little eyes first begin to discern; when he hears
+their tender accents; the man whose heart does not beat truly to this
+test, is, to say the best of him, an object of compassion.
+
+248. But the mother's feelings are here to be thought of too; for, of
+all gratifications, the very greatest that a mother can receive, is
+notice taken of, and praise bestowed on, her baby. The moment _that_
+gets into her arms, every thing else diminishes in value, the father
+only excepted. _Her own personal charms_, notwithstanding all that men
+say and have written on the subject, become, at most, a secondary object
+as soon as the baby arrives. A saying of the old, profligate King of
+Prussia is frequently quoted in proof of the truth of the maxim, that a
+woman will forgive any thing but _calling her ugly_; a very true maxim,
+perhaps, as applied to prostitutes, whether in high or low life; but a
+pretty long life of observation has told me, that a _mother_, worthy of
+the name, will care little about what you say of _her_ person, so that
+you will but extol the beauty of her baby. Her baby is always the very
+prettiest that ever was born! It is always an eighth wonder of the
+world! And thus it ought to be, or there would be a want of that
+wondrous attachment to it which is necessary to bear her up through all
+those cares and pains and toils inseparable from the preservation of its
+life and health.
+
+249. It is, however, of the part which the _husband_ has to act, in
+participating in these cares and toils, that I am now to speak. Let no
+man imagine that the world will despise him for helping to take care of
+his own child: thoughtless fools may attempt to ridicule; the unfeeling
+few may join in the attempt; but all, whose good opinion is worth
+having, will applaud his conduct, and will, in many cases, be disposed
+to repose confidence in him on that very account. To say of a man, that
+he is fond of his family, is, of itself, to say that, in private life at
+least, he is a good and trust-worthy man; aye, and in public life too,
+pretty much; for it is no easy matter to separate the two characters;
+and it is naturally concluded, that he who has been flagrantly wanting
+in feeling for his own flesh and blood, will not be very sensitive
+towards the rest of mankind. There is nothing more amiable, nothing more
+delightful to behold, than a _young_ man especially taking part in the
+work of nursing the children; and how often have I admired this in the
+labouring men in Hampshire! It is, indeed, _generally_ the same all over
+England; and as to America, it would be deemed brutal for a man not to
+take his full share of these cares and labours.
+
+250. The man who is to gain a living by his labour, must be drawn away
+from home, or, at least, from the cradle-side, in order to perform that
+labour; but this will not, if he be made of good stuff, prevent him from
+doing his share of the duty due to his children. There are still many
+hours in the twenty-four, that he will have to spare for this duty; and
+there ought to be no toils, no watchings, no breaking of rest, imposed
+by this duty, of which he ought not to perform his full share, and that,
+too, without grudging. This is strictly due from him in payment for the
+pleasures of the marriage state. What _right_ has he to the sole
+possession of a _woman's_ person; what right to a _husband's_ vast
+authority; what right to the honourable title and the boundless power of
+_father_: what _right_ has he to all, or any of these, unless he can
+found his claim on the faithful performance of all the duties which
+these titles imply?
+
+251. One great source of the unhappiness amongst mankind arises,
+however, from a neglect of these duties; but, as if by way of
+compensation for their privations, they are much more duly performed by
+the poor than by the rich. The fashion of the labouring people is this:
+the husband, when free from his toil in the fields, takes his share in
+the nursing, which he manifestly looks upon as a sort of reward for his
+labour. However distant from his cottage, his heart is always at that
+home towards which he is carried, at night, by limbs that feel not their
+weariness, being urged on by a heart anticipating the welcome of those
+who attend him there. Those who have, as I so many hundreds of times
+have, seen the labourers in the woodland parts of Hampshire and Sussex,
+coming, at night-fall, towards their cottage-wickets, laden with fuel
+for a day or two; whoever has seen three or four little creatures
+looking out for the father's approach, running in to announce the glad
+tidings, and then scampering out to meet him, clinging round his knees,
+or hanging on his skirts; whoever has witnessed scenes like this, to
+witness which has formed one of the greatest delights of my life, will
+hesitate long before he prefer a life of ease to a life of labour;
+before he prefer a communication with children intercepted by servants
+and teachers to that communication which is here direct, and which
+admits not of any division of affection.
+
+252. Then comes _the Sunday_; and, amongst all those who keep no
+servants, a great deal depends on the manner in which the father employs
+_that day_. When there are two or three children, or even one child, the
+first thing, after the breakfast (which is late on this day of rest), is
+to wash and dress the child or children. Then, while the mother is
+dressing the dinner, the father, being in his Sunday-clothes himself,
+takes care of the child or children. When dinner is over, the mother
+puts on her best; and then, all go to church, or, if that cannot be,
+whether from distance or other cause, _all pass the afternoon together_.
+This used to be the way of life amongst the labouring people; and from
+this way of life arose the most able and most moral people that the
+world ever saw, until grinding taxation took from them the means of
+obtaining a sufficiency of food and of raiment; plunged the whole, good
+and bad, into one indiscriminate mass, under the degrading and hateful
+name of paupers.
+
+253. The working man, in whatever line, and whether in town or country,
+who spends his _day of rest_, or any part of it, except in case of
+absolute necessity, away from his wife and children, is not worthy of
+the name of _father_, and is seldom worthy of the trust of any employer.
+Such absence argues a want of fatherly and of conjugal affection, which
+want is generally duly repaid by a similar want in the neglected
+parties; and, though stern authority may command and enforce obedience
+for a while, the time soon comes when it will be set at defiance; and
+when such a father, having no example, no proofs of love, to plead,
+complains of _filial ingratitude_, the silent indifference of his
+neighbours, and which is more poignant, his own heart, will tell him
+that his complaint is unjust.
+
+254. Thus far with regard to _working_ people; but much more necessary
+is it to inculcate these principles in the minds of young men in the
+middle rank of life, and to be more particular, in their case, with
+regard to the care due to very young children, for here _servants_ come
+in; and many are but too prone to think, that when they have handed
+their children over to well-paid and able servants, they have _done
+their duty by them_, than which there can hardly be a more mischievous
+error. The children of the poorer people are, in general, much fonder of
+their parents than those of the rich are of theirs: this fondness is
+reciprocal; and the cause is, that the children of the former have, from
+their very birth, had a greater share than those of the latter--of the
+_personal_ attention, and of the never-ceasing endearments of their
+parents.
+
+255. I have before urged upon young married men, in the middle walks of
+life, to _keep the servants out of the house as long as possible_; and
+when they must come at last, when they must be had even to assist in
+taking care of children, let them be _assistants_ in the most strict
+sense of the word; let them not be _confided in_; let children never be
+_left to them alone_; and the younger the child, the more necessary a
+rigid adherence to this rule. I shall be told, perhaps, by some careless
+father, or some play-haunting mother, that female servants are _women_,
+and have the tender feelings of women. Very true; and, in general, as
+good and kind in their _nature_ as the mother herself. But they are not
+the _mothers_ of your children, and it is not in nature that they should
+have the care and anxiety adequate to the necessity of the case. Out of
+the immediate care and personal superintendence of one or the other of
+the parents, or of some trusty _relation_, no young child ought to be
+suffered to be, if there be, at whatever sacrifice of ease or of
+property, any possibility of preventing it: because, to insure, if
+possible, the perfect form, the straight limbs, the sound body, and the
+sane mind of your children, is the very first of all your duties. To
+provide fortunes for them; to make provision for their future fame; to
+give them the learning necessary to the calling for which you destine
+them: all these may be duties, and the last is a duty; but a duty far
+greater than, and prior to, all these, is the duty of neglecting nothing
+within your power to insure them a _sane mind in a sound and undeformed
+body_. And, good God! how many are the instances of deformed bodies, of
+crooked limbs, of idiocy, or of deplorable imbecility, proceeding solely
+from young children being left to the care of servants! One would
+imagine, that one single sight of this kind to be seen, or heard of, in
+a whole nation, would be sufficient to deter parents from the practice.
+And what, then, must those parents feel, who have brought this life-long
+sorrowing on themselves! When once the thing is _done_, to repent is
+unavailing. And what is now the worth of all the ease and all the
+pleasures, to enjoy which the poor sufferer was abandoned to the care of
+servants!
+
+256. What! can I plead _example_, then, in support of this rigid
+precept? Did we, who have bred up a family of children, and have had
+servants during the greater part of the time, _never_ leave a young
+child to the care of servants? Never; no, not for _one single hour_.
+Were we, then, tied constantly to the house with them? No; for we
+sometimes took them out; but one or the other of us _was always with
+them_, until, in succession, they were able to take good care of
+themselves; or until the elder ones were able to take care of the
+younger, and then _they_ sometimes stood sentinel in our stead. How
+could we _visit_ then? Why, if both went, we bargained beforehand to
+take the children with us; and if this were a thing not to be proposed,
+one of us went, and the other stayed at home, the latter being very
+frequently my lot. From this we _never_ once deviated. We cast aside all
+consideration of convenience; all calculations of expense; all thoughts
+of pleasure of every sort. And, what could have equalled the reward that
+we have received for our care and for our unshaken resolution in this
+respect?
+
+257. In the rearing of children, there is _resolution_ wanting as well
+as _tenderness_. That parent is not _truly_ affectionate who wants the
+_courage_ to do that which is sure to give the child temporary pain. A
+great deal, in providing for the _health_ and _strength_ of children,
+depends upon their being duly and daily washed, when well, in cold water
+from head to foot. Their cries testify to what a degree they _dislike_
+this. They squall and kick and twist about at a fine rate; and many
+mothers, too many, neglect this, partly from reluctance to encounter the
+squalling, and partly, and _much too often_, from what I will not call
+_idleness_, but to which I cannot apply a milder term than _neglect_.
+Well and duly performed, it is an hour's good tight work; for, besides
+the bodily labour, which is not very slight when the child gets to be
+five or six months old, there is the _singing_ to _overpower the voice
+of the child_. The moment the stripping of the child used to begin, the
+singing used to begin, and the latter never ceased till the former had
+ceased. After having heard this go on with all my children, ROUSSEAU
+taught me the _philosophy_ of it. I happened, by accident, to look into
+his EMILE, and there I found him saying, that the nurse subdued the
+voice of the child and made it quiet, _by drowning its voice in hers_,
+and thereby making it perceive that it could _not be heard_, and that to
+continue to cry _was of no avail_. 'Here, Nancy,' said I (going to her
+with the book in my hand), 'you have been a great philosopher all your
+life, without either of us knowing it.' A _silent_ nurse is a poor soul.
+It is a great disadvantage to the child, if the mother be of a very
+silent, placid, quiet turn. The singing, the talking to, the tossing and
+rolling about, that mothers in general practise, are very beneficial to
+the children: they give them exercise, awaken their attention, animate
+them, and rouse them to action. It is very bad to have a child even
+carried about by a dull, inanimate, silent servant, who will never talk,
+sing or chirrup to it; who will but just carry it about, always kept in
+the same attitude, and seeing and hearing nothing to give it life and
+spirit. It requires nothing but a dull creature like this, and the
+washing and dressing left to her, to give a child the rickets, and make
+it, instead of being a strong straight person, tup-shinned, bow-kneed,
+or hump-backed; besides other ailments not visible to the eye.
+By-and-by, when the deformity begins to appear, the doctor is called in,
+but it is too late: the mischief is done; and a few months of neglect
+are punished by a life of mortification and sorrow, not wholly
+unaccompanied with shame.
+
+258. It is, therefore, a very spurious kind of _tenderness_ that
+prevents a mother from doing the things which, though disagreeable to
+the child, are so necessary to its lasting well-being. The washing daily
+in the morning is a great thing; cold water winter or summer, and _this
+never left to a servant_, who has not, in such a case, either the
+patience or the courage that is necessary for the task. When the washing
+is over, and the child dressed in its day-clothes, how gay and cheerful
+it looks! The exercise gives it appetite, and then disposes it to rest;
+and it sucks and sleeps and grows, the delight of all eyes, and
+particularly those of the parents. 'I can't bear _that squalling_!' I
+have heard men say; and to which I answer, that 'I can't bear _such
+men_!' There are, I thank God, very few of them; for, if they do not
+always _reason_ about the matter, honest nature teaches them to be
+considerate and indulgent towards little creatures so innocent and so
+helpless and so unconscious of what they do. And the _noise_: after all,
+why should it _disturb_ a man? He knows the exact cause of it: he knows
+that it is the unavoidable consequence of a great good to his child, and
+of course to him: it lasts but an hour, and the recompense instantly
+comes in the looks of the rosy child, and in the new hopes which every
+look excites. It never disturbed _me_, and my occupation was one of
+those most liable to disturbance by noise. Many a score papers have I
+written amidst the noise of children, and in my whole life never bade
+them be still. When they grew up to be big enough to gallop about the
+house, I have, in wet weather, when they could not go out, written the
+whole day amidst noise that would have made some authors half mad. It
+never annoyed me at all. But a Scotch piper, whom an old lady, who lived
+beside us at Brompton, used to pay to come and play _a long_ tune every
+day, I was obliged to bribe into a breach of contract. That which you
+are _pleased with_, however noisy, does not disturb you. That which is
+indifferent to you has not more effect. The rattle of coaches, the
+clapper of a mill, the fall of water, leave your mind undisturbed. But
+the sound of the _pipe_, awakening the idea of the lazy life of the
+piper, better paid than the labouring man, drew the mind aside from its
+pursuit; and, as it really was a _nuisance_, occasioned by the money of
+my neighbour, I thought myself justified in abating it by the same sort
+of means.
+
+259. The _cradle_ is in poor families necessary; because necessity
+compels the mother to get as much time as she can for her work, and a
+child can rock the cradle. At first we had a cradle; and I rocked the
+cradle, in great part, during the time that I was writing my first work,
+that famous MAÎTRE D'ANGLAIS, which has long been the first book in
+Europe, as well as in America, for teaching of French people the English
+language. But we left off the use of the cradle as soon as possible. It
+causes sleep more, and oftener, than necessary: it saves trouble; but to
+take trouble was our duty. After the second child, we had no cradle,
+however difficult at first to do without it. When I was not at my
+business, it was generally my affair to put the child to sleep:
+sometimes by sitting with it in my arms, and sometimes by lying down on
+a bed with it, till it fell asleep. We soon found the good of this
+method. The children did not sleep so much, but they slept more soundly.
+The cradle produces a sort of _dosing_, or dreaming sleep. This is a
+matter of great importance, as every thing must be that has any
+influence on the health of children. The poor must use the cradle, at
+least until they have other children big enough to hold the baby, and to
+put it to sleep; and it is truly wonderful at how early an age they,
+either girls or boys, will do this business faithfully and well. You see
+them in the lanes, and on the skirts of woods and commons, lugging a
+baby about, when it sometimes weighs half as much as the nurse. The poor
+mother is frequently compelled, in order to help to get bread for her
+children, to go to a distance from home, and leave the group, baby and
+all, to take care of the house and of themselves, the eldest of four or
+five, not, perhaps, above six or seven years old; and it is quite
+surprising, that, considering the millions of instances in which this is
+done in England, in the course of a year, so very, very few accidents or
+injuries arise from the practice; and not a hundredth part so many as
+arise in the comparatively few instances in which children are left to
+the care of servants. In summer time you see these little groups rolling
+about up the green, or amongst the heath, not far from the cottage, and
+at a mile, perhaps, from any other dwelling, the dog their only
+protector. And what fine and straight and healthy and fearless and acute
+persons they become! It used to be remarked in Philadelphia, when I
+lived there, that there was not a single man of any eminence, whether
+doctor, lawyer, merchant, trader, or any thing else, that had not been
+born and bred in the country, and of parents in a low state of life.
+Examine London, and you will find it much about the same. From this very
+childhood they are from necessity _entrusted with the care of something
+valuable_. They practically learn to think, and to calculate as to
+consequences. They are thus taught to remember things; and it is quite
+surprising what memories they have, and how scrupulously a little
+carter-boy will deliver half-a-dozen messages, each of a different
+purport from the rest, to as many persons, all the messages committed to
+him at one and the same time, and he not knowing one letter of the
+alphabet from another. When I want to _remember_ something, and am out
+in the field, and cannot write it down, I say to one of the men, or
+boys, come to me at such a time, and tell me so and so. He is _sure_ to
+do it; and I therefore look upon the _memorandum_ as written down. One
+of these children, boy or girl, is much more worthy of being entrusted
+with the care of a baby, any body's baby, than a servant-maid with
+curled locks and with eyes rolling about for admirers. The locks and the
+rolling eyes, very nice, and, for aught I know, very proper things in
+themselves; but incompatible with the care of _your_ baby, Ma'am; her
+mind being absorbed in contemplating the interesting circumstances which
+are to precede her having a sweet baby of her own; and a _sweeter_ than
+yours, if you please, Ma'am; or, at least, such will be her
+anticipations. And this is all right enough; it is natural that she
+should think and feel thus; and knowing this, you are admonished that it
+is your bounden duty not to delegate this sacred trust to any body.
+
+260. The _courage_, of which I have spoken, so necessary in the case of
+washing the children in spite of their screaming remonstrances, is, if
+possible, more necessary in cases of illness, requiring the application
+of _medicine_, or of _surgical_ means of cure. Here the heart is put to
+the test indeed! Here is anguish to be endured by a mother, who has to
+force down the nauseous physic, or to apply the tormenting plaster! Yet
+it is the mother, or the father, and more properly the former, who is to
+perform this duty of exquisite pain. To no nurse, to no hireling, to no
+alien hand, ought, if possible to avoid it, this task to be committed. I
+do not admire those mothers who are _too tender-hearted_ to inflict this
+pain on their children, and who, therefore, leave it to be inflicted by
+others. Give me the mother who, while the tears stream down her face,
+has the resolution scrupulously to execute, with her own hands, the
+doctor's commands. Will a servant, will any hireling, do this? Committed
+to such hands, the _least trouble_ will be preferred to the greater: the
+thing will, in general, not be half done; and if done, the suffering
+from such hands is far greater in the mind of the child than if it came
+from the hands of the mother. In this case, above all others, there
+ought to be no delegation of the parental office. Here life or limb is
+at stake; and the parent, man or woman, who, in any one point, can
+neglect his or her duty here, is unworthy of the name of parent. And
+here, as in all the other instances, where goodness in the parents
+towards the children gives such weight to their advice when the children
+grow up, what a motive to filial gratitude! The children who are old
+enough to deserve and remember, will witness this proof of love and
+self-devotion in their mother. Each of them feels that she has done the
+same towards them all; and they love her and admire and revere her
+accordingly.
+
+261. This is the place to state my opinions, and the result of my
+experience, with regard to that fearful disease the SMALL-POX; a
+subject, too, to which I have paid great attention. I was always, from
+the very first mention of the thing, opposed to the Cow-Pox scheme. If
+efficacious in preventing the Small-Pox, I objected to it merely on the
+score of its _beastliness_. There are some things, surely, more hideous
+than death, and more resolutely to be avoided; at any rate, more to be
+avoided than the mere _risk_ of suffering death. And, amongst other
+things, I always reckoned that of a parent causing the blood, and the
+diseased blood too, of a beast to be put into the veins of human beings,
+and those beings the children of that parent. I, therefore, as will be
+seen in the pages of the Register of that day, most strenuously opposed
+the giving _of twenty thousand pounds_ to JENNER _out of the taxes_,
+paid in great part by the working people, which I deemed and asserted to
+be a scandalous waste of the public money.
+
+262. I contended, that this beastly application _could not, in nature,
+be efficacious in preventing the Small-Pox_; and that, even if
+efficacious for that purpose, _it was wholly unnecessary_. The truth of
+the former of these assertions has now been proved _in thousands upon
+thousands of instances_. For a long time, for _ten years_, the contrary
+was boldly and brazenly asserted. This nation is fond of quackery of all
+sorts; and this particular quackery having been sanctioned by King,
+Lords and Commons, it spread over the country like a pestilence borne by
+the winds. Speedily sprang up the 'ROYAL _Jennerian Institution_,' and
+Branch Institutions, issuing from the parent trunk, set instantly to
+work, impregnating the veins of the rising and enlightened generation
+with the beastly matter. 'Gentlemen and Ladies' made the commodity a
+pocket-companion; and if a cottager's child (in Hampshire at least),
+even seen by them, on a common, were not pretty quick in taking to its
+heels, it had to carry off more or less of the disease of the cow. One
+would have thought, that one-half of the cows in England must have been
+_tapped_ to get at such a quantity of the stuff.
+
+263. In the midst of all this mad work, to which the doctors, after
+having found it in vain to resist, had yielded, the _real small-pox_, in
+its worst form, broke out in the town of RINGWOOD, in HAMPSHIRE, and
+carried off, I believe (I have not the account at hand), _more than a
+hundred persons_, young and old, _every one of whom had had the cow-pox
+'so nicely_!' And what was now said? Was the quackery exploded, and were
+the granters of the twenty thousand pounds ashamed of what they had
+done? Not at all: the failure was imputed to _unskilful operators_; to
+the _staleness of the matter_; to its not being of the _genuine
+quality_. Admitting all this, the scheme stood condemned; for the great
+advantages held forth were, that _any body_ might perform the operation,
+and that the _matter_ was _every where abundant_ and cost-free. But
+these were paltry excuses; the mere shuffles of quackery; for what do we
+know now? Why, that in _hundreds_ of instances, persons cow-poxed by
+JENNER HIMSELF, have taken the real small-pox afterwards, and have
+either died from the disorder, or narrowly escaped with their lives! I
+will mention two instances, the parties concerned being living and
+well-known, one of them to the whole nation, and the other to a very
+numerous circle in the higher walks of life. The first is Sir RICHARD
+PHILLIPS, so well known by his able writings, and equally well known by
+his exemplary conduct as Sheriff of London, and by his life-long labours
+in the cause of real charity and humanity. Sir Richard had, I think, two
+sons, whose veins were impregnated by the _grantee himself_. At any rate
+he had one, who had, several years after Jenner had given him the
+insuring matter, a very hard struggle for his life, under the hands of
+the good, old-fashioned, seam-giving, and dimple-dipping small-pox. The
+second is PHILIP CODD, Esq., formerly of Kensington, and now of Rumsted
+Court, near Maidstone, in Kent, who has a son that had a very narrow
+escape under the real small-pox, about four years ago, and who also had
+been cow-poxed _by Jenner himself_. This last-mentioned gentleman I have
+known, and most sincerely respected, from the time of our both being
+about eighteen years of age. When the young gentleman, of whom I am now
+speaking, was very young, I having him upon my knee one day, asked his
+kind and excellent mother, whether he had been _inoculated_. 'Oh, no!'
+said she, 'we are going to have him _vaccinated_.' Whereupon I, going
+into the garden to the father, said, 'I do hope, Codd, that you are not
+going to have that beastly cow-stuff put into that fine boy.' 'Why,'
+said he, 'you see, Cobbett, it is to be done by _Jenner himself_.' What
+answer I gave, what names and epithets I bestowed upon Jenner and his
+quackery, I will leave the reader to imagine.
+
+264. Now, here are instances enough; but, every reader has heard of, if
+not seen, scores of others. Young Mr. Codd caught the small-pox at a
+_school_; and if I recollect rightly, there were several other
+'vaccinated' youths who did the same, at the same time. Quackery,
+however, has always a shuffle left. Now that the cow-pox has been
+_proved_ to be no _guarantee_ against the small-pox, it makes it'
+_milder_' when it comes! A pretty shuffle, indeed, this! You are to be
+_all your life in fear of it_, having as your sole consolation, that
+when it comes (and it may overtake you in a _camp_, or on the _seas_),
+it will be '_milder_!' It was not too mild to _kill_ at RINGWOOD; and
+its _mildness_, in case of young Mr. Codd, did not restrain it from
+_blinding him_ for a suitable number of days. I shall not easily forget
+the alarm and anxiety of the father and mother upon this occasion; both
+of them the best of parents, and both of them now punished for having
+yielded to this fashionable quackery. I will not say, _justly_ punished;
+for affection for their children, in which respect they were never
+surpassed by any parents on earth, was the cause of their listening to
+the danger-obviating quackery. This, too, is the case with other
+parents; but parents should be under the influence of _reason_ and
+_experience_, as well as under that of affection; and _now_, at any
+rate, they ought to set this really dangerous quackery at nought.
+
+265. And, what does _my own experience_ say on the other side? There are
+my seven children, the sons as tall, or nearly so, as their father, and
+the daughters as tall as their mother; all, in due succession,
+inoculated with the good old-fashioned face-tearing small-pox; neither
+of them with a single mark of that disease on their skins; neither of
+them having been, that we could perceive, _ill for a single hour_, in
+consequence of the inoculation. When we were in the United States, we
+observed that the Americans were _never marked_ with the small-pox; or,
+if such a thing were seen, it was very rarely. The cause we found to be,
+the universal practice of having the children inoculated _at the
+breast_, and, generally, at _a month_ or _six weeks old_. When we came
+to have children, we did the same. I believe that some of ours have been
+a few months old when the operation has been performed, but always while
+_at the breast_, and as early as possible after the expiration of six
+weeks from the birth; sometimes put off a little while by some slight
+disorder in the child, or on account of some circumstance or other; but,
+with these exceptions, done at, or before, the end of six weeks from the
+birth, and _always at the breast_. All is then _pure_: there is nothing
+in either body or mind to favour the natural fury of the disease. We
+always took particular care about the _source_ from which the infectious
+matter came. We employed medical men, in whom we could place perfect
+confidence: we had their _solemn word_ for the matter coming from some
+_healthy child_; and, at last, we had sometimes to _wait_ for this, the
+cow-affair having rendered patients of this sort rather rare.
+
+266. While the child has the small-pox, the mother should abstain from
+food and drink, which she may require at other times, but which might be
+too gross just now. To suckle a hearty child requires good living; for,
+besides that this is necessary to the mother, it is also necessary to
+the child. A little forbearance, just at this time, is prudent; making
+the diet as simple as possible, and avoiding all violent agitation
+either of the body or the spirits; avoiding too, if you can, _very hot_
+or _very cold_ weather.
+
+267. There is now, however, this inconvenience, that the far greater
+part of the present young women have been _be-Jennered_; so that they
+may _catch the beauty-killing disease from their babies_! To hearten
+them up, however, and more especially, I confess, to record a trait of
+maternal affection and of female heroism, which I have never heard of
+any thing to surpass, I have the pride to say, that my wife had eight
+children inoculated at her breast, and _never had the small-pox in her
+life_. I, at first, objected to the inoculating of the child, but she
+insisted upon it, and with so much pertinacity that I gave way, on
+condition that she would be inoculated too. This was done with three or
+four of the children, I think, she always being reluctant to have it
+done, saying that it looked like distrusting the goodness of God. There
+was, to be sure, very little in this argument; but the long experience
+wore away the alarm; and there she is now, having had eight children
+hanging at her breast with that desolating disease in them, and she
+never having been affected by it from first to last. All her children
+knew, of course, the risk that she voluntarily incurred for them. They
+all have this indubitable proof, that she valued their lives above her
+own; and is it in nature, that they should ever wilfully do any thing to
+wound the heart of that mother; and must not her bright example have
+great effect on their character and conduct! Now, my opinion is, that
+the far greater part of English or American women, if placed in the
+above circumstances, would do just the same thing; and I do hope, that
+those, who have yet to be mothers, will seriously think of putting an
+end, as they have the power to do, to the disgraceful and dangerous
+quackery, the evils of which I have so fully proved.
+
+268. But there is, in the management of babies, something besides life,
+health, strength and beauty; and something too, without which all these
+put together are nothing worth; and that is _sanity of mind_. There are,
+owing to various causes, some who are _born_ ideots; but a great many
+more become insane from the misconduct, or neglect, of parents; and,
+generally, from the children being committed to the care of _servants_.
+I knew, in Pennsylvania, a child, as fine, and as sprightly, and as
+intelligent a child as ever was born, made an ideot for life by being,
+when about three years old, shut into a dark closet, by a maid servant,
+in order to terrify it into silence. The thoughtless creature first
+menaced it with sending it to '_the bad place_,' as the phrase is there;
+and, at last, to reduce it to silence, put it into the closet, shut the
+door, and went out of the room. She went back, in a few minutes, and
+found the child in _a fit_. It recovered from that, but was for life an
+ideot. When the parents, who had been out two days and two nights on a
+visit of pleasure, came home, they were told that the child had had _a
+fit_; but, they were not told the cause. The girl, however, who was a
+neighbour's daughter, being on her death-bed about ten years afterwards,
+could not die in peace without sending for the mother of the child (now
+become a young man) and asking forgiveness of her. The mother herself
+was, however, the greatest offender of the two: a whole lifetime of
+sorrow and of mortification was a punishment too light for her and her
+husband. Thousands upon thousands of human beings have been deprived of
+their senses by these and similar means.
+
+269. It is not long since that we read, in the newspapers, of a child
+being absolutely _killed_, at Birmingham, I think it was, by being thus
+frightened. The parents had gone out into what is called an evening
+party. The servants, naturally enough, had their party at home; and the
+mistress, who, by some unexpected accident, had been brought home at an
+early hour, finding the parlour full of company, ran up stairs to see
+about her child, about two or three years old. She found it with its
+eyes open, but _fixed_; touching it, she found it inanimate. The doctor
+was sent for in vain: it was quite dead. The maid affected to know
+nothing of the cause; but some one of the parties assembled discovered,
+pinned up to the curtains of the bed, _a horrid figure_, made up partly
+of a frightful mask! This, as the wretched girl confessed, had been done
+to keep the child _quiet_, while she was with her company below. When
+one reflects on the anguish that the poor little thing must have
+endured, before the life was quite frightened out of it, one can find no
+terms sufficiently strong to express the abhorrence due to the
+perpetrator of this crime, which was, in fact, a cruel murder; and, if
+it was beyond the reach of the law, it was so and is so, because, as in
+the cases of parricide, the law, in making no provision for punishment
+peculiarly severe, has, out of respect to human nature, supposed such
+crimes to be _impossible_. But if the girl was criminal; if death, or a
+life of remorse, was her due, what was the due of her parents, and
+especially of the mother! And what was the due of the _father_, who
+suffered that mother, and who, perhaps, tempted her to neglect her most
+sacred duty!
+
+270. If this poor child had been deprived of its mental faculties,
+instead of being deprived of its life, the cause would, in all
+likelihood, never have been discovered. The insanity would have been
+ascribed to '_brain-fever_,' or to some other of the usual causes of
+insanity; or, as in thousands upon thousands of instances, to some
+unaccountable cause. When I was, in No. IX., paragraphs from 227 to 233,
+both inclusive, maintaining with all my might, the unalienable right of
+the child to the milk of its mother, I omitted, amongst the evils
+arising from banishing the child from the mother's breast, to mention,
+or, rather, it had never occurred to me to mention, the _loss of reason_
+to the poor, innocent creatures, thus banished. And now, as connected
+with this measure, I have an argument of _experience_, enough to terrify
+every young man and woman upon earth from the thought of committing this
+offence against nature. I wrote No. IX. at CAMBRIDGE, on Sunday, the
+28th of March; and before I quitted SHREWSBURY, on the 14th of May, the
+following facts reached my ears. A very respectable tradesman, who, with
+his wife, have led a most industrious life, in a town that it is not
+necessary to name, said to a gentleman that told it to me: 'I wish to
+God I had read No. IX. of Mr. Cobbett's ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN fifteen
+years ago!' He then related, that he had had ten children, _all put out
+to be suckled_, in consequence of the necessity of his having the
+mother's assistance to carry on his business; and that _two out of the
+ten_ had come home _ideots_; though the rest were all sane, and though
+insanity had never been known in the family of either father or mother!
+These parents, whom I myself saw, are very clever people, and the wife
+singularly industrious and expert in her affairs.
+
+271. Now the _motive_, in this case, unquestionably was good; it was
+that the mother's valuable time might, as much as possible, be devoted
+to the earning of a competence for her children. But, alas! what is this
+competence to these two unfortunate beings! And what is the competence
+to the rest, when put in the scale against the mortification that they
+must, all their lives, suffer on account of the insanity of their
+brother and sister, exciting, as it must, in all their circle, and even
+in _themselves_, suspicions of their own perfect soundness of mind! When
+weighed against this consideration, what is all the wealth in the world!
+And as to the parents, where are they to find compensation for such a
+calamity, embittered additionally, too, by the reflection, that it was
+in their power to prevent it, and that nature, with loud voice, cried
+out to them to prevent it! MONEY! Wealth acquired in consequence of this
+banishment of these poor children; these victims of this, I will not
+call it avarice, but over-eager love of gain! wealth, thus acquired!
+What wealth can console these parents for the loss of reason in these
+children! Where is the father and the mother, who would not rather see
+their children ploughing in other men's fields, and sweeping other men's
+houses, than led about parks or houses of their own, objects of pity
+even of the menials procured by their wealth?
+
+272. If what I have now said be not sufficient to deter a man from
+suffering _any_ consideration, _no matter what_, to induce him to
+_delegate_ the care of his children, when very young, to _any body
+whomsoever_, nothing that I can say can possibly have that effect; and I
+will, therefore, now proceed to offer my advice with regard to the
+management of children when they get beyond the danger of being crazed
+or killed by nurses or servants.
+
+273. We here come to the subject of _education_ in the _true sense_ of
+that word, which is _rearing up_, seeing that the word comes from the
+Latin _educo_, which means to _breed up_, or to _rear up_. I shall,
+afterwards, have to speak of _education_ in the now common acceptation
+of the word, which makes it mean, _book-learning_. At present, I am to
+speak of _education_ in its true sense, as the French (who, as well as
+we, take the word from the Latin) always use it. They, in their
+agricultural works, talk of the 'éducation du Cochon, de l'Alouette,
+&c.,' that is of the _hog_, the _lark_, and so of other animals; that is
+to say, of the manner of breeding them, or rearing them up, from their
+being little things till they be of full size.
+
+274. The first thing, in the rearing of children, who have passed from
+the baby-state, is, as to the _body_, plenty of _good food_; and, as to
+the _mind_, constant _good example in the parents_. Of the latter I
+shall speak more by-and-by. With regard to the former, it is of the
+greatest importance, that children be well fed; and there never was a
+greater error than to believe that they do not need good food. Every one
+knows, that to have fine horses, the _colts_ must be kept well, and that
+it is the same with regard to all animals of every sort and kind. The
+fine horses and cattle and sheep all come from the _rich pastures_. To
+have them fine, it is not sufficient that they have _plenty of food_
+when young, but that they have _rich food_. Were there no land, no
+pasture, in England, but such as is found in Middlesex, Essex, and
+Surrey, we should see none of those coach-horses and dray-horses, whose
+height and size make us stare. It is the _keep when young_ that makes
+the fine animal.
+
+275. There is no other reason for the people in the American States
+being generally so much taller and stronger than the people in England
+are. Their forefathers went, for the greater part, from England. In the
+four Northern States they went wholly from England, and then, on their
+landing, they founded a new London, a new Falmouth, a new Plymouth, a
+new Portsmouth, a new Dover, a new Yarmouth, a new Lynn, a new Boston,
+and a new Hull, and the country itself they called, and their
+descendants still call, NEW ENGLAND. This country of the best and
+boldest seamen, and of the most moral and happy people in the world, is
+also the country of the tallest and ablest-bodied men in the world. And
+why? Because, from their very birth, they have an _abundance_ of _good_
+food; not only of _food_, but of _rich_ food. Even when the child is at
+the breast, a strip of _beef-stake_, or something of that description,
+as big and as long as one's finger, is put into its hand. When a baby
+gets a thing in its hand, the first thing it does is to poke some part
+of it into its mouth. It cannot _bite_ the meat, but its gums squeeze
+out the juice. When it has done with the breast, it eats meat constantly
+twice, if not thrice, a day. And this abundance of _good_ food is the
+cause, to be sure, of the superior size and strength of the people of
+that country.
+
+276. Nor is this, in any point of view, an unimportant matter. A tall
+man is, whether as labourer, carpenter, bricklayer, soldier or sailor,
+or almost anything else, _worth more_ than a short man: he can look over
+a higher thing; he can reach higher and wider; he can move on from place
+to place faster; in mowing grass or corn he takes a wider swarth, in
+pitching he wants a shorter prong; in making buildings he does not so
+soon want a ladder or a scaffold; in fighting he keeps his body farther
+from the point of his sword. To be sure, a man _may_ be tall and _weak_;
+but, this is the exception and not the rule: _height_ and _weight_ and
+_strength_, in men as in speechless animals, generally go together. Aye,
+and in enterprise and courage too, the powers of the body have a great
+deal to do. Doubtless there are, have been, and always will be, great
+numbers of small and enterprizing and brave men; but it is _not in
+nature_, that, _generally speaking_, those who are conscious of their
+inferiority in point of bodily strength, should possess the boldness of
+those who have a contrary description.
+
+277. To what but this difference in the _size_ and _strength_ of the
+opposing combatants are we to ascribe the ever-to-be-blushed-at events
+of our last war against the United States! The _hearts_ of our seamen
+and soldiers were as good as those of the Yankees: on both sides they
+had sprung from the same stock: on both sides equally well supplied with
+all the materials of war: if on either side, the superior skill was on
+ours: French, Dutch, Spaniards, all had confessed our superior prowess:
+yet, when, with our whole undivided strength, and to that strength
+adding the flush and pride of victory and conquest, crowned even in the
+capital of France; when, with all these tremendous advantages, and with
+all the nations of the earth looking on, we came foot to foot and
+yard-arm to yard-arm with the Americans, the result was such as an
+English pen refuses to describe. What, then, was the _great cause_ of
+this result, which filled us with shame and the world with astonishment?
+Not the want of _courage_ in our men. There were, indeed, _some moral
+causes at work_; but the main cause was, the great superiority of size
+and of bodily strength on the part of the enemy's soldiers and sailors.
+It was _so many men_ on each side; but it was men of a different size
+and strength; and, on the side of the foe, men accustomed to daring
+enterprise from a consciousness of that strength.
+
+278. Why are abstinence and fasting enjoined by the Catholic Church?
+Why, to make men _humble_, _meek_, and _tame_; and they have this effect
+too: this is visible in whole nations as well as in individuals. So that
+good food, and plenty of it, is not more necessary to the forming of a
+stout and able body than to the forming of an active and enterprizing
+spirit. Poor food, short allowance, while they check the growth of the
+child's body, check also the daring of the mind; and, therefore, the
+starving or pinching system ought to be avoided by all means. Children
+should eat _often_, and as much as they like at a time. They will, if at
+full heap, never take, of _plain food_, more than it is good for them to
+take. They may, indeed, be stuffed with _cakes_ and _sweet things_ till
+they be ill, and, indeed, until they bring on dangerous disorders: but,
+of _meat plainly_ and _well cooked_, and of _bread_, they will never
+swallow the tenth part of an ounce more than it is necessary for them to
+swallow. Ripe fruit, or cooked fruit, if no _sweetening_ take place,
+will never hurt them; but, when they once get a taste for sugary stuff,
+and to cram down loads of garden vegetables; when ices, creams, tarts,
+raisins, almonds, all the endless pamperings come, the _doctor_ must
+soon follow with his drugs. The blowing out of the bodies of children
+with tea, coffee, soup, or warm liquids of any kind, is very bad: these
+have an effect precisely like that which is produced by feeding young
+rabbits, or pigs, or other young animals upon watery vegetables: it
+makes them big-bellied and bare-boned at the same time; and it
+effectually prevents the frame from becoming strong. Children in health
+want no drink other than skim milk, or butter-milk, or whey; and, if
+none of those be at hand, water will do very well, provided they have
+plenty of _good meat_. Cheese and butter do very well for part of the
+day. Puddings and pies; but always _without sugar_, which, say what
+people will about the _wholesomeness_ of it, is not only of _no use_ in
+the rearing of children, but injurious: it forces an appetite: like
+strong drink, it makes daily encroachments on the taste: it wheedles
+down that which the stomach does not want: it finally produces illness:
+it is one of the curses of the country; for it, by taking off the bitter
+of the tea and coffee, is the great cause of sending down into the
+stomach those quantities of warm water by which the body is debilitated
+and deformed and the mind enfeebled. I am addressing myself to persons
+in the middle walk of life; but no parent can be _sure_ that his child
+will not be compelled to labour hard for its daily bread: and then, how
+vast is the difference between one who has been pampered with sweets and
+one who has been reared on plain food and simple drink!
+
+279. The next thing after good and plentiful and plain food is _good
+air_. This is not within the reach of every one; but, to obtain it is
+worth great sacrifices in other respects. We know that there are
+_smells_ which will cause _instant death_; we know, that there are
+others which will cause death _in a few years_; and, therefore, we know
+that it is the duty of parents to provide, if possible, against this
+danger to the health of their offspring. To be sure, when a man is so
+situated that he cannot give his children sweet air without putting
+himself into a jail for debt: when, in short, he has the dire choice of
+sickly children, children with big heads, small limbs, and ricketty
+joints: or children sent to the poor-house: when this is his hard lot,
+he must decide for the former sad alternative: but before he will
+convince me that this _is_ his lot, he must prove to me, that he and his
+wife expend not a penny in the _decoration_ of their persons; that on
+his table, morning, noon, or night, _nothing_ ever comes that is not the
+produce of _English soil_; that of his time not one hour is wasted in
+what is called pleasure; that down his throat not one drop or morsel
+ever goes, unless necessary to sustain life and health. How many scores
+and how many hundreds of men have I seen; how many thousands could I go
+and point out, to-morrow, in London, the money expended on whose
+guzzlings in porter, grog and wine, would keep, and keep well, in the
+country, a considerable part of the year, a wife surrounded by healthy
+children, instead of being stewed up in some alley, or back room, with a
+parcel of poor creatures about her, whom she, though their fond mother,
+is almost ashamed to call hers! Compared with the life of such a woman,
+that of the labourer, however poor, is paradise. Tell me not of the
+necessity of _providing money for them_, even if you waste not a
+farthing: you can provide them with no money equal in value to health
+and straight limbs and good looks: these it is, if within your power,
+your _bounden duty_ to provide for them: as to providing them with
+money, you deceive yourself; it is your own avarice, or vanity, that you
+are seeking to gratify, and not to ensure the good of your children.
+Their most precious possession is _health_ and _strength_; and you have
+_no right_ to run the risk of depriving them of these for the sake of
+heaping together money to bestow on them: you have the desire to see
+them rich: it is to gratify _yourself_ that you act in such a case; and
+you, however you may deceive yourself, are guilty of _injustice_ towards
+them. You would be ashamed to see them _without fortune_; but not at all
+ashamed to see them without straight limbs, without colour in their
+cheeks, without strength, without activity, and with only half their due
+portion of reason.
+
+280. Besides _sweet air_, children want _exercise_. Even when they are
+babies in arms, they want tossing and pulling about, and want talking
+and singing to. They should be put upon their feet by slow degrees,
+according to the strength of their legs; and this is a matter which a
+good mother will attend to with incessant care. If they appear to be
+likely to _squint_, she will, always when they wake up, and frequently
+in the day, take care to present some pleasing object _right before_,
+and _never on the side_ of their face. If they appear, when they begin
+to talk, to indicate a propensity to _stammer_, she will stop them,
+repeat the word or words slowly herself, and get them to do the same.
+These precautions are amongst the most sacred of the duties of parents;
+for, remember, the deformity is _for life_; a thought which will fill
+every good parent's heart with solicitude. All _swaddling_ and _tight
+covering_ are mischievous. They produce distortions of some sort or
+other. To let children creep and roll about till they get upon their
+legs of themselves is a very good way. I never saw a _native American_
+with crooked limbs or hump-back, and never heard any man say that he had
+seen one. And the reason is, doubtless, the loose dress in which
+children, from the moment of their birth, are kept, the good food that
+they always have, and the sweet air that they breathe in consequence of
+the absence of all dread of poverty on the part of the parents.
+
+281. As to bodily exercise, they will, when they begin to get about,
+take, if you let them alone, just as much of it as nature bids them, and
+no more. That is a pretty deal, indeed, if they be in health; and, it is
+your duty, now, to provide for their taking of that exercise, when they
+begin to be what are called _boys_ and _girls_, in a way that shall tend
+to give them the greatest degree of pleasure, accompanied with the
+smallest risk of pain: in other words, to _make their lives as pleasant
+as you possibly can_. I have always admired the sentiment of ROUSSEAU
+upon this subject. 'The boy dies, perhaps, at the age of ten or twelve.
+Of what _use_, then, all the restraints, all the privations, all the
+pain, that you have inflicted upon him? He falls, and leaves your mind
+to brood over the possibility of your having abridged a life so dear to
+you.' I do not recollect the very words; but the passage made a deep
+impression upon my mind, just at the time, too, when I was about to
+become a father; and I was resolved never to bring upon myself remorse
+from such a cause; a resolution from which no importunities, coming from
+what quarter they might, ever induced me, in one single instance, or for
+one single moment, to depart. I was resolved to forego all the means of
+making money, all the means of living in any thing like fashion, all the
+means of obtaining fame or distinction, to give up every thing, to
+become a common labourer, rather than make my children lead a life of
+restraint and rebuke; I could not be _sure_ that my children would love
+me as they loved their own lives; but I was, at any rate, resolved to
+deserve such love at their hands; and, in possession of that, I felt
+that I could set calamity, of whatever description, at defiance.
+
+282. Now, proceeding to relate what was, in this respect, my line of
+conduct, I am not pretending that _every_ man, and particularly every
+man living in _a town_, can, in all respects, do as I did in the rearing
+up of children. But, in many respects, any man may, whatever may be his
+state of life. For I did not lead an idle life; I had to work constantly
+for the means of living; my occupation required unremitted attention; I
+had nothing but my labour to rely on; and I had no friend, to whom, in
+case of need, I could fly for assistance: I always saw the possibility,
+and even the probability, of being totally ruined by the hand of power;
+but, happen what would, I was resolved, that, as long as I could cause
+them to do it, my children should lead happy lives; and happy lives they
+did lead, if ever children did in this whole world.
+
+283. The first thing that I did, when the fourth child had come, was to
+_get into the country_, and so far as to render a going backward and
+forward to London, at short intervals, quite out of the question. Thus
+was _health_, the greatest of all things, provided for, as far as I was
+able to make the provision. Next, my being _always at home_ was secured
+as far as possible; always with them to set an example of early rising,
+sobriety, and application to something or other. Children, and
+especially boys, will have some out-of-door pursuits; and it was my duty
+to lead them to choose such pursuits as combined future utility with
+present innocence. Each his flower-bed, little garden, plantation of
+trees; rabbits, dogs, asses, horses, pheasants and hares; hoes, spades,
+whips, guns; always some object of lively interest, and as much
+_earnestness_ and _bustle_ about the various objects as if our living
+had solely depended upon them. I made everything give way to the great
+object of making their lives happy and innocent. I did not know what
+they might be in time, or what might be my lot; but I was resolved not
+to be the cause of their being unhappy _then_, let what might become of
+us afterwards. I was, as I am, of opinion, that it is injurious to the
+mind to press _book-learning_ upon it at an _early age_: I always felt
+pain for poor little things, set up, before 'company,' to repeat verses,
+or bits of plays, at six or eight years old. I have sometimes not known
+which way to look, when a mother (and, too often, a father), whom I
+could not but respect on account of her fondness for her child, has
+forced the feeble-voiced eighth wonder of the world, to stand with its
+little hand stretched out, spouting the _soliloquy of Hamlet_, or some
+such thing. I remember, on one occasion, a little pale-faced creature,
+only five years old, was brought in, after the _feeding_ part of the
+dinner was over, first to take his regular half-glass of vintner's
+brewings, commonly called wine, and then to treat us to a display of his
+wonderful genius. The subject was a speech of a robust and bold youth,
+in a Scotch play, the title of which I have forgotten, but the speech
+began with, 'My name is Norval: on the Grampian Hills my father fed his
+flocks...' And this in a voice so weak and distressing as to put me in
+mind of the plaintive squeaking of little pigs when the sow is lying on
+them. As we were going home (one of my boys and I) he, after a silence
+of half a mile perhaps, rode up close to the side of my horse, and said,
+'Papa, where _be_ the _Grampian Hills_?' 'Oh,' said I, 'they are in
+Scotland; poor, barren, beggarly places, covered with heath and rushes,
+ten times as barren as Sherril Heath.' 'But,' said he, 'how could that
+little boy's father feed _his flocks_ there, then?' I was ready to
+tumble off the horse with laughing.
+
+284. I do not know any thing much more distressing to the spectators
+than exhibitions of this sort. Every one feels, not for the child, for
+it is insensible to the uneasiness it excites, but for the parents,
+whose amiable fondness displays itself in this ridiculous manner. Upon
+these occasions, no one knows what to say, or whither to direct his
+looks. The parents, and especially the fond mother, looks sharply round
+for the so-evidently merited applause, as an actor of the name of
+MUNDEN, whom I recollect thirty years ago, used, when he had treated us
+to a witty shrug of his shoulders, or twist of his chin, to turn his
+face up to the gallery for the clap. If I had to declare on my oath
+which have been the most disagreeable moments of my life, I verily
+believe, that, after due consideration, I should fix upon those, in
+which parents, whom I have respected, have made me endure exhibitions
+like these; for, this is your choice, to be _insincere_, or to _give
+offence_.
+
+285. And, as towards the child, it is to be _unjust_, thus to teach it
+to set a high value on trifling, not to say mischievous, attainments; to
+make it, whether it be in its natural disposition or not, vain and
+conceited. The plaudits which it receives, in such cases, puffs it up in
+its own thoughts, sends it out into the world stuffed with pride and
+insolence, which must and will be extracted out of it by one means or
+another; and none but those who have had to endure the drawing of
+firmly-fixed teeth, can, I take it, have an adequate idea of the
+painfulness of this operation. Now, parents have _no right_ thus to
+indulge their own feelings at the risk of the happiness of their
+children.
+
+286. The great matter is, however, the _spoiling of the mind_ by forcing
+on it thoughts which it is not fit to receive. We know well, we daily
+see, that in men, as well as in other animals, the body is rendered
+comparatively small and feeble by being heavily loaded, or hard worked,
+before it arrive at size and strength proportioned to such load and such
+work. It is just so with the mind: the attempt to put old heads upon
+young shoulders is just as unreasonable as it would be to expect a colt
+six months old to be able to carry a man. The mind, as well as the body,
+requires time to come to its strength; and the way to have it possess,
+at last, its natural strength, is not to attempt to load it too soon;
+and to favour it in its progress by giving to the body good and
+plentiful food, sweet air, and abundant exercise, accompanied with as
+little discontent or uneasiness as possible. It is universally known,
+that ailments of the body are, in many cases, sufficient to _destroy_
+the mind, and to debilitate it in innumerable instances. It is equally
+well known, that the torments of the mind are, in many cases, sufficient
+to _destroy_ the body. This, then, being so well known, is it not the
+first duty of a father to secure to his children, if possible, sound and
+strong bodies? LORD BACON says, that 'a sound mind in a sound body is
+the greatest of God's blessings.' To see his children possess these,
+therefore, ought to be the first object with every father; an object
+which I cannot too often endeavour to fix in his mind.
+
+287. I am to speak presently of that sort of _learning_ which is derived
+from _books_, and which is a matter by no means to be neglected, or to
+be thought little of, seeing that it is the road, not only to fame, but
+to the means of doing great good to one's neighbours and to one's
+country, and, thereby, of adding to those pleasant feelings which are,
+in other words, our happiness. But, notwithstanding this, I must here
+insist, and endeavour to impress my opinion upon the mind of every
+father, that his children's _happiness_ ought to be _first_ object; that
+_book-learning_, if it tend to militate against this, ought to be
+disregarded; and that, as to money, as to fortune, as to rank and title,
+that father who can, in the destination of his children, think of them
+more than of the _happiness_ of those children, is, if he be of sane
+mind, a great criminal. Who is there, having lived to the age of thirty,
+or even twenty, years, and having the ordinary capacity for observation;
+who is there, being of this description, who must not be convinced of
+the inadequacy of _riches_ and what are called _honours_ to insure
+_happiness_? Who, amongst all the classes of men, experience, on an
+average, so little of _real_ pleasure, and so much of _real_ pain as the
+rich and the lofty? Pope gives us, as the materials for happiness,
+'_health_, _peace_, and _competence_.' Aye, but what _is_ peace, and
+what _is_ competence? If, by _peace_, he mean that tranquillity of mind
+which innocence and good deeds produce, he is right and clear so far;
+for we all know that, without _health_, which has a well-known positive
+meaning, there can be no happiness. But _competence_ is a word of
+unfixed meaning. It may, with some, mean enough to eat, drink, wear and
+be lodged and warmed with; but, with others, it may include horses,
+carriages, and footmen laced over from top to toe. So that, here, we
+have no guide; no standard; and, indeed, there can be none. But as every
+sensible father must know that the possession of riches do not, never
+did, and never can, afford even a chance of additional happiness, it is
+his duty to inculcate in the minds of his children to make no sacrifice
+of principle, of moral obligation of any sort, in order to obtain
+riches, or distinction; and it is a duty still more imperative on him,
+not to expose them to the risk of loss of health, or diminution of
+strength, for purposes which have, either directly or indirectly, the
+acquiring of riches in view, whether for himself or for them.
+
+288. With these principles immoveably implanted in my mind, I became the
+father of a family, and on these principles I have reared that family.
+Being myself fond of _book-learning_, and knowing well its powers, I
+naturally wished them to possess it too; but never did I _impose it_
+upon any one of them. My first duty was to make them _healthy_ and
+_strong_ if I could, and to give them as much enjoyment of life as
+possible. Born and bred up in the sweet air myself, I was resolved that
+they should be bred up in it too. Enjoying rural scenes and sports, as I
+had done, when a boy, as much as any one that ever was born, I was
+resolved, that they should have the same enjoyments tendered to them.
+When I was a very little boy, I was, in the barley-sowing season, going
+along by the side of a field, near WAVERLY ABBEY; the primroses and
+blue-bells bespangling the banks on both sides of me; a thousand linnets
+singing in a spreading oak over my head; while the jingle of the traces
+and the whistling of the ploughboys saluted my ear from over the hedge;
+and, as it were to snatch me from the enchantment, the hounds, at that
+instant, having started a hare in the hanger on the other side of the
+field, came up scampering over it in full cry, taking me after them many
+a mile. I was not more than eight years old; but this particular scene
+has presented itself to my mind many times every year from that day to
+this. I always enjoy it over again; and I was resolved to give, if
+possible, the same enjoyments to my children.
+
+289. Men's circumstances are so various; there is such a great variety
+in their situations in life, their business, the extent of their
+pecuniary means, the local state in which they are placed, their
+internal resources; the variety in all these respects is so great, that,
+as applicable to _every_ family, it would be impossible to lay down any
+set of rules, or maxims, touching _every_ matter relating to the
+management and rearing up of children. In giving an account, therefore,
+of _my own_ conduct, in this respect, I am not to be understood as
+supposing, that _every_ father _can_, or ought, to attempt to do _the
+same_; but while it will be seen, that there are _many_, and these the
+most important parts of that conduct, that _all_ fathers may imitate, if
+they choose, there is no part of it which thousands and thousands of
+fathers might not adopt and pursue, and adhere to, to the very letter.
+
+290. I effected every thing without scolding, and even without
+_command_. My children are a family of _scholars_, each sex its
+appropriate species of learning; and, I could safely take my oath, that
+I never _ordered_ a child of mine, son or daughter, _to look into a
+book_, in my life. My two eldest sons, when about eight years old, were,
+for the sake of their health, placed for a very short time, at a
+Clergyman's at MICHELDEVER, and my eldest daughter, a little older, at a
+school a few miles from Botley, to avoid taking them to London in the
+winter. But, with these exceptions, never had they, while children,
+_teacher_ of any description; and I never, and nobody else ever, taught
+any one of them to read, write, or any thing else, except in
+_conversation_; and, yet, no man was ever more anxious to be the father
+of a family of clever and learned persons.
+
+291. I accomplished my purpose _indirectly_. The first thing of all was
+_health_, which was secured by the deeply-interesting and never-ending
+_sports of the field_ and _pleasures of the garden_. Luckily these
+things were treated of in _books_ and _pictures_ of endless variety; so
+that on _wet days_, in _long evenings_, these came into play. A large,
+strong table, in the middle of the room, their mother sitting at her
+work, used to be surrounded with them, the baby, if big enough, set up
+in a high chair. Here were ink-stands, pens, pencils, India rubber, and
+paper, all in abundance, and every one scrabbled about as he or she
+pleased. There were prints of animals of all sorts; books treating of
+them: others treating of gardening, of flowers, of husbandry, of
+hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing, planting, and, in short, of every
+thing, with regard to which _we had something to do_. One would be
+trying to imitate a bit of my writing, another _drawing_ the pictures of
+some of our dogs or horses, a third poking over _Bewick's Quadrupeds_
+and picking out what he said about them; but our book of never-failing
+resource was the _French_ MAISON RUSTIQUE, or FARM-HOUSE, which, it is
+said, was the book that first tempted DUQUESNOIS (I think that was the
+name), the famous physician, in the reign of Louis XIV., _to learn to
+read_. Here are all the _four-legged animals_, from the horse down to
+the mouse, _portraits_ and all; all the _birds_, _reptiles_, _insects_;
+all the modes of rearing, managing, and using the tame ones; all the
+modes of taking the wild ones, and of destroying those that are
+mischievous; all the various traps, springs, nets; all the implements of
+husbandry and gardening; all the labours of the field and the garden
+exhibited, as well as the rest, in plates; and, there was I, in my
+leisure moments, to join this inquisitive group, to read the _French_,
+and tell them what it meaned in _English_, when the picture did not
+sufficiently explain itself. I never have been without a copy of this
+book for forty years, except during the time that I was fleeing from the
+dungeons of CASTLEREAGH and SIDMOUTH, in 1817; and, when I got to Long
+Island, the _first book I bought_ was another MAISON RUSTIQUE.
+
+292. What need had we of _schools_? What need of _teachers_? What need
+of _scolding_ and _force_, to induce children to read, write, and love
+books? What need of _cards, dice_, or of any _games_, to '_kill time_;'
+but, in fact, to implant in the infant heart a love of _gaming_, one of
+the most destructive of all human vices? We did not want to _'kill
+time_;' we were always _busy_, wet weather or dry weather, winter or
+summer. There was _no force_ in any case; no _command_; no _authority_;
+none of these was ever wanted. To teach the children the habit of _early
+rising_ was a great object; and every one knows how young people cling
+to their beds, and how loth they are to go to those beds. This was a
+capital matter; because, here were _industry_ and _health_ both at
+stake. Yet, I avoided _command_ even here; and merely offered a
+_reward_. The child that was _down stairs_ first, was called the LARK
+_for that day_; and, further, _sat at my right hand at dinner_. They
+soon discovered, that to rise early, they must _go to bed early_; and
+thus was this most important object secured, with regard to girls as
+well as boys. Nothing more inconvenient, and, indeed, more disgusting,
+than to have to do with girls, or young women, who lounge in bed: 'A
+little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the
+hands to sleep.' SOLOMON knew them well: he had, I dare say, seen the
+breakfast cooling, carriages and horses and servants waiting, the sun
+coming burning on, the day wasting, the night growing dark too early,
+appointments broken, and the objects of journeys defeated; and all this
+from the lolloping in bed of persons who ought to have risen with the
+sun. No beauty, no modesty, no accomplishments, are a compensation for
+the effects of laziness in women; and, of all the proofs of laziness,
+none is so unequivocal as that of lying late in bed. Love makes men
+overlook this vice (for it is a _vice_), for _a while_; but, this does
+not last for life. Besides, _health_ demands early rising: the
+management of a house imperiously demands it; but _health_, that most
+precious possession, without which there is nothing else worth
+possessing, demands it too. The _morning air_ is the most wholesome and
+strengthening: even in crowded cities, men might do pretty well with the
+aid of the morning air; but, how are they to _rise_ early, if they go to
+bed _late_?
+
+293. But, to do the things I did, you must _love home_ yourself; to rear
+up children in this manner, you must _live with them_; you must make
+them, too, _feel_, by your conduct, that you _prefer_ this to any other
+mode of passing your time. All men cannot lead this sort of life, but
+many may; and all much more than many do. My occupation, to be sure, was
+chiefly carried on _at home_; but, I had always enough to do; I never
+spent an idle week, or even day, in my whole life. Yet I found time to
+talk with them, to walk, or ride, about _with them_; and when forced to
+go from home, always took one or more with me. You must be good-tempered
+too with them; they must like _your_ company better than any other
+person's; they must not wish you away, not fear your coming back, not
+look upon your departure as a _holiday_. When my business kept me away
+from the _scrabbling_-table, a petition often came, that I would go and
+_talk_ with the group, and the bearer generally was the youngest, being
+the most likely to succeed. When I went from home, all followed me to
+the outer-gate, and looked after me, till the carriage, or horse, was
+out of sight. At the time appointed for my return, all were prepared to
+meet me; and if it were late at night, they sat up as long as they were
+able to keep their eyes open. This love of parents, and this constant
+pleasure _at home_, made them not even think of seeking pleasure abroad;
+and they, thus, were kept from vicious playmates and early corruption.
+
+294. This is the age, too, to teach children to be _trust-worthy_, and
+to be _merciful_ and _humane_. We lived _in a garden_ of about two
+acres, partly kitchen-garden with walls, partly shrubbery and trees, and
+partly grass. There were the _peaches_, as tempting as any that ever
+grew, and yet as safe from fingers as if no child were ever in the
+garden. It was not necessary to _forbid_. The blackbirds, the thrushes,
+the whitethroats, and even that very shy bird the goldfinch, had their
+nests and bred up their young-ones, in great abundance, all about this
+little spot, constantly the play-place of six children; and one of the
+latter had its nest, and brought up its young-ones, in a
+_raspberry-bush_, within two yards of a walk, and at the time that we
+were gathering the ripe raspberries. We give _dogs_, and justly, great
+credit for sagacity and memory; but the following two most curious
+instances, which I should not venture to state, if there were not so
+many witnesses to the facts, in my neighbours at Botley, as well as in
+my own family, will show, that _birds_ are not, in this respect,
+inferior to the canine race. All country people know that the _skylark_
+is a very shy bird; that its abode is the open fields: that it settles
+on the ground only; that it seeks safety in the wideness of space; that
+it avoids enclosures, and is never seen in gardens. A part of our ground
+was a grass-plat of about _forty rods_, or a quarter of an acre, which,
+one year, was left to be mowed for hay. A pair of larks, coming out of
+the fields into the middle of a pretty populous village, chose to make
+their nest in the middle of this little spot, and at not more than about
+_thirty-five yards_ from one of the doors of the house, in which there
+were about twelve persons living, and six of those children, who had
+constant access to all parts of the ground. There we saw the cock rising
+up and singing, then taking his turn upon the eggs; and by-and-by, we
+observed him cease to sing, and saw them both _constantly engaged in
+bringing food to the young ones_. No unintelligible hint to fathers and
+mothers of the human race, who have, before marriage, taken delight in
+_music_. But the time came for _mowing the grass_! I waited a good many
+days for the brood to get away; but, at last, I determined on the day;
+and if the larks were there still, to leave a patch of grass standing
+round them. In order not to keep them in dread longer than necessary, I
+brought three able mowers, who would cut the whole in about an hour; and
+as the plat was nearly circular, set them to mow _round_, beginning at
+the outside. And now for sagacity indeed! The moment the men began to
+whet their scythes, the two old larks began to flutter over the nest,
+and to make a great clamour. When the men began to mow, they flew round
+and round, stooping so low, when near the men, as almost to touch their
+bodies, making a great chattering at the same time; but before the men
+had got round with the second swarth, they flew to the nest, and away
+they went, young ones and all, across the river, at the foot of the
+ground, and settled in the long grass in my neighbour's orchard.
+
+295. The other instance relates to a HOUSE-MARTEN. It is well known that
+these birds build their nests under the eaves of inhabited houses, and
+sometimes under those of door porches; but we had one that built its
+nest _in the house_, and upon the top of a common doorcase, the door of
+which opened into a room out of the main passage into the house.
+Perceiving the marten had begun to build its nest here, we kept the
+front-door open in the daytime; but were obliged to fasten it at night.
+It went on, had eggs, young ones, and the young ones flew. I used to
+open the door in the morning early, and then the birds carried on their
+affairs till night. The next _year_ the MARTEN came again, and had
+_another brood in the same place_. It found its _old nest_; and having
+repaired it, and put it in order, went on again in the former way; and
+it would, I dare say, have continued to come to the end of its life, if
+we had remained there so long, notwithstanding there were six healthy
+children in the house, making just as much noise as they pleased.
+
+296. Now, what _sagacity_ in these birds, to discover that those were
+places of safety! And how happy must it have made us, the parents, to be
+_sure_ that our children had thus deeply imbibed habits the contrary of
+cruelty! For, be it engraven on your heart, YOUNG MAN, that, whatever
+appearances may say to the contrary, _cruelty_ is always accompanied
+with _cowardice_, and also with _perfidy_, when that is called for by
+the circumstances of the case; and that _habitual_ acts of cruelty to
+other creatures, will, nine times out of ten, produce, when the power is
+possessed, cruelty to human beings. The ill-usage of _horses_, and
+particularly _asses_, is a grave and a just charge against this nation.
+No other nation on earth is guilty of it to the same extent. Not only by
+_blows_, but by privation, are we cruel towards these useful, docile,
+and patient creatures; and especially towards the last, which is the
+most docile and patient and laborious of the two, while the food that
+satisfies it, is of the coarsest and least costly kind, and in quantity
+so small! In the habitual ill-treatment of this animal, which, in
+addition to all its labours, has the milk taken from its young ones to
+administer a remedy for our ailments, there is something that bespeaks
+_ingratitude_ hardly to be described. In a REGISTER that I wrote from
+Long Island, I said, that amongst all the things of which I had been
+bereft, I regretted no one so much as a very diminutive _mare_, on which
+my children had all, in succession, learned to ride. She was become
+useless for them, and, indeed, for any other purpose; but the
+recollection of her was so entwined with so many past circumstances,
+which, at that distance, my mind conjured up, that I really was very
+uneasy, lest she should fall into cruel hands. By good luck, she was,
+after a while, turned out on the wide world to shift for herself; and
+when we got back, and had a place for her to _stand_ in, from her native
+forest we brought her to Kensington, and she is now at Barn-Elm, about
+twenty-six years old, and I dare say, as fat as a mole. Now, not only
+have I no moral _right_ (considering my ability to pay for keep) to
+deprive her of life; but it would be _unjust_ and _ungrateful_, in me to
+withhold from her sufficient food and lodging to make life as pleasant
+as possible while that life last.
+
+297. In the meanwhile the book-learning _crept in_ of its own accord, by
+imperceptible degrees. Children naturally want to be _like_ their
+parents, and _to do what they do_: the boys following their father, and
+the girls their mother; and as I was always _writing_ or _reading_, mine
+naturally desired to do something in the same way. But, at the same
+time, they heard no talk from _fools_ or _drinkers_; saw me with no
+idle, gabbling, empty companions; saw no vain and affected coxcombs, and
+no tawdry and extravagant women; saw no nasty gormandizing; and heard no
+gabble about play-houses and romances and the other nonsense that fit
+boys to be lobby-loungers, and girls to be the ruin of industrious and
+frugal young men.
+
+298. We wanted no stimulants of this sort to _keep up our spirits_: our
+various pleasing pursuits were quite sufficient for that; and the
+_book-learning_ came amongst the rest of the pleasures, to which it was,
+in some sort, necessary. I remember that, one year, I raised a
+prodigious crop of fine _melons_, under hand-glasses; and I learned how
+to do it from a gardening _book_; or, at least, that book was necessary
+to remind me of the details. Having passed part of an evening in talking
+to the boys about getting this crop, 'Come,' said I, 'now, let us _read
+the book_.' Then the book came forth, and to work we went, following
+very strictly the precepts of the book. I read the thing but once, but
+the eldest boy read it, perhaps, twenty times over; and explained all
+about the matter to the others. Why here was a _motive_! Then he had to
+tell the garden-labourer _what to do_ to the melons. Now, I will engage,
+that more was really _learned_ by this single _lesson_, than would have
+been learned by spending, at this son's age, a year at school; and he
+_happy_ and _delighted_ all the while. When any dispute arose amongst
+them about hunting or shooting, or any other of their pursuits, they, by
+degrees, found out the way of settling it by reference to some book; and
+when any difficulty occurred, as to the meaning, they referred to me,
+who, if at home, _always instantly attended to them_, in these matters.
+
+299. They began writing by taking words out of _printed books_; finding
+out which letter was which, by asking me, or asking those who knew the
+letters one from another; and by imitating bits of my writing, it is
+surprising how soon they began to write a hand like mine, very small,
+very faint-stroked, and nearly plain as print. The first use that any
+one of them made of the pen, was to _write to me_, though in the same
+house with them. They began doing this in mere _scratches_, before they
+knew how to make any one letter; and as I was always folding up letters
+and directing them, so were they; and they were _sure_ to receive a
+_prompt answer_, with most _encouraging_ compliments. All the meddlings
+and teazings of friends, and, what was more serious, the pressing
+prayers of their anxious mother, about sending them to _school_, I
+withstood without the slightest effect on my resolution. As to friends,
+preferring my own judgment to theirs, I did not care much; but an
+expression of anxiety, implying a doubt of the soundness of my own
+judgment, coming, perhaps, twenty times a day from her whose care they
+were as well as mine, was not a matter to smile at, and very great
+trouble it did give me. My answer at last was, as to the boys, I want
+them to be _like me_; and as to the girls, In whose hands can they be so
+safe as in _yours_? Therefore my resolution is taken: _go to school they
+shall not_.
+
+300. Nothing is much more annoying than the _intermeddling of friends_,
+in a case like this. The wife appeals _to them_, and '_good breeding_,'
+that is to say, _nonsense_, is sure to put them on _her side_. Then,
+they, particularly the _women_, when describing the _surprising
+progress_ made by their _own sons_ at school, used, if one of mine were
+present, to turn to him, and ask, to what school _he went_, and what
+_he_ was _learning_? I leave any one to judge of _his_ opinion of her;
+and whether _he_ would like her the better for that! 'Bless me, so tall,
+and _not learned_ any thing _yet_!' 'Oh yes, he has,' I used to say, 'he
+has learned to ride, and hunt, and shoot, and fish, and look after
+cattle and sheep, and to work in the garden, and to feed his dogs, and
+to go from village to village in the dark.' This was the way I used to
+manage with troublesome customers of this sort. And how glad the
+children used to be, when they got clear of such criticising people! And
+how grateful they felt to me for the _protection_ which they saw that I
+gave them against that state of restraint, of which other people's boys
+complained! Go whither they might, they found no place so pleasant as
+home, and no soul that came near them affording them so many means of
+gratification as they received from me.
+
+301. In this happy state we lived, until the year 1810, when the
+government laid its merciless fangs upon me, dragged me from these
+delights, and _crammed me into a jail amongst felons_; of which I shall
+have to speak more fully, when, in the last Number, I come to speak of
+the duties of THE CITIZEN. This added to the difficulties of my task of
+_teaching_; for now I was snatched away from the _only_ scene in which
+it could, as I thought, properly be executed. But even these
+difficulties were got over. The blow was, to be sure, a terrible one;
+and, oh God! how was it felt by these poor children! It was in the month
+of July when the horrible sentence was passed upon me. My wife, having
+left her children in the care of her good and affectionate sister, was
+in London, waiting to know the doom of her husband. When the news
+arrived at Botley, the three boys, one eleven, another nine, and the
+other seven, years old, were hoeing cabbages in that garden which had
+been the source of so much delight. When the account of the savage
+sentence was brought to them, the youngest could not, for some time, be
+made to understand what a _jail_ was; and, when he did, he, all in a
+tremor, exclaimed, 'Now I'm sure, William, that PAPA is not in a place
+_like that_!' The other, in order to disguise his tears and smother his
+sobs, fell to work with the hoe, and _chopped about like a blind
+person_. This account, when it reached me, affected me more, filled me
+with deeper resentment, than any other circumstance. And, oh! how I
+despise the wretches who talk of my _vindictiveness_; of my _exultation_
+at the confusion of those who inflicted those sufferings! How I despise
+the base creatures, the crawling slaves, the callous and cowardly
+hypocrites, who affect to be '_shocked_' (tender souls!) at my
+expressions of _joy_, and at the death of Gibbs, Ellenborough, Perceval,
+Liverpool, Canning, and the rest of the tribe that I have already seen
+out, and at the fatal workings of _that system_, for endeavouring to
+check which I was thus punished! How I despise these wretches, and how
+I, above all things, enjoy their ruin, and anticipate their utter
+beggary! What! I am to forgive, am I, injuries like this; and that, too,
+without any _atonement_? Oh, no! I have not so read the Holy Scriptures;
+I have not, from them, learned that I am not to rejoice at the fall of
+unjust foes; and it makes a part of my happiness to be able _to tell
+millions of men_ that I do thus rejoice, and that I have the means of
+calling on so many just and merciful men to rejoice along with me.
+
+302. Now, then, the _book-learning_ was _forced_ upon us. I had a _farm_
+in hand. It was necessary that I should be constantly informed of what
+was doing. I gave _all the orders_, whether as to purchases, sales,
+ploughing, sowing, breeding; in short, with regard to every thing, and
+the things were endless in number and variety, and always full of
+interest. My eldest son and daughter could now write well and fast. One
+or the other of these was always at Botley; and I had with me (having
+hired the best part of the keeper's house) one or two, besides either
+this brother or sister; the mother coming up to town about once in two
+or three months, leaving the house and children in the care of her
+sister. We had a HAMPER, with a lock and two keys, which came up once a
+week, or oftener, bringing me fruit and all sorts of country fare, for
+the carriage of which, cost free, I was indebted to as good a man as
+ever God created, the late Mr. GEORGE ROGERS, of Southampton, who, in
+the prime of life, died deeply lamented by thousands, but by none more
+deeply than by me and my family, who have to thank him, and the whole of
+his excellent family, for benefits and marks of kindness without number.
+
+303. This HAMPER, which was always, at both ends of the line, looked for
+with the most lively feelings, became our _school_. It brought me _a
+journal_ of _labours_, _proceedings_, and _occurrences_, written on
+paper of shape and size uniform, and so contrived, as to margins, as to
+admit of binding. The journal used, when my son was the writer, to be
+interspersed with drawings of our dogs, colts, or any thing that he
+wanted me to have a correct idea of. The hamper brought me plants,
+bulbs, and the like, that I might _see_ the size of them; and always
+every one sent his or her _most beautiful flowers_; the earliest
+violets, and primroses, and cowslips, and blue-bells; the earliest twigs
+of trees; and, in short, every thing that they thought calculated to
+delight me. The moment the hamper arrived, I, casting aside every thing
+else, set to work to answer _every question_, to give new directions,
+and to add anything likely to give pleasure at Botley. _Every_ hamper
+brought one '_letter_,' as they called it, if not more, from every
+child; and to _every_ letter I wrote _an answer_, sealed up and sent to
+the party, being sure that that was the way to produce other and better
+letters; for, though they could not read what I wrote, and though their
+own consisted at first of mere _scratches_, and afterwards, for a while,
+of a few words written down for them to imitate, I always thanked them
+for their '_pretty letter_'; and never expressed any wish to see them
+_write better_; but took care to write in a very neat and plain hand
+_myself_, and to do up my letter in a very neat manner.
+
+304. Thus, while the ferocious tigers thought I was doomed to incessant
+mortification, and to rage that must extinguish my mental powers, I
+found in my children, and in their spotless and courageous and most
+affectionate mother, delights to which the callous hearts of those
+tigers were strangers. 'Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's
+aid.' How often did this line of Pope occur to me when I opened the
+little _spuddling_ 'letters' from Botley! This correspondence occupied a
+good part of my time: I had all the children with me, turn and turn
+about; and, in order to give the boys exercise, and to give the two
+eldest an opportunity of beginning to learn French, I used, for a part
+of the two years, to send them a few hours in the day to an ABBÉ, who
+lived in Castle-street, Holborn. All this was a great relaxation to my
+mind; and, when I had to return to my literary labours, I returned
+_fresh_ and cheerful, full of vigour, and _full of hope_, of finally
+seeing my unjust and merciless foes at my feet, and that, too, without
+caring a straw on whom their fall might bring calamity, so that my own
+family were safe; because, say what any one might, the _community, taken
+as a whole_, had _suffered this thing to be done unto us_.
+
+305. The paying of the work-people, the keeping of the accounts, the
+referring to books, the writing and reading of letters; this everlasting
+mixture of amusement with book-learning, made me, almost to my own
+surprise, find, at the end of the two years, that I had a parcel of
+_scholars_ growing up about me; and, long before the end of the time, I
+had _dictated many Registers_ to my two eldest children. Then, there was
+_copying_ out of books, which taught _spelling correctly_. The
+calculations about the farming affairs forced arithmetic upon us: the
+_use_, the _necessity_, of the thing, led to the study. By-and-by, we
+had to look into the _laws_ to know what to do about the _highways_,
+about the _game_, about the _poor_, and all rural and _parochial_
+affairs. I was, indeed, by the fangs of the government, defeated in my
+fondly-cherished project of making my sons farmers on their own land,
+and keeping them from all temptation to seek vicious and enervating
+enjoyments; but those fangs, merciless as they had been, had not been
+able to prevent me from laying in for their lives a store of useful
+information, habits of industry, care, sobriety, and a taste for
+innocent, healthful, and manly pleasures: the fangs had made me and them
+pennyless; but, they had not been able to take from us our health or our
+mental possessions; and these were ready for application as
+circumstances might ordain.
+
+306. After the age that I have now been speaking of, _fourteen_, I
+suppose every one _became_ a reader and writer according to fancy. As to
+_books_, with the exception of the _Poets_, I never bought, in my whole
+life, any one that I did not _want_ for some purpose of _utility_, and
+of _practical utility_ too. I have two or three times had the whole
+collection snatched away from me; and have begun again to get them
+together as they were wanted. Go and kick an ANT's nest about, and you
+will see the little laborious, courageous creatures _instantly_ set to
+work to get it together again; and if you do this ten times over, ten
+times over they will do the same. Here is the sort of stuff that men
+must be made of to oppose, with success, those who, by whatever means,
+get possession of great and mischievous power.
+
+307. Now, I am aware, that that which _I did_, cannot be done by every
+one of hundreds of thousands of fathers, each of whom loves his children
+with all his soul: I am aware that the attorney, the surgeon, the
+physician, the trader, and even the farmer, cannot, generally speaking,
+do what I did, and that they must, in most cases, send their _sons_ to
+school, if it be necessary for them to have _book-learning_. But while I
+say this, I know, that there are _many things_, which I did, which many
+fathers might do, and which, nevertheless, _they do not do_. It is in
+the power of _every father_ to live _at home with his family_, when not
+_compelled_ by business, or by public duty, to be absent: it is in his
+power to set an example of industry and sobriety and frugality, and to
+prevent a taste for gaming, dissipation, extravagance, from getting root
+in the minds of his children: it is in his power to continue to make his
+children _hearers_, when he is reproving servants for idleness, or
+commending them for industry and care: it is in his power to keep all
+dissolute and idly-talking companions from his house: it is in his power
+to teach them, by his uniform example, justice and mercy towards the
+inferior animals: it is in his power to do many other things, and
+something in the way of book-learning too, however busy his life may be.
+It is completely within his power to teach them early-rising and early
+going to bed; and, if many a man, who says that he has _not time_ to
+teach his children, were to sit down, in _sincerity_, with a pen and a
+bit of paper, and put down all the minutes, which he, in every
+twenty-four hours, _wastes_ over the _bottle_, or over _cheese_ and
+_oranges_ and _raisins_ and _biscuits_, _after_ he has _dined_; how many
+he lounges away, either at the coffee-house or at home, over the
+_useless_ part of newspapers; how many he spends in waiting for the
+coming and the managing of the tea-table; how many he passes by
+candle-light, _wearied of his existence_, when he might be in bed; how
+many he passes in the morning in bed, while the sun and dew shine and
+sparkle for him in vain: if he were to put all these together, and were
+to add those which he passes in the _reading of books_ for his mere
+personal _amusement_, and without the smallest chance of acquiring from
+them any _useful_ practical knowledge: if he were to sum up the whole of
+these, and add to them the time worse than wasted in the contemptible
+work of dressing off _his person_, he would be frightened at the result;
+would send for his boys from school; and if greater book-learning than
+he possessed were necessary, he would choose for the purpose some man of
+ability, and see the teaching carried on under his own roof, with safety
+as to morals, and with the best chance as to health.
+
+308. If after all, however, a school must be resorted to, let it, if in
+your power, be as little populous as possible. As 'evil communications
+corrupt good manners,' so the more numerous the assemblage, and the more
+extensive the communication, the greater the chance of corruption.
+_Jails, barracks, factories_, do not corrupt by their _walls_, but by
+their condensed numbers. Populous cities corrupt from the same cause;
+and it is, because _it must be_, the same with regard to schools, out of
+which children come not what they were when they went in. The master is,
+in some sort, their enemy; he is their overlooker; he is a spy upon
+them; his authority is maintained by his absolute power of punishment;
+_the parent commits them to that power_; to be taught is to be held in
+restraint; and, as the sparks fly upwards, the teaching and the
+restraint will not be divided in the estimation of the boy. Besides all
+this, there is the great disadvantage of _tardiness_ in arriving at
+years of discretion. If boys live only with boys, their ideas will
+continue to be boyish; if they see and hear and converse with nobody but
+boys, how are they to have the thoughts and the character of men? It is,
+_at last_, only by hearing _men_ talk and seeing men act, that they
+learn to talk and act like men; and, therefore, to confine them to the
+society of boys, is to _retard_ their arrival at the years of
+discretion; and in case of adverse circumstances in the pecuniary way,
+where, in all the creation, is there so helpless a mortal as a boy who
+has always been at school! But, if, as I said before, a school there
+_must_ be, let the congregation be as small as possible; and, do not
+expect too much from the master; for, if it be irksome to you to teach
+your own sons, what must that teaching be to him? If he have great
+numbers, he must delegate his authority; and, like all other delegated
+authority, it will either be abused or neglected.
+
+309. With regard to _girls_, one would think that _mothers_ would want
+no argument to make them shudder at the thought of committing the care
+of their daughters to other hands than their own. If fortune have so
+favoured them as to make them rationally desirous that their daughters
+should have more of what are called accomplishments _than_ they
+_themselves have_, it has also favoured them with the means of having
+teachers under their own eye. If it have not favoured them so highly as
+this (and it seldom has in the middle rank of life), what duty so sacred
+as that imposed on a mother to be the teacher of her daughters! And is
+she, from love of ease or of pleasure or of any thing else, to neglect
+this duty; is she to commit her daughters to the care of persons, with
+whose manners and morals it is impossible for her to be thoroughly
+acquainted; is she to send them into the promiscuous society of girls,
+who belong to nobody knows whom, and come from nobody knows whither, and
+some of whom, for aught she can know to the contrary, may have been
+corrupted before, and sent thither to be hidden from their former
+circle; is she to send her daughters to be shut up within walls, the
+bare sight of which awaken the idea of intrigue and invite to seduction
+and surrender; is she to leave the health of her daughters to chance, to
+shut them up with a motley bevy of strangers, some of whom, as is
+_frequently_ the case, are proclaimed _bastards_, by the undeniable
+testimony given by the _colour of their skin_; is she to do all this,
+and still put forward pretensions to the authority and the affection due
+to a _mother_! And, are you to permit all this, and still call yourself
+_a father_!
+
+310. Well, then, having resolved to teach your own children, or, to have
+them taught, at home, let us now see how they ought to proceed as to
+_books_ for learning. It is evident, speaking of boys, that, at last,
+they must study the art, or science, that you intend them to pursue; if
+they be to be surgeons, they must read books on surgery; and the like in
+other cases. But, there are certain _elementary_ studies; certain books
+to be used by _all persons_, who are destined to acquire any
+book-learning at all. Then there are departments, or branches of
+knowledge, that every man in the middle rank of life, ought, if he can,
+to acquire, they being, in some sort, necessary to his reputation as a
+_well-informed_ man, a character to which the farmer and the shopkeeper
+ought to aspire as well as the lawyer and the surgeon. Let me now, then,
+offer my advice as to the _course_ of reading, and the _manner_ of
+reading, for a boy, arrived at his _fourteenth_ year, that being, in my
+opinion, early enough for him to begin.
+
+311. And, first of all, whether as to boys or girls, I deprecate
+_romances_ of every description. It is impossible that they can do any
+_good_, and they may do a great deal of harm. They excite passions that
+ought to lie dormant; they give the mind a taste for _highly-seasoned_
+matter; they make matters of real life insipid; every girl, addicted to
+them, sighs to be a SOPHIA WESTERN, and every boy, a TOM JONES. What
+girl is not in love with the _wild_ youth, and what boy does not find a
+justification for his wildness? What can be more pernicious than the
+teachings of this celebrated romance? Here are two young men put before
+us, both sons of the same mother; the one a _bastard_ (and by a parson
+too), the other a _legitimate child_; the former wild, disobedient, and
+squandering; the latter steady, sober, obedient, and frugal; the former
+every thing that is frank and generous in his nature, the latter a
+greedy hypocrite; the former rewarded with the most beautiful and
+virtuous of women and a double estate, the latter punished by being made
+an outcast. How is it possible for young people to read such a book, and
+to look upon orderliness, sobriety, obedience, and frugality, as
+_virtues_? And this is the tenor of almost every romance, and of almost
+every play, in our language. In the 'School for Scandal,' for instance,
+we see two brothers; the one a prudent and frugal man, and, to all
+appearance, a moral man, the other a hair-brained squanderer, laughing
+at the morality of his brother; the former turns out to be a base
+hypocrite and seducer, and is brought to shame and disgrace; while the
+latter is found to be full of generous sentiment, and Heaven itself
+seems to interfere to give him fortune and fame. In short, the direct
+tendency of the far greater part of these books, is, to cause young
+people to despise all those virtues, without the practice of which they
+must be a curse to their parents, a burden to the community, and must,
+except by mere accident, lead wretched lives. I do not recollect one
+romance nor one play, in our language, which has not this tendency. How
+is it possible for young princes to read the historical plays of the
+punning and smutty Shakspeare, and not think, that to be drunkards,
+blackguards, the companions of debauchees and robbers, is the suitable
+beginning of a glorious reign?
+
+312. There is, too, another most abominable principle that runs through
+them all, namely, that there is in _high birth_, something of _superior
+nature_, instinctive courage, honour, and talent. Who can look at the
+two _royal youths_ in CYMBELINE, or at the _noble youth_ in DOUGLAS,
+without detesting the base parasites who wrote those plays? Here are
+youths, brought up by _shepherds_, never told of their origin, believing
+themselves the sons of these humble parents, but discovering, when grown
+up, the highest notions of valour and honour, and thirsting for military
+renown, even while tending their reputed fathers' flocks and herds! And,
+why this species of falsehood? To cheat the mass of the people; to keep
+them in abject subjection; to make them quietly submit to despotic sway.
+And the infamous authors are guilty of the cheat, because they are, in
+one shape or another, paid by oppressors out of means squeezed from the
+people. A _true_ picture would give us just the reverse; would show us
+that '_high birth_' is the enemy of virtue, of valour, and of talent;
+would show us, that with all their incalculable advantages, royal and
+noble families have, only by mere accident, produced a great man; that,
+in general, they have been amongst the most effeminate, unprincipled,
+cowardly, stupid, and, at the very least, amongst the most useless
+persons, considered as individuals, and not in connexion with the
+prerogatives and powers bestowed on them solely by the law.
+
+313. It is impossible for me, by any words that I can use, to express,
+to the extent of my thoughts, the danger of suffering young people to
+form their opinions from the writings of poets and romances. Nine times
+out of ten, the morality they teach is bad, and must have a bad
+tendency. Their wit is employed to _ridicule virtue_, as you will almost
+always find, if you examine the matter to the bottom. The world owes a
+very large part of its sufferings to tyrants; but what tyrant was there
+amongst the ancients, whom the poets did not place _amongst the gods_?
+Can you open an English poet, without, in some part or other of his
+works, finding the grossest flatteries of royal and noble persons? How
+are young people not to think that the praises bestowed on these persons
+are just? DRYDEN, PARNELL, GAY, THOMSON, in short, what poet have we
+had, or have we, POPE only excepted, who was not, or is not, a
+pensioner, or a sinecure placeman, or the wretched dependent of some
+part of the Aristocracy? Of the extent of the powers of writers in
+producing mischief to a nation, we have two most striking instances in
+the cases of Dr. JOHNSON and BURKE. The former, at a time when it was a
+question whether war should be made on America to compel her to submit
+to be taxed by the English parliament, wrote a pamphlet, entitled,
+'_Taxation no Tyranny_,' to urge the nation into that war. The latter,
+when it was a question, whether England should wage war against the
+people of France, to prevent them from reforming their government, wrote
+a pamphlet to urge the nation into _that_ war. The first war lost us
+America, the last cost us six hundred millions of money, and has loaded
+us with forty millions a year of taxes. JOHNSON, however, got a _pension
+for his life_, and BURKE a pension for his life, and for _three lives
+after his own_! CUMBERLAND and MURPHY, the play-writers, were
+pensioners; and, in short, of the whole mass, where has there been one,
+whom the people were not compelled to pay for labours, having for their
+principal object the deceiving and enslaving of that same people? It is,
+therefore, the duty of every father, when he puts a book into the hands
+of his son or daughter, to give the reader a true account of _who_ and
+_what_ the writer of the book was, or is.
+
+314. If a boy be intended for any particular calling, he ought, of
+course, to be induced to read books relating to that calling, if such
+books there be; and, therefore, I shall not be more particular on that
+head. But, there are certain things, that all men in the middle rank of
+life, ought to know something of; because the knowledge will be a source
+of pleasure; and because the want of it must, very frequently, give them
+pain, by making them appear inferior, in point of mind, to many who are,
+in fact, their inferiors in that respect. These things are _grammar,
+arithmetic, history_, accompanied with _geography_ Without these, a man,
+in the middle rank of life, however able he may be in his calling, makes
+but an awkward figure. Without _grammar_ he cannot, with safety to his
+character as a well-informed man, put his thoughts upon paper; nor can
+he be _sure_, that he is speaking with propriety. How many clever men
+have I known, full of natural talent, eloquent by nature, replete with
+every thing calculated to give them weight in society; and yet having
+little or no weight, merely because unable to put correctly upon paper
+that which they have in their minds! For me not to say, that I deem _my
+English Grammar_ the best book for teaching this science, would be
+affectation, and neglect of duty besides; because I know, that it is the
+best; because I wrote it for the purpose; and because, hundreds and
+hundreds of men and women have told me, some verbally, and some by
+letter, that, though (many of them) at grammar schools for years, they
+really never _knew_ any thing of grammar, until they studied my book. I,
+who know well all the difficulties that I experienced when I read books
+upon the subject, can easily believe this, and especially when I think
+of the numerous instances in which I have seen _university_-scholars
+unable to write English, with any tolerable degree of correctness. In
+this book, the principles are so clearly explained, that the disgust
+arising from intricacy is avoided; and it is this disgust, that is the
+great and mortal enemy of acquiring knowledge.
+
+315. With regard to ARITHMETIC, it is a branch of learning absolutely
+necessary to every one, who has any pecuniary transactions beyond those
+arising out of the expenditure of his week's wages. All the books on
+this subject that I had ever seen, were so bad, so destitute of every
+thing calculated to lead the mind into a knowledge of the matter, so
+void of principles, and so evidently tending to puzzle and disgust the
+learner, by their sententious, and crabbed, and quaint, and almost
+hieroglyphical definitions, that I, at one time, had the intention of
+writing a little work on the subject myself. It was put off, from one
+cause or another; but a little work on the subject has been, partly at
+my suggestion, written and published by Mr. THOMAS SMITH of Liverpool,
+and is sold by Mr. SHERWOOD, in London. The author has great ability,
+and a perfect knowledge of his subject. It is a book of principles; and
+any young person of common capacity, will learn more from it in a week,
+than from all the other books, that I ever saw on the subject, in a
+twelve-month.
+
+316. While the foregoing studies are proceeding, though they very well
+afford a relief to each other, HISTORY may serve as a relaxation,
+particularly during the study of grammar, which is an undertaking
+requiring patience and time. Of all history, that of our own country is
+of the most importance; because, for want of a thorough knowledge of
+what _has been_, we are, in many cases, at a loss to account for _what
+is_, and still more at a loss, to be able to show what _ought to be_.
+The difference between history and romance is this; that that which is
+narrated in the latter, leaves in the mind nothing which it can apply to
+present or future circumstances and events; while the former, when it is
+what it ought to be, leaves the mind stored with arguments for
+experience, applicable, at all times, to the actual affairs of life. The
+history of a country ought to show the origin and progress of its
+institutions, political, civil, and ecclesiastical; it ought to show the
+effects of those institutions upon the state of the people; it ought to
+delineate the measures of the government at the several epochs; and,
+having clearly described the state of the people at the several periods,
+it ought to show the cause of their freedom, good morals, and happiness;
+or of their misery, immorality, and slavery; and this, too, by the
+production of indubitable facts, and of inferences so manifestly fair,
+as to leave not the smallest doubt upon the mind.
+
+317. Do the histories of England which we have, answer this description?
+They are very little better than romances. Their contents are generally
+confined to narrations relating to battles, negociations, intrigues,
+contests between rival sovereignties, rival nobles, and to the character
+of kings, queens, mistresses, bishops, ministers, and the like; from
+scarcely any of which can the reader draw any knowledge which is at all
+applicable to the circumstances of the present day.
+
+318. Besides this, there is the _falsehood_; and the falsehoods
+contained in these histories, where shall we find any thing to surpass?
+Let us take one instance. They all tell us, that William the Conqueror
+knocked down twenty-six parish churches, and laid waste the parishes in
+order to make the New Forest; and this in a tract of the very poorest
+land in England, where the churches must then have stood at about one
+mile and two hundred yards from each other. The truth is, that all the
+churches are still standing that were there when William landed, and the
+whole story is a sheer falsehood from the beginning to the end.
+
+319. But, this is a mere specimen of these romances; and that too, with
+regard to a matter comparatively unimportant to us. The important
+falsehoods are, those which misguide us by statement or by inference,
+with regard to the state of the people at the several epochs, as
+produced by the institutions of the country, or the measures of the
+Government. It is always the object of those who have power in their
+hands, to persuade the people that they are better off than their
+forefathers were: it is the great business of history to show how this
+matter stands; and, with respect to this great matter, what are we to
+learn from any thing that has hitherto been called a history of England!
+I remember, that, about a dozen years ago, I was talking with a very
+clever young man, who had read twice or thrice over the History of
+England, by different authors; and that I gave the conversation a turn
+that drew from him, unperceived by himself, that he did not know how
+tithes, parishes, poor-rates, church-rates, and the abolition of trial
+by jury in hundreds of cases, came to be in England; and, that he had
+not the smallest idea of the manner in which the Duke of Bedford came to
+possess the power of taxing our cabbages in Covent-Garden. Yet, this is
+history. I have done a great deal, with regard to matters of this sort,
+in my famous History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION; for I may truly call
+that famous, which has been translated and published in all the modern
+languages.
+
+320. But, it is reserved for me to write a complete history of the
+country from the earliest times to the present day; and this, God giving
+me life and health, I shall begin to do in monthly numbers, beginning on
+the first of September, and in which I shall endeavour to combine
+brevity with clearness. We do not want to consume our time over a dozen
+pages about Edward the Third dancing at a ball, picking up a lady's
+garter, and making that garter the foundation of an order of knighthood,
+bearing the motto of '_Honi soit qui mal y pense_? It is not stuff like
+this; but we want to know what was the state of the people; what were a
+labourer's wages; what were the prices of the food, and how the
+labourers were dressed in the reign of that great king. What is a young
+person to imbibe from a history of England, as it is called, like that
+of Goldsmith? It is a little romance to amuse children; and the other
+historians have given us larger romances to amuse lazy persons who are
+grown up. To destroy the effects of these, and to make the people know
+what their country has been, will be my object; and this, I trust, I
+shall effect. We are, it is said, to have a History of England from SIR
+JAMES MACKINTOSH; a History of Scotland from SIR WALTER SCOTT; and a
+HISTORY OF IRELAND from Tommy Moore, the luscious poet. A Scotch lawyer,
+who is a pensioner, and a member for Knaresborough, which is well known
+to the Duke of Devonshire, who has the great tithes of twenty parishes
+in Ireland, will, doubtless, write a most impartial _History of
+England_, and particularly as far as relates to _boroughs_ and _tithes_.
+A Scotch romance-writer, who, under the name of _Malagrowther_, wrote a
+pamphlet to prove, that one-pound-notes were the cause of riches to
+Scotland, will write, to be sure, a most instructive _History of
+Scotland_. And, from the pen of a Irish poet, who is a sinecure
+placeman, and a protégé of an English peer that has immense parcels of
+Irish confiscated estates, what a beautiful history shall we not then
+have of _unfortunate Ireland_! Oh, no! We are not going to be content
+with stuff such as these men will bring out. Hume and Smollett and
+Robertson have cheated us long enough. We are not in a humour to be
+cheated any longer.
+
+321. GEOGRAPHY is taught at schools, if we believe the school-cards. The
+scholars can tell you all about the divisions of the earth, and this is
+very well for persons who have leisure to indulge their curiosity; but
+it does seem to me monstrous that a young person's time should be spent
+in ascertaining the boundaries of Persia or China, knowing nothing all
+the while about the boundaries, the rivers, the soil, or the products,
+or of the any thing else of Yorkshire or Devonshire. The first thing in
+geography is to know that of the country in which we live, especially
+that in which we were born: I have now seen almost every hill and valley
+in it with my own eyes; nearly every city and every town, and no small
+part of the whole of the villages. I am therefore qualified to give an
+account of the country; and that account, under the title of
+Geographical Dictionary of England and Wales, I am now having printed as
+a companion to my history.
+
+322. When a young man well understands the geography of his own country;
+when he has referred to maps on this smaller scale; when, in short, he
+knows all about his own country, and is able to apply his knowledge to
+useful purposes, he may look at other countries, and particularly at
+those, the powers or measures of which are likely to affect his own
+country. It is of great importance to us to be well acquainted with the
+extent of France, the United States, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Turkey,
+and Russia; but what need we care about the tribes of Asia and Africa,
+the condition of which can affect us no more than we would be affected
+by any thing that is passing in the moon?
+
+323. When people have nothing useful to do, they may indulge their
+curiosity; but, merely to _read books_, is not to be industrious, is not
+to study, and is not the way to become learned. Perhaps there are none
+more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers. A book
+is an admirable excuse for sitting still; and, a man who has constantly
+a newspaper, a magazine, a review, or some book or other in his hand,
+gets, at last, his head stuffed with such a jumble, that he knows not
+what to think about any thing. An empty coxcomb, that wastes his time in
+dressing, strutting, or strolling about, and picking his teeth, is
+certainly a most despicable creature, but scarcely less so than a mere
+reader of books, who is, generally, conceited, thinks himself wiser than
+other men, in proportion to the number of leaves that he has turned
+over. In short, a young man should bestow his time upon no book, the
+contents of which he cannot apply to some useful purpose.
+
+324. Books of travels, of biography, natural history, and particularly
+such as relate to agriculture and horticulture, are all proper, when
+leisure is afforded for them; and the two last are useful to a very
+great part of mankind; but, unless the subjects treated of are of some
+interest to us in our affairs, no time should be wasted upon them, when
+there are so many duties demanded at our hands by our families and our
+country. A man may read books for ever, and be an ignorant creature at
+last, and even the more ignorant for his reading.
+
+325. And, with regard to young women, everlasting book-reading is
+absolutely _a vice_. When they once get into the habit, they neglect all
+other matters, and, in some cases, even their very dress. Attending to
+the affairs of the house: to the washing, the baking, the brewing, the
+preservation and cooking of victuals, the management of the poultry and
+the garden; these are their proper occupations. It is said (with what
+truth I know not) of the _present Queen_ (wife of William IV), that she
+was an active, excellent manager of her house. Impossible to bestow on
+her greater praise; and I trust that her example will have its due
+effect on the young women of the present day, who stand, but too
+generally, in need of that example.
+
+326. The great fault of the present generation, is, that, in _all_
+ranks, the _notions of self-importance are too high_. This has arisen
+from causes not visible to many, out the consequences are felt by all,
+and that, too, with great severity. There has been a general
+_sublimating_ going on for many years. Not to put the word _Esquire_
+before the name of almost any man who is not a mere labourer or artisan,
+is almost _an affront_. Every merchant, every master-manufacturer, every
+dealer, if at all rich, is an _Esquire_; squires' sons must be
+_gentlemen_, and squires' wives and daughters _ladies_. If this were
+_all_; if it were merely a ridiculous misapplication of words, the evil
+would not be great; but, unhappily, words lead to acts and produce
+things; and the '_young gentleman_' is not easily to be moulded into a
+_tradesman_ or a _working farmer_. And yet the world is too small to
+hold so many _gentlemen_ and _ladies_. How many thousands of young men
+have, at this moment, cause to lament that they are not carpenters, or
+masons, or tailors, or shoemakers; and how many thousands of those, that
+they have been bred up to wish to disguise their honest and useful, and
+therefore honourable, calling! ROUSSEAU observes, that men are happy,
+first, in proportion to their virtue, and next, in proportion to their
+_independence_; and that, of all mankind, the artisan, or craftsman, is
+the most independent; because he carries about, _in his own hands_ and
+person, the means of gaining his livelihood; and that the more common
+the use of the articles on which he works, the more perfect his
+independence. 'Where,' says he, 'there is one man that stands in need of
+the talents of the dentist, there are a hundred thousand that want those
+of the people who supply the matter for the teeth to work on; and for
+one who wants a sonnet to regale his fancy, there are a million
+clamouring for men to make or mend their shoes.' Aye, and this is the
+reason, why shoemakers are proverbially the most independent part of the
+people, and why they, in general, show more public spirit than any other
+men. He who lives by a pursuit, be it what it may, which does not
+require a considerable degree of _bodily labour_, must, from the nature
+of things, be, more or less, a _dependent_; and this is, indeed, the
+price which he pays for his exemption from that bodily labour. He _may_
+arrive at riches, or fame, or both; and this chance he sets against the
+certainty of independence in humbler life. There always have been, there
+always will be, and there always ought to be, _some_ men to take this
+chance: but to do this has become the _fashion_, and a fashion it is the
+most fatal that ever seized upon a community.
+
+327. With regard to young women, too, to sing, to play on instruments of
+music, to draw, to speak French, and the like, are very agreeable
+qualifications; but why should they _all_ be musicians, and painters,
+and linguists? Why _all_ of them? Who, then, is there left to _take care
+of the houses_ of farmers and traders? But there is something in these
+'accomplishments' worse than this; namely, that they think themselves
+_too high_ for farmers and traders: and this, in fact, they are; much
+_too high_; and, therefore, the servant-girls step in and supply their
+place. If they could see their own interest, surely they would drop this
+lofty tone, and these lofty airs. It is, however, the fault of the
+parents, and particularly of the father, whose duty it is to prevent
+them from imbibing such notions, and to show them, that the greatest
+honour they ought to aspire to is, thorough skill and care in the
+economy of a house. We are all apt to set too high a value on what we
+ourselves have done; and I may do this; but I do firmly believe, that to
+cure any young woman of this fatal sublimation, she has only patiently
+to read my COTTAGE ECONOMY, written with an anxious desire to promote
+domestic skill and ability in that sex, on whom so much of the happiness
+of man must always depend. A lady in Worcestershire told me, that until
+she read COTTAGE ECONOMY she had never _baked in the house_, and had
+seldom had _good beer_; that, ever since, she had looked after both
+herself; that the pleasure she had derived from it, was equal to the
+profit, and that the latter was very great. She said, that the article
+'_on baking bread_,' was the part that roused her to the undertaking;
+and, indeed, if the facts and arguments, _there_ made use of, failed to
+stir her up to action, she must have been stone dead to the power of
+words.
+
+328. After the age that we have now been supposing, boys and girls
+become _men_ and _women_; and, there now only remains for the _father_
+to act towards them with _impartiality_. If they be numerous, or,
+indeed, if they be only two in number, to expect _perfect harmony_ to
+reign amongst, or between, them, is to be unreasonable; because
+experience shows us, that, even amongst the most sober, most virtuous,
+and most sensible, harmony so complete is very rare. By nature they are
+rivals for the affection and applause of the parents; in personal and
+mental endowments they become rivals; and, when _pecuniary interests_
+come to be well understood and to have their weight, here is a
+rivalship, to prevent which from ending in hostility, require more
+affection and greater disinterestedness than fall to the lot of one out
+of one hundred families. So many instances have I witnessed of good and
+amiable families living in harmony, till the hour arrived for dividing
+property amongst them, and then, all at once, becoming hostile to each
+other, that I have often thought that property, coming in such a way,
+was a curse, and that the parties would have been far better off, had
+the parent had merely a blessing to bequeath them from his or her lips,
+instead of a will for them to dispute and wrangle over.
+
+329. With regard to this matter, all that the father can do, is to be
+_impartial_; but, impartiality does not mean positive _equality_ in the
+distribution, but equality _in proportion_ to the different deserts of
+the parties, their different wants, their different pecuniary
+circumstances, and different prospects in life; and these vary so much,
+in different families, that it is impossible to lay down any general
+rule upon the subject. But there is one fatal error, against which every
+father ought to guard his heart; and the kinder that heart is, the more
+necessary such guardianship. I mean the fatal error of heaping upon one
+child, to the prejudice of the rest; or, upon a part of them. This
+partiality sometimes arises from mere caprice; sometimes from the
+circumstance of the favourite being more favoured by nature than the
+rest; sometimes from the nearer resemblance to himself, that the father
+sees in the favourite; and, sometimes, from the hope of preventing the
+favoured party from doing that which would disgrace the parent. All
+these motives are highly censurable, but the last is the most general,
+and by far the most mischievous in its effects. How many fathers have
+been ruined, how many mothers and families brought to beggary, how many
+industrious and virtuous groups have been pulled down from competence to
+penury, from the desire to prevent one from bringing shame on the
+parent! So that, contrary to every principle of justice, the bad is
+rewarded for the badness; and the good punished for the goodness.
+Natural affection, remembrance of infantine endearments, reluctance to
+abandon long-cherished hopes, compassion for the sufferings of your own
+flesh and blood, the dread of fatal consequences from your adhering to
+justice; all these beat at your heart, and call on you to give way: but,
+you must resist them all; or, your ruin, and that of the rest of your
+family, are decreed. Suffering is the natural and just punishment of
+idleness, drunkenness, squandering, and an indulgence in the society of
+prostitutes; and, never did the world behold an instance of an offender,
+in this way, reclaimed but by the infliction of this punishment;
+particularly, if the society of prostitutes made part of the offence;
+for, here is something that takes the _heart from you_. Nobody ever yet
+saw, and nobody ever will see, a young man, linked to a prostitute, and
+retain, at the same time, any, even the smallest degree of affection,
+for parents or brethren. You may supplicate, you may implore, you may
+leave yourself pennyless, and your virtuous children without bread; the
+invisible cormorant will still call for more; and, as we saw, only the
+other day, a wretch was convicted of having, at the instigation of his
+prostitute, _beaten his aged mother_, to get from her the small remains
+of the means necessary to provide her with food. In HERON'S collection
+of God's judgments on wicked acts, it is related of an unnatural son,
+who fed his aged father upon orts and offal, lodged him in a filthy and
+crazy garret, and clothed him in sackcloth, while he and his wife and
+children lived in luxury; that, having bought sackcloth enough for two
+dresses for his father, the children took away the part not made up, and
+_hid it_, and that, upon asking them what they could _do this for_, they
+told him that they meant to keep it _for him_, when he should become old
+and walk with a stick! This, the author relates, pierced his heart; and,
+indeed, if _this_ failed, he must have had the heart of a tiger; but,
+even _this_ would not succeed with the associate of a prostitute. When
+_this vice_, this love of the society of prostitutes; when this vice has
+once got fast hold, vain are all your sacrifices, vain your prayers,
+vain your hopes, vain your anxious desire to disguise the shame from the
+world; and, if you have acted well your part, no part of that shame
+falls on you, unless you _have administered to the cause of it_. Your
+authority has ceased; the voice of the prostitute, or the charms of the
+bottle, or the rattle of the dice, has been more powerful than your
+advice and example: you must lament this: but, it is not to bow you
+down; and, above all things, it is weak, and even criminally selfish, to
+sacrifice the rest of your family, in order to keep from the world the
+knowledge of that, which, if known, would, in your view of the matter,
+bring shame on yourself.
+
+330. Let me hope, however, that this is a calamity which will befall
+very few good fathers; and that, of all such, the sober, industrious,
+and frugal habits of their children, their dutiful demeanor, their truth
+and their integrity, will come to smooth the path of their downward
+days, and be the objects on which their eyes will close. Those children
+must, in their turn, travel the same path; and they may be assured,
+that, 'Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in
+the land,' is a precept, a disregard of which never yet failed, either
+first or last, to bring its punishment. And, what can be more just than
+that signal punishment should follow such a crime; a crime directly
+against the voice of nature itself? Youth has its passions, and due
+allowance justice will make for these; but, are the delusions of the
+boozer, the gamester, or the harlot, to be pleaded in excuse for a
+disregard of the source of your existence? Are those to be pleaded in
+apology for giving pain to the father who has toiled half a lifetime in
+order to feed and clothe you, and to the mother whose breast has been to
+you the fountain of life? Go, you, and shake the hand of the
+boon-companion; take the greedy harlot to your arms; mock at the tears
+of your tender and anxious parents; and, when your purse is empty and
+your complexion faded, receive the poverty and the scorn due to your
+base ingratitude!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI
+
+TO THE CITIZEN
+
+331. Having now given my Advice to the YOUTH, the grown-up MAN, the
+LOVER, the HUSBAND and the FATHER, I shall, in this concluding Number,
+tender my Advice to the CITIZEN, in which capacity every man has rights
+to enjoy and duties to perform, and these too of importance not inferior
+to those which belong to him, or are imposed upon him, as son, parent,
+husband or father. The word _citizen_ is not, in its application,
+confined to the mere inhabitants of cities: it means, a _member of a
+civil society, or community_; and, in order to have a clear
+comprehension of man's rights and duties in this capacity, we must take
+a look at the _origin of civil communities_.
+
+332. Time was when the inhabitants of this island, for instance, laid
+claim to all things in it, without the words _owner_ or _property_ being
+known. God had given to _all_ the people all the land and all the trees,
+and every thing else, just as he has given the burrows and the grass to
+the rabbits, and the bushes and the berries to the birds; and each man
+had the good things of this world in a greater or less degree in
+proportion to his skill, his strength and his valour. This is what is
+called living under the LAW OF NATURE; that is to say, the law of
+self-preservation and self-enjoyment, without any restraint imposed by a
+regard for the good of our neighbours.
+
+333. In process of time, no matter from what cause, men made amongst
+themselves a compact, or an agreement, to divide the land and its
+products in such manner that each should have a share to his own
+exclusive use, and that each man should be protected in the exclusive
+enjoyment of his share by the _united power of the rest_; and, in order
+to ensure the due and certain application of this united power, the
+whole of the people agreed to be bound by regulations, called LAWS. Thus
+arose civil society; thus arose _property_; thus arose the words _mine_
+and _thine_. One man became possessed of more good things than another,
+because he was more industrious, more skilful, more careful, or more
+frugal: so that LABOUR, of one sort or another, was the BASIS of all
+property.
+
+334. In what manner civil societies proceeded in providing for the
+making of laws and for the enforcing of them; the various ways in which
+they took measures to protect the weak against the strong; how they have
+gone to work to secure wealth against the attacks of poverty; these are
+subjects that it would require volumes to detail; but these truths are
+written on the heart of man: that all men are, by nature, _equal_; that
+civil society can never have arisen from any motive other than that of
+the _benefit of the whole_; that, whenever civil society makes the
+greater part of the people _worse off_ than they were under the Law of
+Nature, the civil compact is, in conscience, dissolved, and all the
+rights of nature return; that, in civil society, the _rights and the
+duties go hand in hand_, and that, when the former are taken away, the
+latter cease to exist.
+
+335. Now, then, in order to act well our part, as citizens, or members
+of the community, we ought clearly to understand _what our rights are_;
+for, on our enjoyment of these depend our duties, rights going before
+duties, as value received goes before payment. I know well, that just
+the contrary of this is taught in our political schools, where we are
+told, that our _first duty_ is to _obey the laws_; and it is not many
+years ago, that HORSLEY, Bishop of Rochester, told us, that the _people_
+had _nothing_ to do with the laws but to _obey_ them. The truth is,
+however, that the citizen's _first duty_ is to maintain his rights, as
+it is the purchaser's first duty to receive the thing for which he has
+contracted.
+
+336. Our rights in society are numerous; the right of enjoying life and
+property; the right of exerting our physical and mental powers in an
+innocent manner; but, the great right of all, and without which there
+is, in fact, _no right_, is, the right of _taking a part in the making
+of the laws by which we are governed_. This right is founded in that law
+of Nature spoken of above; it springs out of the very principle of civil
+society; for what _compact_, what _agreement_, what _common assent_, can
+possibly be imagined by which men would give up all the rights of
+nature, all the free enjoyment of their bodies and their minds, in order
+to subject themselves to rules and laws, in the making of which they
+should have nothing to say, and which should be enforced upon them
+without their assent? The great right, therefore, of _every man_, the
+right of rights, is the right of having a share in the making of the
+laws, to which the good of the whole makes it his duty to submit.
+
+337. With regard to the means of enabling every man to enjoy this share,
+they have been different, in different countries, and, in the same
+countries, at different times. Generally it has been, and in great
+communities it must be, by the choosing of a few to speak and act _in
+behalf of the many_: and, as there will hardly ever be _perfect
+unanimity_ amongst men assembled for any purpose whatever, where fact
+and argument are to decide the question, the decision is left to the
+_majority_, the compact being that the decision of the majority shall be
+that of the whole. _Minors_ are excluded from this right, because the
+law considers them as infants, because it makes the parent answerable
+for civil damages committed by them, and because of their legal
+incapacity to make any compact. _Women_ are excluded because husbands
+are answerable in law for their wives, as to their civil damages, and
+because the very nature of their sex makes the exercise of this right
+incompatible with the harmony and happiness of society. Men stained with
+_indelible crimes_ are excluded, because they have forfeited their right
+by violating the laws, to which their assent has been given. _Insane
+persons_ are excluded, because they are dead in the eye of the law,
+because the law demands no duty at their hands, because they cannot
+violate the law, because the law cannot affect them; and, therefore,
+they ought to have no hand in making it.
+
+338. But, with these exceptions, where is the ground whereon to maintain
+that _any man_ ought to be deprived of this right, which he derives
+directly from the law of Nature, and which springs, as I said before,
+out of the same source with civil society itself? Am I told, that
+_property_ ought to confer this right? Property sprang from _labour_,
+and not labour from property; so that if there were to be a distinction
+here, it ought to give the preference to labour. All men are equal by
+nature; nobody denies that they all ought to be _equal in the eye of the
+law_; but, how are they to be thus equal, if the law begin by suffering
+_some_ to enjoy this right and refusing the enjoyment to _others_? It is
+the duty of every man to defend his country against an enemy, a duty
+imposed by the law of Nature as well as by that of civil society, and
+without the recognition of this duty, there could exist no independent
+nation and no civil society. Yet, how are you to maintain that this is
+the duty of _every man_, if you deny to _some_ men the enjoyment of a
+share in making the laws? Upon what principle are you to contend for
+_equality_ here, while you deny its existence as to the right of sharing
+in the making of the laws? The poor man has a body and a soul as well as
+the rich man; like the latter, he has parents, wife and children; a
+bullet or a sword is as deadly to him as to the rich man; there are
+hearts to ache and tears to flow for him as well as for the squire or
+the lord or the loan-monger: yet, notwithstanding this equality, he is
+to risk all, and, if he escape, he is still to be denied an equality of
+rights! If, in such a state of things, the artisan or labourer, when
+called out to fight in defence of his country, were to answer: 'Why
+should I risk my life? I have no possession but my _labour_; no enemy
+will take that from me; you, the rich, possess all the land and all its
+products; you make what laws you please without my participation or
+assent; you punish me at your pleasure; you say that my want of property
+excludes me from the right of having a share in the making of the laws;
+you say that the property that I have in my labour _is nothing worth_;
+on what ground, then, do you call on me to risk my life?' If, in such a
+case, such questions were put, the answer is very difficult to be
+imagined.
+
+339. In cases of _civil commotion_ the matter comes still more home to
+us. On what ground is the rich man to call the artisan from his shop or
+the labourer from the field to join the sheriff's possé or the militia,
+if he refuse to the labourer and artisan the right of sharing in the
+making of the laws? Why are they to risk their lives here? To _uphold
+the laws_, and to protect _property_. What! _laws_, in the making of, or
+assenting to, which they have been allowed to have no share? _Property_,
+of which they are said to possess none? What! compel men to come forth
+and risk their lives for the _protection of property_; and then, in the
+same breath, tell them, that they are not allowed to share in the making
+of the laws, because, and ONLY BECAUSE, _they have no property_! Not
+because they have committed any crime; not because they are idle or
+profligate; not because they are vicious in any way; out solely because
+they have _no property_; and yet, at the same time, compel them to come
+forth and _risk their lives_ for the _protection of property_!
+
+340. But, the PAUPERS? Ought _they_ to share in the making of the laws?
+And why not? What is a _pauper_; what is one of the men to whom this
+degrading appellation is applied? A _very poor_ man; a man who is, from
+some cause or other, unable to supply himself with food and raiment
+without aid from the parish-rates. And, is that circumstance alone to
+deprive him of his right, a right of which he stands more in need than
+any other man? Perhaps he has, for many years of his life, contributed
+directly to those rates; and ten thousand to one he has, by his labour,
+contributed to them indirectly. The aid which, under such circumstances,
+he receives, _is his right_; he receives it not as _an alms_: he is no
+mendicant; he begs not; he comes to receive that which _the law of the
+country awards him_ in lieu of the _larger portion_ assigned him by the
+_law of Nature_. Pray mark that, and let it be deeply engraven on your
+memory. The audacious and merciless MALTHUS (a parson of the church
+establishment) recommended, some years ago, the passing of a law to _put
+an end to the giving of parish relief_, though he recommended no law to
+put an end to the enormous taxes paid by poor people. In his book he
+said, that the poor should be left to the _law of Nature_, which, in
+case of their having nothing to buy food with, _doomed them to starve_.
+They would ask nothing better than to be left to the _law of Nature_;
+that law which knows nothing about _buying_ food or any thing else; that
+law which bids the hungry and the naked _take_ food and raiment wherever
+they find it best and nearest at hand; that law which awards all
+possessions to the _strongest_; that law the operations of which would
+clear out the London meat-markets and the drapers' and jewellers' shops
+in about half an hour: to this law the parson wished the parliament to
+leave the poorest of the working people; but, if the parliament had done
+it, it would have been quickly seen, that this law was far from 'dooming
+them to be starved.'
+
+341. Trusting that it is unnecessary for me to express a hope, that
+barbarous thoughts like those of Malthus and his tribe will never be
+entertained by any young man who has read the previous Numbers of this
+work, let me return to my _very, very poor man_, and ask, whether it be
+consistent with justice, with humanity, with reason, to deprive a man of
+the most precious of his political rights, because, and _only because_,
+he has been, in a pecuniary way, _singularly unfortunate_? The Scripture
+says, 'Despise not the poor, _because_ he is poor;' that is to say,
+despise him not _on account of his poverty_. Why, then, deprive him of
+his right; why put him out of the pale of the law, on account of his
+poverty? There are _some_ men, to be sure, who are reduced to poverty by
+their vices, by idleness, by gaming, by drinking, by squandering; but,
+the far greater part by bodily ailments, by misfortunes to the effects
+of which all men may, without any fault, and even without any folly, be
+exposed: and, is there a man on earth so cruelly unjust as to wish to
+add to the sufferings of such persons by stripping them of their
+political rights? How many thousands of industrious and virtuous men
+have, within these few years, been brought down from a state of
+competence to that of pauperism! And, is it just to strip such men of
+their rights, merely because they are thus brought down? When I was at
+ELY, last spring, there were in that neighbourhood, _three paupers_
+cracking stones on the roads, who had all three been, not only
+rate-payers, but _overseers of the poor_, within seven years of the day
+when I was there. Is there any man so barbarous as to say, that these
+men ought, merely on account of their misfortunes, to be deprived of
+their political rights? Their right to receive relief is as perfect as
+any right of property; and, would you, merely because they claim _this
+right_, strip them of _another right_? To say no more of the injustice
+and the cruelty, is there reason, is there common sense in this? What!
+if a farmer or tradesman be, by flood or by fire, so totally ruined as
+to be compelled, surrounded by his family, to resort to the parish-book,
+would you break the last heart-string of such a man by making him feel
+the degrading loss of his political rights?
+
+342. Here, young man of sense and of spirit; _here is the point_ on
+which you are to take your stand. There are always men enough to plead
+the cause of the rich; enough and enough to echo the woes of the fallen
+great; but, be it your part to show compassion for those who labour, and
+to maintain _their rights_. Poverty is not _a crime_, and, though it
+sometimes arises from faults, it is not, even in that case, to be
+visited by punishment beyond that which it brings with itself. Remember,
+that poverty is decreed by the very nature of man. The Scripture says,
+that 'the poor shall never cease from out of the land;' that is to say,
+that there shall always be some very poor people. This is inevitable
+from the very nature of things. It is necessary to the existence of
+mankind, that a very large portion of every people should live by manual
+labour; and, as such labour is _pain_, more or less, and as no living
+creature likes pain, it must be, that the far greater part of labouring
+people will endure only just as much of this pain as is absolutely
+necessary to the supply of their _daily wants_. Experience says that
+this has always been, and reason and nature tell us, that this must
+always be. Therefore, when ailments, when losses, when untoward
+circumstances of any sort, stop or diminish the daily supply, _want
+comes_; and every just government will provide, from the general stock,
+the means to satisfy this want.
+
+343. Nor is the deepest poverty without its _useful effects_ in society.
+To the practice of the virtues of abstinence, sobriety, care, frugality,
+industry, and even honesty and amiable manners and acquirement of
+talent, the two great motives are, to get upwards in riches or fame, and
+_to avoid going downwards to poverty_, the last of which is the most
+powerful of the two. It is, therefore, not with contempt, but with
+compassion, that we should look on those, whose state is one of the
+decrees of nature, from whose sad example we profit, and to whom, in
+return, we ought to make compensation by every indulgent and kind act in
+our power, and particularly by a defence of their rights. To those who
+labour, we, who labour not with our hands, owe all that we eat, drink
+and wear; all that shades us by day and that shelters us by night; all
+the means of enjoying health and pleasure; and, therefore, if we possess
+talent for the task, we are ungrateful or cowardly, or both, if we omit
+any effort within our power to prevent them from being _slaves_; and,
+disguise the matter how we may, _a slave_, a _real slave_, every man is,
+who has no share in making the laws which he is compelled to obey.
+
+344. _What is a slave_? For, let us not be amused by _a name_; but look
+well into the matter. A slave is, in the first place, a man who has _no
+property_; and property means something that he _has_, and that nobody
+can take from him without his leave, or consent. Whatever man, no matter
+what he may call himself or any body else may call him, can have his
+money or his goods taken from him _by force_, by virtue of an order, or
+ordinance, or law, which he has had no hand in making, and to which he
+has not given his assent, has _no property_, and is merely a depositary
+of the goods of his master. A slave has _no property in his labour_; and
+any man who is compelled to give up the fruit of his labour to another,
+at the arbitrary will of that other, has no property in his labour, and
+is, therefore, a slave, whether the fruit of his labour be taken from
+him directly or indirectly. If it be said, that he gives up this fruit
+of his labour by his own will, and that it is _not forced from him_. I
+answer, To be sure he _may_ avoid eating and drinking and may go naked;
+but, then he must _die_; and on this condition, and this condition only,
+can he refuse to give up the fruit of his labour; 'Die, wretch, or
+surrender as much of your income, or the fruit of your labour as your
+masters choose to take.' This is, in fact, the language of the rulers to
+every man who is refused to have a share in the making of the laws to
+which he is _forced_ to submit.
+
+345. But, some one may say, slaves are _private property_, and may _be
+bought and sold_, out and out, like cattle. And, what is it to the
+slave, whether he be property of _one_ or of _many_; or, what matters it
+to him, whether he pass from master to master by a sale for an
+indefinite term, or be let to hire by the year, month, or week? It is,
+in no case, the flesh and blood and bones that are sold, but the
+_labour_; and, if you actually sell the labour of man, is not that man
+_a slave_, though you sell it for only a short time at once? And, as to
+the principle, so ostentatiously displayed in the case of the _black_
+slave-trade, that '_man_ ought not to have _a property in man_,' it is
+even an advantage to the slave to be private property, because the owner
+has then a clear and powerful _interest_ in the preservation of his
+life, health and strength, and will, therefore, furnish him amply with
+the food and raiment necessary for these ends. Every one knows, that
+public property is never so well taken care of as private property; and
+this, too, on the maxim, that 'that which is every body's business is
+nobody's business.' Every one knows that a _rented_ farm is not so well
+kept in heart, as a farm in the hands of the _owner_. And as to
+_punishments_ and _restraints_, what difference is there, whether these
+be inflicted and imposed by a private owner, or his overseer, or by the
+agents and overseers of a body of proprietors? In short, if you can
+cause a man to be imprisoned or whipped if he do not work enough to
+please you; if you can sell him by auction for a time limited; if you
+can forcibly separate him from his wife to prevent their having
+children; if you can shut him up in his dwelling place when you please,
+and for as long a time as you please; if you can force him to draw a
+cart or wagon like a beast of draught; if you can, when the humour
+seizes you, and at the suggestion of your mere fears, or whim, cause him
+to be shut up in a dungeon during your pleasure: if you can, at your
+pleasure, do these things to him, is it not to be impudently
+hypocritical to affect to call him _a free-man_? But, after all, these
+may all be wanting, and yet the man be _a slave_, if he be allowed to
+have _no property_; and, as I have shown, no property he can have, not
+even in that _labour_, which is not only property, but the _basis_ of
+all other property, unless he have a _share in making the laws_ to which
+he is compelled to submit.
+
+346. It is said, that he may have this share _virtually_ though not in
+form and _name_; for that his _employers_ may have such share, and they
+will, as a matter of course, _act for him_. This doctrine, pushed home,
+would make the _chief_ of the nation the sole maker of the laws; for, if
+the rich can thus _act for_ the poor, why should not the chief act for
+the rich? This matter is very completely explained by the practice in
+the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. There the maxim is, that _every free man_,
+with the exception of men stained with crime and men insane, has a right
+to have a voice in choosing those who make the laws. The number of
+Representatives sent to the Congress is, in each State, proportioned to
+the number of _free people_. But, as there are _slaves_ in _some_ of the
+States, these States _have a certain portion of additional numbers on
+account of those slaves_! Thus the slaves are _represented by their
+owners_, and this is real, practical, open and undisguised _virtual
+representation_! No doubt that white men may be represented in the same
+way; for the colour of the skin is nothing; but let them be called
+slaves, then; let it not be pretended that they are _free men_; let not
+the word _liberty_ be polluted by being applied to their state; let it
+be openly and honestly avowed, as in America, that they _are slaves_;
+and then will come the question whether men ought to exist in such a
+state, or whether they ought to do every thing in their power to rescue
+themselves from it.
+
+347. If the right to have a share in making the laws were merely a
+feather; if it were a fanciful thing; if it were only a speculative
+theory; if it were but an _abstract principle_; on any of these
+suppositions, it might be considered as of little importance. But it is
+none of these; it is a practical matter; the want of it not only _is_,
+but must of necessity be, felt by every man who lives under that want.
+If it were proposed to the shopkeepers in a town, that a rich man or
+two, living in the neighbourhood, should have power to send, _whenever
+they pleased_, and take away as much as they pleased of the money of the
+shopkeepers, and apply it to what uses they please; what an outcry the
+shopkeepers would make! And yet, what would this be _more_ than taxes
+imposed on those who have no voice in choosing the persons who impose
+them? Who lets another man put his hand into his purse when he pleases?
+Who, that has the power to help himself, surrenders his goods or his
+money to the will of another? Has it not always been, and must it not
+always be, true, that, if your property be at the absolute disposal of
+others, your ruin is certain? And if this be, of necessity, the case
+amongst individuals and parts of the community, it must be the case with
+regard to the whole community.
+
+348. Aye, and experience shows us that it always has been the case. The
+natural and inevitable consequences of a want of this right in the
+people have, in all countries, been _taxes_ pressing the industrious and
+laborious to the earth; _severe laws_ and _standing armies_ to compel
+the people to submit to those taxes; wealth, luxury, and splendour,
+amongst those who make the laws and receive the taxes; poverty, misery,
+immorality and crime, amongst those who bear the burdens; and at last
+commotion, revolt, revenge, and rivers of blood. Such have always been,
+and such must always be, the consequences of a want of this right of all
+men to share in the making of the laws, a right, as I have before shown,
+derived immediately from the law of Nature, springing up out of the same
+source with civil society, and cherished in the heart of man by reason
+and by experience.
+
+349. Well, then, this right being that, without the enjoyment of which
+there is, in reality, no right at all, how manifestly is it _the first
+duty_ of every man to do all in his power to _maintain_ this right where
+it exists, and to _restore_ it where it has been lost? For observe, it
+must, at one time, have existed in every _civil_ community, it being
+impossible that it could ever be excluded by any _social compact_;
+absolutely impossible, because it is contrary to the law of
+self-preservation to believe, that men would agree to give up the rights
+of nature without stipulating for some _benefit_. Before we can affect
+to believe that this right was not reserved, in such compact, as
+completely as the right to _live_ was reserved, we must affect to
+believe, that millions of men, under no control but that of their own
+passions and desires, and having all the earth and its products at the
+command of their strength and skill, consented to be for ever, they and
+their posterity, the _slaves of a few_.
+
+350. We cannot believe this, and therefore, without going back into
+_history_ and _precedents_, we must believe, that, in whatever civil
+community this right does not exist, it has been lost, or rather,
+_unjustly taken away_. And then, having seen the terrible evils which
+always have arisen, and always must arise, from the want of it; being
+convinced that, where lost or taken away by force or fraud, it is our
+very first duty to do all in our power to _restore_ it, the next
+consideration is, _how_ one ought to act in the discharge of this most
+sacred duty; for sacred it is even as the duties of husband and father.
+For, besides the baseness of the thought of quietly submitting to be a
+slave _oneself_, we have here, besides our duty to the community, a duty
+to perform towards our children and our children's children. We all
+acknowledge that it is our bounden duty to provide, as far as our power
+will go, for the competence, the health, and the good character of our
+children; but, is this duty superior to that of which I am now speaking?
+What is competence, what is health, if the possessor be _a slave_, and
+hold his possessions at the will of another, or others; as he must do if
+destitute of the right to a share in the making of the laws? What is
+competence, what is health, if both can, at any moment, be snatched away
+by the grasp or the dungeon of a master; and his master he is who makes
+the laws without his participation or assent? And, as to _character_, as
+to _fair fame_, when the white slave puts forward pretensions to those,
+let him no longer affect to commiserate the state of his sleek and fat
+brethren in Barbadoes and Jamaica; let him hasten to mix the hair with
+the wool, to blend the white with the black, and to lose the memory of
+his origin amidst a dingy generation.
+
+351. Such, then, being the nature of the duty, _how_ are we to go to
+work in the performance of it, and what are our _means_? With regard to
+these, so various are the circumstances, so endless the differences in
+the states of society, and so many are the cases when it would be
+madness to attempt that which it would be prudence to attempt in others,
+that no _general_ rule can be given beyond this; that, the right and the
+duty being clear to our minds, the _means_ that are _surest_ and
+_swiftest_ are the _best_. In every such case, however, the great and
+predominant desire ought to be not to employ any means beyond those of
+reason and persuasion, as long as the employment of these afford a
+ground for rational expectation of success. Men are, in such a case,
+labouring, not for the present day only, but for ages to come; and
+therefore they should not slacken in their exertions, because the grave
+may close upon them before the day of final triumph arrive. Amongst the
+virtues of the good Citizen are those of fortitude and patience; and,
+when he has to carry on his struggle against corruptions deep and
+widely-rooted, he is not to expect the baleful tree to come down at a
+single blow; he must patiently remove the earth that props and feeds it,
+and sever the accursed roots one by one.
+
+352. _Impatience_ here is a very bad sign. I do not like your
+_patriots_, who, because the tree does not give way at once, fall to
+_blaming_ all about them, accuse their fellow-sufferers of cowardice,
+because they do not do that which they themselves dare not think of
+doing. Such conduct argues _chagrin_ and _disappointment_; and these
+argue a _selfish_ feeling: they argue, that there has been more of
+private ambition and gain at work than of _public good_. Such blamers,
+such general accusers, are always to be suspected. What does the _real_
+patriot want more than to feel conscious that he has done his duty
+towards his country; and that, if life should not allow him time to see
+his endeavours crowned with success, his children will see it? The
+impatient patriots are like the young men (mentioned in the beautiful
+fable of LA FONTAINE) who ridiculed the man of fourscore, who was
+planting an avenue of very small trees, which, they told him, that he
+never could expect to see as high as his head. 'Well,' said he, 'and
+what of that? If their shade afford me no pleasure, it may afford
+pleasure to my children, and even to you; and, therefore, the planting
+of them gives me pleasure.'
+
+353. It is the want of the noble disinterestedness, so beautifully
+expressed in this fable, that produces the _impatient_ patriots. They
+wish very well to their country, because they want _some of the good for
+themselves_. Very natural that all men should wish to see the good
+arrive, and wish to share in it too; but, we must look on the dark side
+of nature to find the disposition to cast blame on the whole community
+because our wishes are not instantly accomplished, and especially to
+cast blame on others for not doing that which we ourselves dare not
+attempt. There is, however, a sort of _patriot_ a great deal worse than
+this; he, who having failed himself, would see his country enslaved for
+ever, rather than see its deliverance achieved by others. His failure
+has, perhaps, arisen solely from his want of talent, or discretion; yet
+his selfish heart would wish his country sunk in everlasting
+degradation, lest his inefficiency for the task should be established by
+the success of others. A very hateful character, certainly, but, I am
+sorry to say, by no means rare. _Envy_, always associated with meanness
+of soul, always detestable, is never so detestable as when it shows
+itself here.
+
+354. Be it your care, my young friend (and I tender you this as my
+parting advice), if you find this base and baleful passion, which the
+poet calls 'the eldest born of hell;' if you find it creeping into your
+heart, be it your care to banish it at once and for ever; for, if once
+it nestle there, farewell to all the good which nature has enabled you
+to do, and to your peace into the bargain. It has pleased God to make an
+unequal distribution of talent, of industry, of perseverance, of a
+capacity to labour, of all the qualities that give men distinction. We
+have not been our own makers: it is no fault in you that nature has
+placed him above you, and, surely, it is no fault in him; and would you
+_punish_ him on account, and only on account, of his pre-eminence! If
+you have read this book you will startle with horror at the thought: you
+will, as to public matters, act with zeal and with good humour, though
+the place you occupy be far removed from the first; you will support
+with the best of your abilities others, who, from whatever circumstance,
+may happen to take the lead; you will not suffer even the consciousness
+and the certainty of your own superior talents to urge you to do any
+thing which might by possibility be injurious to your country's cause;
+you will be forbearing under the aggressions of ignorance, conceit,
+arrogance, and even the blackest of ingratitude superadded, if by
+resenting these you endanger the general good; and, above all things,
+you will have the justice to bear in mind, that that country which gave
+you birth, is, to the last hour of your capability, entitled to your
+exertions in her behalf, and that you ought not, by acts of commission
+or of omission, to visit upon her the wrongs which may have been
+inflicted on you by the envy and malice of individuals. Love of one's
+native soil is a feeling which nature has implanted in the human breast,
+and that has always been peculiarly strong in the breasts of Englishmen.
+God has given us a country of which to be proud, and that freedom,
+greatness and renown, which were handed down to us by our wise and brave
+forefathers, bid us perish to the last man, rather than suffer the land
+of their graves to become a land of slavery, impotence and dishonour.
+
+355. In the words with which I concluded my English Grammar, which I
+addressed to my son James, I conclude my advice to you. 'With English
+and French on your tongue and in your pen, you have a resource, not only
+greatly valuable in itself, but a resource that you can be deprived of
+by none of those changes and chances which deprive men of pecuniary
+possessions, and which, in some cases, make the purse-proud man of
+yesterday a crawling sycophant to-day. Health, without which life is not
+worth having, you will hardly fail to secure by early rising, exercise,
+sobriety, and abstemiousness as to food. Happiness, or misery, is in the
+_mind_. It is the mind that lives; and the length of life ought to be
+measured by the number and importance of our ideas, and not by the
+number of our days. Never, therefore, esteem men merely on account of
+their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.
+Honour talent wherever you behold it unassociated with vice; but, honour
+it most when accompanied with exertion, and especially when exerted in
+the cause of truth and justice; and, above all things, hold it in
+honour, when it steps forward to protect defenceless innocence against
+the attacks of powerful guilt.' These words, addressed to my own son, I
+now, in taking my leave, address to you. Be just, be industrious, be
+sober, and be happy; and the hope that these effects will, in some
+degree, have been caused by this little work, will add to the happiness
+of
+
+      Your friend and humble servant,
+
+            WM. COBBETT.
+
+Kensington, 25th Aug. 1830.
+
+
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Advice to Young Men, by William Cobbett</title>
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Advice to Young Men, by William Cobbett</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Advice to Young Men</p>
+<p>       And (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life. In a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Youth, a Bachelor, a Lover, a Husband, a Father, a Citizen, or a Subject.</p>
+<p>Author: William Cobbett</p>
+<p>Release Date: March 30, 2005  [eBook #15510]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, William Avery,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenber Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="Page_-2" id="Page_-2"></a><a name="Page_-1" id="Page_-1"></a>COBBETT'S</h2>
+
+<h1>ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN,<a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></h1>
+
+<h2>AND (INCIDENTALLY) TO</h2>
+
+<h2>YOUNG WOMEN,</h2>
+
+<p class="center">IN THE</p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>Middle and Higher Ranks of Life.</b></p>
+
+<div class="center"><br />IN A SERIES OF LETTERS, ADDRESSED TO</div>
+
+<div class="center"><br />
+A YOUTH, A BACHELOR, A LOVER, A HUSBAND, A FATHER,<br />
+A CITIZEN, OR A SUBJECT.<br /></div>
+
+
+<h2>BY WILLIAM COBBETT.</h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="center"><br />
+(FROM THE EDITION OF 1829)<br />
+LONDON<br />
+<i>HENRY FROWDE</i><br />
+1906<br />
+OXFORD: HORACE HART<a name="Page_0" id="Page_0"></a><br />
+PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+<div class="toc">
+<ul><li> <a href="#INTRODUCTION"><b>INTRODUCTION</b></a></li>
+<li> <a href="#LETTER_I"><b>LETTER I - To a Youth</b></a></li>
+<li> <a href="#LETTER_II"><b>LETTER II - To a Young Man</b></a></li>
+<li> <a href="#LETTER_III"><b>LETTER III - To a Lover</b></a></li>
+<li> <a href="#LETTER_IV"><b>LETTER IV - To a Husband</b></a></li>
+<li> <a href="#LETTER_V"><b>LETTER V - To a Father</b></a></li>
+<li> <a href="#LETTER_VI"><b>LETTER VI - To the Citizen</b></a></li></ul>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></h2>
+
+<p>1. It is the duty, and ought to be the pleasure, of age and experience
+to warn and instruct youth and to come to the aid of inexperience. When
+sailors have discovered rocks or breakers, and have had the good luck to
+escape with life from amidst them, they, unless they be pirates or
+barbarians as well as sailors, point out the spots for the placing of
+buoys and of lights, in order that others may not be exposed to the
+danger which they have so narrowly escaped. What man of common humanity,
+having, by good luck, missed being engulfed in a quagmire or quicksand,
+will withhold from his neighbours a knowledge of the peril without which
+the dangerous spots are not to be approached?</p>
+
+<p>2. The great effect which correct opinions and sound principles, imbibed
+in early life, together with the good conduct, at that age, which must
+naturally result from such opinions and principles; the great effect
+which these have on the whole course of our lives is, and must be, well
+known to every man of common observation. How many of us, arrived at
+only forty years, have to repent; nay, which of us has not to repent, or
+has not had to repent, that he did not, at an earlier age, possess a
+great stock of knowledge of that kind which has an immediate effect on
+our personal ease and happiness; that kind of knowledge, upon which the
+cheerfulness and the harmony of our homes depend!</p>
+
+<p>3. It is to communicate a stock of this sort of know<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>ledge, in
+particular, that this work is intended; knowledge, indeed, relative to
+education, to many sciences, to trade, agriculture, horticulture, law,
+government, and religion; knowledge relating, incidentally, to all
+these; but, the main object is to furnish that sort of knowledge to the
+young which but few men acquire until they be old, when it comes too
+late to be useful.</p>
+
+<p>4. To communicate to others the knowledge that I possess has always been
+my taste and my delight; and few, who know anything of my progress
+through life, will be disposed to question my fitness for the task. Talk
+of rocks and breakers and quagmires and quicksands, who has ever escaped
+from amidst so many as I have! Thrown (by my own will, indeed) on the
+wide world at a very early age, not more than eleven or twelve years,
+without money to support, without friends to advise, and without
+book-learning to assist me; passing a few years dependent solely on my
+own labour for my subsistence; then becoming a common soldier and
+leading a military life, chiefly in foreign parts, for eight years;
+quitting that life after really, for me, high promotion, and with, for
+me, a large sum of money; marrying at an early age, going at once to
+France to acquire the French language, thence to America; passing eight
+years there, becoming bookseller and author, and taking a prominent part
+in all the important discussions of the interesting period from 1793 to
+1799, during which there was, in that country, a continued struggle
+carried on between the English and the French parties; conducting
+myself, in the ever-active part which I took in that struggle, in such a
+way as to call forth marks of unequivocal approbation from the
+government at home; returning to England in 1800, resuming my labours
+here, suffering, during these twenty-nine years, <a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>two years of
+imprisonment, heavy fines, three years self-banishment to the other side
+of the Atlantic, and a total breaking of fortune, so as to be left
+without a bed to lie on, and, during these twenty-nine years of troubles
+and of punishments, writing and publishing, every week of my life,
+whether in exile or not, eleven weeks only excepted, a periodical paper,
+containing more or less of matter worthy of public attention; writing
+and publishing, during <i>the same twenty-nine years</i>, a grammar of the
+French and another of the English language, a work on the Economy of the
+Cottage, a work on Forest Trees and Woodlands, a work on Gardening, an
+account of America, a book of Sermons, a work on the Corn-plant, a
+History of the Protestant Reformation; all books of great and continued
+sale, and the <i>last</i> unquestionably the book of greatest circulation in
+the whole world, the Bible only excepted; having, during <i>these same
+twenty-nine years</i> of troubles and embarrassments without number,
+introduced into England the manufacture of Straw-plat; also several
+valuable trees; having introduced, during <i>the same twenty-nine years</i>,
+the cultivation of the Corn-plant, so manifestly valuable as a source of
+food; having, during the same period, always (whether in exile or not)
+sustained a shop of some size, in London; having, during the whole of
+the same period, never employed less, on an average, than ten persons,
+in some capacity or other, exclusive of printers, bookbinders, and
+others, connected with papers and books; and having, during these
+twenty-nine years of troubles, embarrassments, prisons, fines, and
+banishments, bred up a family of seven children to man's and woman's
+state.</p>
+
+<p>5. If such a man be not, after he has survived and accomplished all
+this, qualified to give Advice to Young Men, no man is qualified for
+that task. There <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>may have been natural <i>genius</i>: but genius <i>alone</i>,
+not all the genius in the world, could, without <i>something more</i>, have
+conducted me through these perils. During these twenty-nine years, I
+have had for deadly and ever-watchful foes, a government that has the
+collecting and distributing of sixty millions of pounds in a year, and
+also every soul who shares in that distribution. Until very lately, I
+have had, for the far greater part of the time, the whole of the press
+as my deadly enemy. Yet, at this moment, it will not be pretended, that
+there is another man in the kingdom, who has so many cordial friends.
+For as to the <i>friends</i> of <i>ministers</i> and the <i>great</i>, the friendship
+is towards the <i>power</i>, the <i>influence</i>; it is, in fact, towards <i>those
+taxes</i>, of which so many thousands are gaping to get at a share. And, if
+we could, through so thick a veil, come at the naked fact, we should
+find the subscription, now going on in Dublin for the purpose of
+erecting a monument in that city, to commemorate the good recently done,
+or alleged to be done, to Ireland, by the DUKE of WELLINGTON; we should
+find, that the subscribers have <i>the taxes</i> in view; and that, if the
+monument shall actually be raised, it ought to have <i>selfishness</i>, and
+not <i>gratitude</i>, engraven on its base. Nearly the same may be said with
+regard to all the praises that we hear bestowed on men in power. The
+friendship which is felt towards me is pure and disinterested: it is not
+founded in any hope that the parties can have, that they can ever
+<i>profit</i> from professing it: it is founded on the gratitude which they
+entertain for the good that I <i>have done</i> them; and, of this sort of
+friendship, and friendship so cordial, no man ever possessed a larger
+portion.</p>
+
+<p>6. Now, mere <i>genius</i> will not acquire this for a man. There must be
+something more than <i>genius</i>: <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>there must be industry: there must be
+perseverance: there must be, before the eyes of the nation, proofs of
+extraordinary exertion: people must say to themselves, 'What wise
+conduct must there have been in the employing of the time of this man!
+How sober, how sparing in diet, how early a riser, how little expensive
+he must have been!' These are the things, and <i>not genius</i>, which have
+caused my labours to be so incessant and so successful: and, though I do
+not affect to believe, that <i>every young man</i>, who shall read this work,
+will become able to perform labours of equal magnitude and importance, I
+do pretend, that <i>every</i> young man, who will attend to my advice, will
+become able to perform a great deal more than men generally do perform,
+whatever may be his situation in life; and, that he will, too, perform
+it with greater ease and satisfaction than he would, without the advice,
+be able to perform the smaller portion.</p>
+
+<p>7. I have had, from thousands of young men, and men advanced in years
+also, letters of thanks for the great benefit which they have derived
+from my labours. Some have thanked me for my Grammars, some for my
+Cottage Economy, others for the Woodlands and the Gardener; and, in
+short, for every one of my works have I received letters of thanks from
+numerous persons, of whom I had never heard before. In many cases I have
+been told, that, if the parties had had my books to read some years
+before, the gain to them, whether in time or in other things, would have
+been very great. Many, and a great many, have told me, that, though long
+at school, and though their parents had paid for their being taught
+English Grammar, or French, they had, in a short time, learned more from
+my books, on those subjects, than they had learned, in years, from their
+teachers. <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>How many gentlemen have thanked me, in the strongest terms,
+for my Woodlands and Gardener, observing (just as Lord Bacon had
+observed in his time) that they had before seen no books, on these
+subjects, that they could <i>understand</i>! But, I know not of anything that
+ever gave me more satisfaction than I derived from the visit of a
+gentleman of fortune, whom I had never heard of before, and who, about
+four years ago, came to thank me in person for a complete reformation,
+which had been worked in his son by the reading of my two SERMONS on
+<i>drinking</i> and on <i>gaming</i>.</p>
+
+<p>8. I have, therefore, done, already, a great deal in this way: but,
+there is still wanting, in a compact form, a body of ADVICE such as that
+which I now propose to give: and in the giving of which I shall divide
+my matter as follows. 1. Advice addressed to a YOUTH; 2. Advice
+addressed to a BACHELOR; 3. Advice addressed to a LOVER; 4. To a
+HUSBAND; 5. To a FATHER; 6. To a CITIZEN or SUBJECT.</p>
+
+<p>9. Some persons will smile, and others laugh outright, at the idea of
+'Cobbett's giving advice for conducting the affairs of <i>love</i>.' Yes, but
+I was once young, and surely I may say with the poet, I forget which of
+them,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>'Though old I am, for ladies' love unfit,<br /></span>
+<span>The power of beauty I remember yet.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I forget, indeed, the <i>names</i> of the ladies as completely, pretty nigh,
+as I do that of the poets; but I remember their influence, and of this
+influence on the conduct and in the affairs and on the condition of men,
+I have, and must have, been a witness all my life long. And, when we
+consider in how great a degree the happiness of all the remainder of a
+man's life depends, <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>and always must depend, on his taste and judgment
+in the character of a lover, this may well be considered as the most
+important period of the whole term of his existence.</p>
+
+<p>10. In my address to the HUSBAND, I shall, of course, introduce advice
+relative to the important duties of <i>masters</i> and <i>servants</i>; duties of
+great importance, whether considered as affecting families or as
+affecting the community. In my address to the CITIZEN or SUBJECT, I
+shall consider all the reciprocal duties of the governors and the
+governed, and also the duties which man owes to his neighbour. It would
+be tedious to attempt to lay down rules for conduct exclusively
+applicable to every distinct calling, profession, and condition of life;
+but, under the above-described heads, will be conveyed every species of
+advice of which I deem the utility to be unquestionable.</p>
+
+<p>11. I have thus fully described the nature of my little work, and,
+before I enter on the first Letter, I venture to express a hope, that
+its good effects will be felt long after its author shall have ceased to
+exist.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_I" id="LETTER_I"></a><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10" ></a>LETTER I</h2>
+
+<h2>TO A YOUTH</h2>
+
+<p>12. You are now arrived at that age which the law thinks sufficient to
+make an oath, taken by you, valid in a court of law. Let us suppose from
+fourteen to nearly twenty; and, reserving, for a future occasion, my
+remarks on your duty towards parents, let me here offer you my advice as
+to the means likely to contribute largely towards making you a happy
+man, useful to all about you, and an honour to those from whom you
+sprang.</p>
+
+<p>13. Start, I beseech you, with a conviction firmly fixed on your mind,
+that you have no right to live in this world; that, being of hale body
+and sound mind, you have <i>no right</i> to any earthly existence, without
+doing <i>work</i> of some sort or other, unless you have ample fortune
+whereon to live clear of debt; and, that even in that case, you have no
+right to breed children, to be kept by others, or to be exposed to the
+chance of being so kept. Start with this conviction thoroughly implanted
+on your mind. To wish to live on the labour of others is, besides the
+folly of it, to contemplate a <i>fraud</i> at the least, and, under certain
+circumstances, to meditate oppression and robbery.</p>
+
+<p>14. I suppose you in the middle rank of life. Happiness ought to be your
+great object, and it is to be found only in <i>independence</i>. Turn your
+back on Whitehall and on Somerset-House; leave the Customs and Excise to
+the feeble and low-minded; look <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>not for success to favour, to
+partiality, to friendship, or to what is called <i>interest</i>: write it on
+your heart, that you will depend solely on your own merit and your own
+exertions. Think not, neither, of any of those situations where gaudy
+habiliments and sounding titles poorly disguise from the eyes of good
+sense the mortifications and the heart-ache of slaves. Answer me not by
+saying, that these situations '<i>must be</i> filled by <i>somebody</i>;' for, if
+I were to admit the truth of the proposition, which I do not, it would
+remain for you to show that they are conducive to happiness, the
+contrary of which has been proved to me by the observation of a now
+pretty long life.</p>
+
+<p>15. Indeed, reason tells us, that it must be thus: for that which a man
+owes to favour or to partiality, that same favour or partiality is
+constantly liable to take from him. He who lives upon anything except
+his own labour, is incessantly surrounded by rivals: his grand resource
+is that servility in which he is always liable to be surpassed. He is in
+daily danger of being out-bidden; his very bread depends upon caprice;
+and he lives in a state of uncertainty and never-ceasing fear. His is
+not, indeed, the dog's life, '<i>hunger</i> and idleness;' but it is worse;
+for it is 'idleness with <i>slavery</i>,' the latter being the just price of
+the former. Slaves frequently are well <i>fed</i> and well <i>clad</i>; but slaves
+dare not <i>speak</i>; they dare not be suspected to <i>think</i> differently from
+their masters: hate his acts as much as they may; be he tyrant, be he
+drunkard, be he fool, or be he all three at once, they must be silent,
+or, nine times out of ten, affect approbation: though possessing a
+thousand times his knowledge, they must feign a conviction of his
+superior understanding; though knowing that it is they who, in fact, do
+all that he is paid for <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>doing, it is destruction to them to <i>seem as if
+they thought</i> any portion of the service belonged to them! Far from me
+be the thought, that any youth who shall read this page would not rather
+perish than submit to live in a state like this! Such a state is fit
+only for the refuse of nature; the halt, the half-blind, the unhappy
+creatures whom nature has marked out for degradation.</p>
+
+<p>16. And how comes it, then, that we see hale and even clever youths
+voluntarily bending their necks to this slavery; nay, pressing forward
+in eager rivalship to assume the yoke that ought to be insupportable?
+The cause, and the only cause, is, that the deleterious fashion of the
+day has created so many artificial wants, and has raised the minds of
+young men so much above their real rank and state of life, that they
+look scornfully on the employment, the fare, and the dress, that would
+become them; and, in order to avoid that state in which they might live
+<i>free</i> and <i>happy</i>, they become <i>showy slaves</i>.</p>
+
+<p>17. The great source of independence, the French express in a precept of
+three words, '<i>Vivre de peu</i>,' which I have always very much admired.
+'<i>To live upon little</i>' is the great security against slavery; and this
+precept extends to dress and other things besides food and drink. When
+DOCTOR JOHNSON wrote his Dictionary, he put in the word pensioner thus:
+'PENSIONER&mdash;<i>A slave of state</i>.' After this he himself became a
+<i>pensioner</i>! And thus, agreeably to his own definition, he lived and
+died '<i>a slave of state</i>!' What must this man of great genius, and of
+great industry too, have felt at receiving this pension! Could he be so
+callous as not to feel a pang upon seeing his own name placed before his
+own degrading definition? And what could induce him to submit to this?
+His wants, his artificial wants, <a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>his habit of indulging in the
+pleasures of the table; his disregard of the precept '<i>Vivre de peu</i>.'
+This was the cause; and, be it observed, that indulgences of this sort,
+while they tend to make men poor and expose them to commit mean acts,
+tend also to enfeeble the body, and more especially to cloud and to
+weaken the mind.</p>
+
+<p>18. When this celebrated author wrote his Dictionary, he had not been
+debased by luxurious enjoyments; the rich and powerful had not caressed
+him into a slave; his writings then bore the stamp of truth and
+independence: but, having been debased by luxury, he who had, while
+content with plain fare, been the strenuous advocate of the rights of
+the people, became a strenuous advocate for <i>taxation without
+representation</i>; and, in a work under the title of '<i>Taxation no
+Tyranny</i>,' defended, and greatly assisted to produce, that unjust and
+bloody war which finally severed from England that great country the
+United states of America, now the most powerful and dangerous rival that
+this kingdom ever had. The statue of Dr. JOHNSON was the first that was
+put into St. PAUL'S CHURCH! A signal warning to us not to look upon
+monuments in honour of the dead as a proof of their virtues; for here we
+see St. PAUL'S CHURCH holding up to the veneration of posterity a man
+whose own writings, together with the records of the pension list, prove
+him to have been '<i>a slave of state</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>19. Endless are the instances of men of bright parts and high spirit
+having been, by degrees, rendered powerless and despicable, by their
+imaginary wants. Seldom has there been a man with a fairer prospect of
+accomplishing great things and of acquiring lasting renown, than CHARLES
+FOX: he had great talents of the most popular sort; the times were
+<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>singularly favourable to an exertion of them with success; a large part
+of the nation admired him and were his partisans; he had, as to the
+great question between him and his rival (PITT), reason and justice
+clearly on his side: but he had against him his squandering and
+luxurious habits: these made him dependent on the rich part of his
+partisans; made his wisdom subservient to opulent folly or selfishness;
+deprived his country of all the benefit that it might have derived from
+his talents; and, finally, sent him to the grave without a single sigh
+from a people, a great part of whom would, in his earlier years, have
+wept at his death as at a national calamity.</p>
+
+<p>20. Extravagance in <i>dress</i>, in the haunting of <i>play-houses</i>, in
+<i>horses</i>, in everything else, is to be avoided, and, in youths and young
+men, extravagance in <i>dress</i> particularly. This sort of extravagance,
+this waste of money on the decoration of the body, arises solely from
+vanity, and from vanity of the most contemptible sort. It arises from
+the notion, that all the people in the street, for instance, will be
+<i>looking at you</i> as soon as you walk out; and that they will, in a
+greater or less degree, think the better of you on account of your fine
+dress. Never was notion more false. All the sensible people that happen
+to see you, will think nothing at all about you: those who are filled
+with the same vain notion as you are, will perceive your attempt to
+impose on them, and will despise you accordingly: rich people will
+wholly disregard you, and you will be envied and hated by those who have
+the same vanity that you have without the means of gratifying it. Dress
+should be suited to your rank and station; a surgeon or physician should
+not dress like a carpenter! but there is no reason why a tradesman, a
+merchant's clerk, or clerk of any kind, or why a shopkeeper or
+<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>manufacturer, or even a merchant; no reason at all why any of these
+should dress in an <i>expensive</i> manner. It is a great mistake to suppose,
+that they derive any advantage from exterior decoration. Men are
+estimated by other <i>men</i> according to their capacity and willingness to
+be in some way or other <i>useful</i>; and though, with the foolish and vain
+part of <i>women</i>, fine clothes frequently do something, yet the greater
+part of the sex are much too penetrating to draw their conclusions
+solely from the outside show of a man: they look deeper, and find other
+criterions whereby to judge. And, after all, if the fine clothes obtain
+you a wife, will they bring you, in that wife, <i>frugality, good sense</i>,
+and that sort of attachment that is likely to be lasting? Natural beauty
+of person is quite another thing: this always has, it always will and
+must have, some weight even with men, and great weight with women. But
+this does not want to be set off by expensive clothes. Female eyes are,
+in such cases, very sharp: they can discover beauty though half hidden
+by beard and even by dirt and surrounded by rags: and, take this as a
+secret worth half a fortune to you, that women, however personally vain
+they may be themselves, <i>despise personal vanity in men</i>.</p>
+
+<p>21. Let your dress be as cheap as may be without <i>shabbiness</i>; think
+more about the colour of your shirt than about the gloss or texture of
+your coat; be always as <i>clean</i> as your occupation will, without
+inconvenience, permit; but never, no, not for one moment, believe, that
+any human being, with sense in his skull, will love or respect you on
+account of your fine or costly clothes. A great misfortune of the
+present day is, that every one is, in his own estimate, <i>raised above
+his real state of life</i>: every one seems to think himself entitled, if
+not to title and <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>great estate, at least <i>to live without work</i>. This
+mischievous, this most destructive, way of thinking has, indeed, been
+produced, like almost all our other evils, by the Acts of our Septennial
+and Unreformed Parliament. That body, by its Acts, has caused an
+enormous Debt to be created, and, in consequence, a prodigious sum to be
+raised annually in taxes. It has caused, by these means, a race of
+loan-mongers and stock-jobbers to arise. These carry on a species of
+<i>gaming</i>, by which some make fortunes in a day, and others, in a day,
+become beggars. The unfortunate gamesters, like the purchasers of blanks
+in a lottery, are never heard of; but the fortunate ones become
+companions for lords, and some of them lords themselves. We have, within
+these few years, seen many of these gamesters get fortunes of a quarter
+of a million in a few days, and then we have heard them, though
+notoriously amongst the lowest and basest of human creatures, called
+'<i>honourable gentlemen</i>'! In such a state of things, who is to expect
+patient industry, laborious study, frugality and care; who, in such a
+state of things, is to expect these to be employed in pursuit of that
+competence which it is the laudable wish of all men to secure? Not long
+ago a man, who had served his time to a tradesman in London, became,
+instead of pursuing his trade, a stock-jobber, or gambler; and, in about
+<i>two years</i>, drove his <i>coach-and-four</i>, had his town house and country
+house, and visited, and was visited by, <i>peers of the highest rank</i>! A
+<i>fellow-apprentice</i> of this lucky gambler, though a tradesman in
+excellent business, seeing no earthly reason why <i>he</i> should not have
+his coach-and-four also, turned his stock in trade into a stake for the
+'Change; but, alas! at the end of a few months, instead of being in a
+coach-and-four, he was in the <i>Gazette</i>!</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>22. This is one instance out of hundreds of thousands; not, indeed,
+exactly of the same description, but all arising from the same copious
+source. The words <i>speculate</i> and <i>speculation</i> have been substituted
+for <i>gamble</i> and <i>gambling</i>. The hatefulness of the pursuit is thus
+taken away; and, while taxes to the amount of more than double the whole
+of the rental of the kingdom; while these cause such crowds of idlers,
+every one of whom calls himself a <i>gentleman</i>, and avoids the appearance
+of working for his bread; while this is the case, who is to wonder, that
+a great part of the youth of the country, knowing themselves to be as
+<i>good</i>, as <i>learned</i>, and as <i>well-bred</i> as these <i>gentlemen</i>; who is to
+wonder, that they think, that they also ought to be considered as
+<i>gentlemen</i>? Then, the late <i>war</i> (also the work of the Septennial
+Parliament) has left us, amongst its many legacies, such swarms of
+<i>titled</i> men and women; such swarms of '<i>Sirs</i>' and their '<i>Ladies</i>';
+men and women who, only the other day, were the fellow-apprentices,
+fellow-tradesmen's or farmers' sons and daughters, or indeed, the
+fellow-servants, of those who are now in these several states of life;
+the late Septennial Parliament war has left us such swarms of these,
+that it is no wonder that the heads of young people are turned, and that
+they are ashamed of that state of life to act their part well in which
+ought to be their delight.</p>
+
+<p>23. But, though the cause of the evil is in Acts of the Septennial
+Parliament; though this universal desire in people to be thought to be
+above their station; though this arises from such acts; and, though it
+is no wonder that young men are thus turned from patient study and
+labour; though these things be undoubted, they form no reason why I
+should not <i>warn you</i> against becoming a victim to this national
+scourge. For, in spite of every art <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>made use of to avoid labour, the
+taxes will, after all, maintain only <i>so many</i> idlers. We cannot all be
+'<i>knights</i>' and '<i>gentlemen</i>': there must be a large part of us, after
+all, to make and mend clothes and houses, and carry on trade and
+commerce, and, in spite of all that we can do, the far greater part of
+us must actually <i>work</i> at something; for, unless we can get at some of
+the taxes, we fall under the sentence of Holy Writ, 'He who will not
+<i>work</i> shall not <i>eat</i>.' Yet, so strong is the propensity to be thought
+'<i>gentlemen</i>'; so general is this desire amongst the youth of this
+formerly laborious and unassuming nation; a nation famed for its pursuit
+of wealth through the channels of patience, punctuality, and integrity;
+a nation famed for its love of solid acquisitions and qualities, and its
+hatred of everything showy and false: so general is this really
+fraudulent desire amongst the youth of this now '<i>speculating</i>' nation,
+that thousands upon thousands of them are, at this moment, in a state of
+half starvation, not so much because they are too <i>lazy</i> to earn their
+bread, as because they are too <i>proud</i>! And what are the <i>consequences</i>?
+Such a youth remains or becomes a burden to his parents, of whom he
+ought to be the comfort, if not the support. Always aspiring to
+something higher than he can reach, his life is a life of disappointment
+and of shame. If marriage <i>befal</i> him, it is a real affliction,
+involving others as well as himself. His lot is a thousand times worse
+than that of the common labouring pauper. Nineteen times out of twenty a
+premature death awaits him: and, alas! how numerous are the cases in
+which that death is most miserable, not to say ignominious! <i>Stupid
+pride</i> is one of the symptoms of <i>madness</i>. Of the two madmen mentioned
+in Don Quixote, one thought himself NEPTUNE, and the other JUPITER.
+<a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>Shakspeare agrees with CERVANTES; for, Mad Tom, in King Lear, being
+asked who he is, answers, 'I am a <i>tailor</i> run mad with <i>pride</i>.' How
+many have we heard of, who claimed relationship with <i>noblemen</i> and
+<i>kings</i>; while of not a few each has thought himself the Son of God! To
+the public journals, and to the observations of every one, nay, to the
+'<i>county-lunatic asylums</i>' (things never heard of in England till now),
+I appeal for the fact of the vast and hideous <i>increase of madness in
+this country</i>; and, within these very few years, how many scores of
+young men, who, if their minds had been unperverted by the gambling
+principles of the day, had a probably long and happy life before them;
+who had talent, personal endowments, love of parents, love of friends,
+admiration of large circles; who had, in short, everything to make life
+desirable, and who, from mortified pride, founded on false pretensions,
+<i>have put an end to their own existence</i>!</p>
+
+<p>24. As to DRUNKENNESS and GLUTTONY, generally so called, these are vices
+so nasty and beastly that I deem any one capable of indulging in them to
+be wholly unworthy of my advice; and, if any youth unhappily initiated
+in these odious and debasing vices should happen to read what I am now
+writing, I refer him to the command of God, conveyed to the Israelites
+by Moses, in Deuteronomy, chap. xxi. The father and mother are to take
+the bad son 'and bring him to the elders of the city; and they shall say
+to the elders, This our son will not obey our voice: he is a <i>glutton</i>
+and a <i>drunkard</i>. And all the men of the city shall stone him with
+stones, that he die.' I refer downright beastly gluttons and drunkards
+to this; but indulgence short, <i>far short</i>, of this gross and really
+nasty drunkenness and gluttony is to be deprecated, and that, too, with
+the more <a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>earnestness because it is too often looked upon as being no
+crime at all, and as having nothing blameable in it; nay, there are many
+persons who <i>pride</i> themselves on their refined taste in matters
+connected with eating and drinking: so far from being ashamed of
+employing their thoughts on the subject, it is their boast that they do
+it. St. Gregory, one of the Christian fathers, says: 'It is not the
+<i>quantity</i> or the <i>quality</i> of the meat, or drink, but the <i>love of it</i>
+that is condemned;' that is to say, the indulgence beyond the absolute
+demands of nature; the hankering after it; the neglect of some duty or
+other for the sake of the enjoyments of the table.</p>
+
+<p>25. This <i>love</i> of what are called 'good eating and drinking,' if very
+unamiable in grown-up persons, is perfectly hateful in <i>a youth</i>; and,
+if he indulge in the propensity, he is already half ruined. To warn you
+against acts of fraud, robbery, and violence, is not my province; that
+is the business of those who make and administer <i>the law</i>. I am not
+talking to you against acts which the jailor and the hangman punish; nor
+against those moral offences which all men condemn; but against
+indulgences, which, by men in general, are deemed not only harmless, but
+meritorious; but which the observation of my whole life has taught me to
+regard as destructive to human happiness, and against which all ought to
+be cautioned even in their boyish days. I have been a great observer,
+and I can truly say, that I have never known a man, 'fond of good eating
+and drinking,' as it is called; that I have never known such a man (and
+hundreds I have known) who was worthy of respect.</p>
+
+<p>26. Such indulgences are, in the first place, very <i>expensive</i>. The
+materials are costly, and the preparations still more so. What a
+monstrous thing, that, in order to satisfy the appetite of a man, there
+<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>must be a person or two <i>at work every day</i>! More fuel, culinary
+implements, kitchen-room; what! all these merely to tickle the palate of
+four or five people, and especially people who can hardly pay their way!
+And, then, the <i>loss of time</i>: the time spent in pleasing the palate: it
+is truly horrible to behold people who ought to be at work, sitting, at
+the three meals, not less than three of the about fourteen hours that
+they are out of their beds! A youth, habituated to this sort of
+indulgence, cannot be valuable to any employer. Such a youth cannot be
+deprived of his table-enjoyments on any account: his eating and drinking
+form the momentous concern of his life: if business interfere with that,
+the business must give way. A young man, some years ago, offered himself
+to me, on a particular occasion, as an <i>amanuensis</i>, for which he
+appeared to be perfectly qualified. The terms were settled, and I, who
+wanted the job dispatched, requested him to sit down, and begin; but he,
+looking out of the window, whence he could see the church clock, said,
+somewhat hastily, 'I <i>cannot</i> stop <i>now</i>, sir, I must go to <i>dinner</i>.'
+'Oh!' said I, 'you <i>must</i> go to dinner, must you! Let the dinner, which
+you <i>must</i> wait upon to-day, have your constant services, then: for you
+and I shall never agree.' He had told me that he was in <i>great distress</i>
+for want of employment; and yet, when relief was there before his eyes,
+he could forego it for the sake of getting at his eating and drinking
+three or four hours, perhaps, sooner than I should have thought it right
+for him to leave off work. Such a person cannot be sent from home,
+except at certain times; he <i>must</i> be near the kitchen at three fixed
+hours of the day; if he be absent more than four or five hours, he is
+ill-treated. In short, a youth thus pampered is worth nothing as a
+person to be employed in business.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>27. And, as to <i>friends</i> and <i>acquaintances</i>; they will <i>say</i> nothing
+to you; they will <i>offer</i> you indulgences under their roofs; but the
+more ready you are to accept of their offers, and, in fact, the better
+<i>taste</i> you discover, the less they will like you, and the sooner they
+will find means of shaking you off; for, besides the <i>cost</i> which you
+occasion them, people do not like to have <i>critics</i> sitting in judgment
+on their bottles and dishes. <i>Water-drinkers</i> are universally <i>laughed
+at</i>; but, it has always seemed to me, that they are amongst the most
+welcome of guests, and that, too, though the host be by no means of a
+niggardly turn. The truth is, they give <i>no trouble</i>; they occasion <i>no
+anxiety</i> to please them; they are sure not to make their sittings
+<i>inconveniently long</i>; and, which is the great thing of all, their
+example teaches <i>moderation</i> to the rest of the company. Your notorious
+'lovers of good cheer' are, on the contrary, not to be invited without
+<i>due reflection</i>: to entertain one of them is a serious business; and as
+people are not apt voluntarily to undertake such pieces of business, the
+well-known 'lovers of good eating and drinking' are left, very
+generally, to enjoy it by themselves and at their own expense.</p>
+
+<p>28. But, all other considerations aside, <i>health</i>, the most valuable of
+all earthly possessions, and without which all the rest are worth
+nothing, bids us, not only to refrain from <i>excess</i> in eating and
+drinking, but bids us to stop short of what might be indulged in without
+any apparent impropriety. The words of ECCLESIASTICUS ought to be read
+once a week by every young person in the world, and particularly by the
+young people of this country at this time. 'Eat modestly that which is
+set before thee, and <i>devour</i> not, lest thou be <i>hated</i>. When thou
+sittest amongst many, reach not thine hand out first of all. <i>How
+<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>little is sufficient for man well taught! A wholesome sleep</i> cometh of
+a temperate belly. Such a man <i>riseth up in the morning</i>, and is <i>well
+at ease with himself</i>. Be not too hasty of meats; for excess of meats
+bringeth sickness, and choleric disease cometh of gluttony. By surfeit
+have many perished, and he that <i>dieteth himself prolongeth his life</i>.
+Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many. Wine
+measurably taken, and in season, bringeth gladness and cheerfulness of
+mind; but drinking with excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings and
+scoldings.' How true are these words! How well worthy of a constant
+place in our memories! Yet, what pains have been taken to apologise for
+a life contrary to these precepts! And, good God! what punishment can be
+too great, what mark of infamy sufficiently signal, for those pernicious
+villains of talent, who have employed that talent in the composition of
+<i>Bacchanalian songs</i>; that is to say, pieces of fine and captivating
+writing in praise of one of the most odious and destructive vices in the
+black catalogue of human depravity!</p>
+
+<p>29. In the passage which I have just quoted from chap. xxxi. of
+ECCLESIASTICUS, it is said, that 'wine, <i>measurably</i> taken, and in
+<i>season</i>,' is a <i>proper thing</i>. This, and other such passages of the Old
+Testament, have given a handle to drunkards, and to extravagant people,
+to insist, that <i>God intended</i> that <i>wine</i> should be <i>commonly</i> drunk.
+No doubt of that. But, then, he could intend this only <i>in countries in
+which he had given wine</i>, and to which he had given no cheaper drink
+except <i>water</i>. If it be said, as it truly may, that, by the means of
+the <i>sea</i> and the <i>winds</i>, he has given wine to all <i>countries</i>, I
+answer that this gift is of no use to us <i>now</i>, because our government
+steps in between the sea and the winds and us. <i>Formerly</i>, <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>indeed, the
+case was different; and, here I am about to give you, incidentally, a
+piece of <i>historical knowledge</i>, which you will not have acquired from
+HUME, GOLDSMITH, or any other of the romancers called historians. Before
+that unfortunate event, the <i>Protestant Reformation</i>, as it is called,
+took place, the price of RED WINE, in England, was <i>fourpence a gallon</i>,
+Winchester measure; and of WHITE WINE, <i>sixpence a gallon</i>. At the same
+time the pay of a labouring man per day, as fixed by law, was
+<i>fourpence</i>. Now, when a labouring man could earn <i>four quarts of good
+wine in a day</i>, it was, doubtless, allowable, even in England, for
+people in the middle rank of life to drink wine <i>rather commonly</i>; and,
+therefore, in those happy days of England, these passages of Scripture
+were applicable enough. But, <i>now</i>, when we have got a <i>Protestant</i>
+government, which by the taxes which it makes people pay to it, causes
+the <i>eighth part of a gallon</i> of wine to cost more than the pay of a
+labouring man for a day; <i>now</i>, this passage of Scripture is not
+applicable to us. There is no '<i>season</i>' in which we can take wine
+without ruining ourselves, however '<i>measurably</i>' we may take it; and I
+beg you to regard, as perverters of Scripture and as seducers of youth,
+all those who cite passages like that above cited, in justification of,
+or as an apology for, the practice of wine-drinking in England.</p>
+
+<p>30. I beseech you to look again and again at, and to remember every word
+of, the passage which I have just quoted from the book of
+ECCLESIASTICUS. How completely have been, and are, its words verified by
+my experience and in my person! How little of eating and drinking is
+sufficient for me! How wholesome is my sleep! How early do I rise; and
+how '<i>well at ease</i>' am I 'with myself!' I should not have deserved such
+blessings, if I had withheld from <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>my neighbours a knowledge of the
+means by which they were obtained; and, therefore, this knowledge I have
+been in the constant habit of communicating. When one <i>gives a dinner to
+a company</i>, it is an extraordinary affair, and is intended, by sensible
+men, for purposes other than those of eating and drinking. But, in
+<i>general</i>, in the every-day life, despicable are those who suffer any
+part of their happiness to depend upon what they have to eat or to
+drink, provided they have <i>a sufficiency of wholesome food</i>; despicable
+is the <i>man</i>, and worse than despicable the <i>youth</i>, that would make any
+sacrifice, however small, whether of money or of time, or of anything
+else, in order to secure a dinner different from that which he would
+have had without such sacrifice. Who, what man, ever performed a greater
+quantity of labour than I have performed? What man ever did so much?
+Now, in a great measure, I owe my capability to perform this labour to
+my disregard of dainties. Being shut up two years in Newgate, with a
+fine on my head of a thousand pounds to the king, for having expressed
+my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen under a guard of German
+bayonets, I ate, during one whole year, one mutton chop every day. Being
+once in town, with one son (then a little boy) and a clerk, while my
+family was in the country, I had during some weeks nothing but legs of
+mutton; first day, leg of mutton boiled or <i>roasted</i>; second, <i>cold</i>;
+third, <i>hashed</i>; then, leg of mutton <i>boiled</i>; and so on. When I have
+been by myself, or nearly so, I have <i>always</i> proceeded thus: given
+directions for having <i>every day the same thing</i>, or alternately as
+above, and every day exactly at the same hour, so as to prevent the
+necessity of any <i>talk</i> about the matter. I am certain that, upon an
+average, I have not, during my life, spent more than <i>thirty-five
+minutes a day at table</i>, <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>including all the meals of the day. I like,
+and I take care to have, good and clean victuals; but, if wholesome and
+clean, that is enough. If I find it, by chance, <i>too coarse</i> for my
+appetite, I put the food aside, or let somebody do it, and leave the
+appetite to gather keenness. But the great security of all is, to eat
+<i>little</i>, and to drink nothing that <i>intoxicates</i>. He that eats till he
+is <i>full</i> is little better than a beast; and he that drinks till he is
+<i>drunk</i> is quite a beast.</p>
+
+<p>31. Before I dismiss this affair of eating and drinking, let me beseech
+you to resolve to free yourselves from the slavery of the <i>tea</i> and
+<i>coffee</i> and other <i>slop-kettle</i>, if, unhappily, you have been bred up
+in such slavery. Experience has taught me, that those slops are
+<i>injurious to health</i>: until I left them off (having taken to them at
+the age of 26), even my habits of sobriety, moderate eating, early
+rising; even these were not, until I left off the slops, sufficient to
+give me that complete health which I have since had. I pretend not to be
+a 'doctor;' but, I assert, that to pour regularly, every day, a pint or
+two of <i>warm liquid matter</i> down the throat, whether under the name of
+tea, coffee, soup, grog, or whatever else, is greatly injurious to
+health. However, at present, what I have to represent to <i>you is the
+great deduction, which the use of these slops makes, from your power of
+being useful</i>, and also from your <i>power to husband your income</i>,
+whatever it may be, and from whatever source arising. I am to suppose
+you to be desirous to become a clever and a useful man; a man to be, if
+not admired and revered, at least to be <i>respected</i>. In order to merit
+respect beyond that which is due to very common men, you must do
+something more than very common men; and I am now going to show you how
+your course <i>must be impeded</i> by the use of the <i>slops</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>32. If the women exclaim, 'Nonsense! come and take a cup,' take it for
+that once; but hear what I have to say. In answer to my representation
+regarding the <i>waste of time</i> which is occasioned by the slops, it has
+been said, that let what may be the nature of the food, there must <i>be
+time</i> for taking it. Not <i>so much</i> time, however, to eat a bit of meat
+or cheese or butter with a bit of bread. But, these may be eaten in a
+shop, a warehouse, a factory, far from any <i>fire</i>, and even in a
+carriage on the road. The slops absolutely demand <i>fire</i> and a
+<i>congregation</i>; so that, be your business what it may; be you
+shopkeeper, farmer, drover, sportsman, traveller, to the <i>slop-board</i>
+you must come; you must wait for its assembling, or start from home
+without your breakfast; and, being used to the warm liquid, you feel out
+of order for the want of it. If the slops were in fashion amongst
+ploughmen and carters, we must all be starved; for the food could never
+be raised. The mechanics are half-ruined by them. Many of them are
+become poor, enervated creatures; and chiefly from this cause. But is
+the positive <i>cost</i> nothing? At boarding-schools an <i>additional price is
+given</i> on account of the tea slops. Suppose you to be a clerk, in hired
+lodgings, and going to your counting-house at nine o'clock. You get your
+dinner, perhaps, near to the scene of your work; but how are you to have
+the <i>breakfast slops</i> without <i>a servant</i>? Perhaps you find a lodging
+just to suit you, but the house is occupied by people who keep no
+<i>servants</i>, and you want a servant to <i>light a fire</i> and get the slop
+ready. You could get this lodging for several shillings a week less than
+another at the next door; but <i>there</i> they keep a servant, who will
+'<i>get</i> you your breakfast,' and preserve you, benevolent creature as she
+is, from the cruel necessity of going to the cup<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>board and cutting off a
+slice of meat or cheese and a bit of bread. She will, most likely, toast
+your bread for you too, and melt your butter; and then muffle you up, in
+winter, and send you out almost swaddled. Really such a thing can hardly
+be expected ever to become a <i>man</i>. You are weak; you have delicate
+health; you are '<i>bilious</i>!' Why, my good fellow, it is these very slops
+that make you weak and bilious; And, indeed, the <i>poverty</i>, the real
+poverty, that they and their concomitants bring on you, greatly assists,
+in more ways than one, in producing your 'delicate health.'</p>
+
+<p>33. So much for indulgences in eating, drinking, and dress. Next, as to
+<i>amusements</i>. It is recorded of the famous ALFRED, that he devoted eight
+hours of the twenty-four to <i>labour</i>, eight to <i>rest</i>, and eight to
+<i>recreation</i>. He was, however, <i>a king</i>, and could be <i>thinking</i> during
+the eight hours of recreation. It is certain, that there ought to be
+hours of recreation, and I do not know that eight are too many; but,
+then observe, those hours ought to be <i>well-chosen</i>, and the <i>sort</i> of
+recreation ought to be attended to. It ought to be such as is at once
+innocent in itself and in its tendency, and not injurious to health. The
+sports of the field are the best of all, because they are conducive to
+health, because they are enjoyed by <i>day-light</i>, and because they demand
+early rising. The nearer that other amusements approach to these, the
+better they are. A town-life, which many persons are compelled, by the
+nature of their calling, to lead, precludes the possibility of pursuing
+amusements of this description to any very considerable extent; and
+young men in towns are, generally speaking, compelled to choose between
+<i>books</i> on the one hand, or <i>gaming</i> and the <i>play-house</i> on the other.
+<i>Dancing</i> is at once rational and healthful: it gives animal <a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>spirits:
+it is the natural amusement of young people, and such it has been from
+the days of Moses: it is enjoyed in numerous companies: it makes the
+parties to be pleased with themselves and with all about them; it has no
+tendency to excite base and malignant feelings; and none but the most
+grovelling and hateful tyranny, or the most stupid and despicable
+fanaticism, ever raised its voice against it. The bad modern habits of
+England have created one inconvenience attending the enjoyment of this
+healthy and innocent pastime, namely, <i>late hours</i>, which are at once
+injurious to health and destructive of order and of industry. In other
+countries people dance by <i>day-light</i>. Here they do not; and, therefore,
+you must, in this respect, submit to the custom, though not without
+robbing the dancing night of as many hours as you can.</p>
+
+<p>34. As to GAMING, it is always <i>criminal</i>, either in itself, or in its
+tendency. The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others
+something, for which you have given, and intend to give, no equivalent.
+No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and very few gamblers have escaped
+being miserable; and, observe, to <i>game for nothing</i> is still gaming,
+and naturally leads to gaming for something. It is sacrificing time, and
+that, too, for the worst of purposes. I have kept house for nearly forty
+years; I have reared a family; I have entertained as many friends as
+most people; and I have never had cards, dice, a chess-board, nor any
+implement of gaming, under my roof. The hours that young men spend in
+this way are hours <i>murdered</i>; precious hours, that ought to be spent
+either in reading or in writing, or in rest, preparatory to the duties
+of the dawn. Though I do not agree with the base and nauseous
+flatterers, who now declare the army to be <i>the best school for
+<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>statesmen</i>, it is certainly a school in which to learn experimentally
+many useful lessons; and, in this school I learned, that men, fond of
+gaming, are very rarely, if ever, trust-worthy. I have known many a
+clever man rejected in the way of promotion only because he was addicted
+to gaming. Men, in that state of life, cannot <i>ruin</i> themselves by
+gaming, for they possess no fortune, nor money; but the taste for gaming
+is always regarded as an indication of a radically bad disposition; and
+I can truly say, that I never in my whole life knew a man, fond of
+gaming, who was not, in some way or other, a person unworthy of
+confidence. This vice creeps on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it
+becomes an ungovernable passion, swallowing up every good and kind
+feeling of the heart. The gambler, as pourtrayed by REGNARD, in a comedy
+the translation of which into English resembles the original much about
+as nearly as Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S plagiarisms resembled the Registers on
+which they had been committed, is a fine instance of the contempt and
+scorn to which gaming at last reduces its votaries; but, if any young
+man be engaged in this fatal career, and be not yet wholly lost, let him
+behold HOGARTH'S gambler just when he has made his <i>last throw</i> and when
+disappointment has bereft him of his senses. If after this sight he
+remain obdurate, he is doomed to be a disgrace to his name.</p>
+
+<p>35. The <i>Theatre may be</i> a source not only of amusement but also of
+instruction; but, as things now are in this country, what, that is not
+bad, is to be learned in this school? In the first place not a word is
+allowed to be uttered on the stage, which has not been previously
+approved of by the Lord Chamberlain; that is to say, by a person
+appointed by the Ministry, who, at his pleasure, allows, or dis<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>allows,
+of any piece, or any words in a piece, submitted to his inspection. In
+short, those who go to play-houses <i>pay their money to hear uttered such
+words as the government approve of, and no others</i>. It is now just
+twenty-six years since I first well understood how this matter was
+managed; and, from that moment to this, I have never been in an English
+play-house. Besides this, the meanness, the abject servility, of the
+players, and the slavish conduct of the audience, are sufficient to
+corrupt and debase the heart of any young man who is a frequent beholder
+of them. Homage is here paid to every one clothed with power, be he who
+or what he may; real virtue and public-spirit are subjects of ridicule;
+and mock-sentiment and mock-liberality and mock-loyalty are applauded to
+the skies.</p>
+
+<p>36. 'Show me a man's <i>companions</i>' says the proverb, 'and I will tell
+you <i>what the man</i> is;' and this is, and must be true; because all men
+seek the society of those who think and act somewhat like themselves:
+sober men will not associate with drunkards, frugal men will not like
+spendthrifts, and the orderly and decent shun the noisy, the disorderly,
+and the debauched. It is for the very vulgar to herd together as
+singers, ringers, and smokers; but, there is a class rather higher still
+more blamable; I mean the tavern-haunters, the gay companions, who herd
+together to do little but <i>talk</i>, and who are so fond of talk that they
+go from home to get at it. The conversation amongst such persons has
+nothing of instruction in it, and is generally of a vicious tendency.
+Young people naturally and commendably seek the society of those of
+their own age; but, be careful in choosing your companions; and lay this
+down as a rule never to be departed from, that no youth, nor man, ought
+to be called your <i>friend</i>, who <a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>is addicted to <i>indecent talk</i>, or who
+is fond of the <i>society of prostitutes</i>. Either of these argues a
+depraved taste, and even a depraved heart; an absence of all principle
+and of all trust-worthiness; and, I have remarked it all my life long,
+that young men, addicted to these vices, never succeed in the end,
+whatever advantages they may have, whether in fortune or in talent. Fond
+mothers and fathers are but too apt to be over-lenient to such
+offenders; and, as long as youth lasts and fortune smiles, the
+punishment is deferred; but, it comes at last; it is sure to come; and
+the gay and dissolute youth is a dejected and miserable man. After the
+early part of a life spent in illicit indulgences, a man is <i>unworthy</i>
+of being the husband of a virtuous woman; and, if he have anything like
+justice in him, how is he to reprove, in his children, vices in which he
+himself so long indulged? These vices of youth are varnished over by the
+saying, that there must be time for 'sowing the <i>wild oats</i>,' and that
+'<i>wildest colts</i> make the <i>best horses</i>.' These figurative oats are,
+however, generally like the literal ones; they are <i>never to be
+eradicated from the soil</i>; and as to the <i>colts</i>, wildness in them is an
+indication of <i>high animal spirit</i>, having nothing at all to do with the
+<i>mind</i>, which is invariably debilitated and debased by profligate
+indulgences. Yet this miserable piece of sophistry, the offspring of
+parental weakness, is in constant use, to the incalculable injury of the
+rising generation. What so amiable as a steady, trust-worthy boy? He is
+of <i>real use</i> at an early age: he can be trusted far out of the sight of
+parent or employer, while the 'pickle,' as the poor fond parents call
+the profligate, is a great deal worse than useless, because there must
+be some one to see that he does no harm. If you have to choose, choose
+companions <a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>of <i>your own rank in life</i> as nearly as may be; but, at any
+rate, none to whom you acknowledge <i>inferiority</i>; for, slavery is too
+soon learned; and, if the mind be bowed down in the youth, it will
+seldom rise up in the man. In the schools of those best of teachers the
+JESUITS, there is perfect equality as to rank in life: the boy, who
+enters there, leaves all family pride behind him: intrinsic merit alone
+is the standard of preference; and the masters are so scrupulous upon
+this head, that they do not suffer one scholar, of whatever rank, to
+have more money to spend than the poorest. These wise men know well the
+mischiefs that must arise from inequality of pecuniary means amongst
+their scholars: they know how injurious it would be to learning, if
+deference were, by the learned, paid to the dunce; and they, therefore,
+take the most effectual means to prevent it. Hence, amongst other
+causes, it is, that their scholars have, ever since the existence of
+their Order, been the most celebrated for learning of any men in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>37. In your <i>manners</i> be neither boorish nor blunt, but even these are
+preferable to simpering and crawling. I wish every English youth could
+see those of the United States of America; always <i>civil</i>, never
+<i>servile</i>. Be <i>obedient</i>, where obedience is due; for, it is no act of
+meanness, and no indication of want of spirit, to yield implicit and
+ready obedience to those who have a right to demand it at your hands. In
+this respect England has been, and I hope always will be, an example to
+the whole world. To this habit of willing and prompt obedience in
+apprentices, in servants, in all inferiors in station, she owes, in a
+great measure, her multitudes of matchless merchants, tradesmen, and
+workmen of every description, and also the achievements of her armies
+and navies. <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>It is no disgrace, but the contrary, to obey, cheerfully,
+lawful and just commands. None are so saucy and disobedient as slaves;
+and, when you come to read history, you will find that in proportion as
+nations have been <i>free</i> has been their reverence for the laws. But,
+there is a wide difference between lawful and cheerful obedience and
+that servility which represents people as laying petitions 'at the
+<i>king's feet</i>,' which makes us imagine that we behold the supplicants
+actually crawling upon their bellies. There is something so abject in
+this expression; there is such horrible self-abasement in it, that I do
+hope that every youth, who shall read this, will hold in detestation the
+reptiles who make use of it. In all other countries, the lowest
+individual can put a petition into the <i>hands</i> of the chief magistrate,
+be he king or emperor: let us hope, that the time will yet come when
+Englishmen will be able to do the same. In the meanwhile I beg you to
+despise these worse than pagan parasites.</p>
+
+<p>38. Hitherto I have addressed you chiefly relative to the things to be
+<i>avoided</i>: let me now turn to the things which you ought <i>to do</i>. And,
+first of all, the <i>husbanding of your time</i>. The respect that you will
+receive, the real and <i>sincere respect</i>, will depend entirely on what
+you are able <i>to do</i>. If you be rich, you may purchase what is called
+respect; but it is not worth having. To obtain respect worth possessing,
+you must, as I observed before, do more than the common run of men in
+your state of life; and, to be enabled to do this, you must manage well
+<i>your time</i>: and, to manage it well, you must have as much of the
+<i>day-light</i> and as little of the <i>candle-light</i> as is consistent with
+the due discharge of your duties. When people get into the habit of
+sitting up <i>merely for the purpose <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>of talking</i>, it is no easy matter to
+break themselves of it: and if they do not go to bed early, they cannot
+rise early. Young people require more sleep than those that are grown
+up: there must be the number of hours, and that number cannot well be,
+on an average, less than <i>eight</i>: and, if it be more in winter time, it
+is all the better; for, an hour in bed is better than an hour spent over
+fire and candle in an idle gossip. People never should sit talking till
+they do not know what to talk about. It is said by the country-people,
+that one hour's sleep before midnight is worth more than two are worth
+after midnight, and this I believe to be a fact; but it is useless to go
+to bed early and even to rise early, if the time be not well employed
+after rising. In general, half the morning is <i>loitered</i> away, the party
+being in a sort of half-dressed half-naked state; out of bed, indeed,
+but still in a sort of bedding. Those who first invented <i>morning-gowns</i>
+and <i>slippers</i> could have very little else to do. These things are very
+suitable to those who have had fortunes gained for them by others; very
+suitable to those who have nothing to do, and who merely live for the
+purpose of assisting to consume the produce of the earth; but he who has
+his bread to earn, or who means to be worthy of respect on account of
+his labours, has no business with morning gown and slippers. In short,
+be your business or calling what it may, <i>dress at once for the day</i>;
+and learn to do it <i>as quickly</i> as possible. A looking-glass is a piece
+of furniture a great deal worse than useless. <i>Looking</i> at the face will
+not alter its shape or its colour; and, perhaps, of all wasted time;
+none is so foolishly wasted as that which is employed in surveying one's
+own face. Nothing can be of <i>little</i> importance, if one be compelled to
+attend to it <i>every day of our lives</i>; if we <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a><i>shaved</i> but once a year,
+or once a month, the execution of the thing would be hardly worth
+naming: but this is a piece of work that must be done once every day;
+and, as it may cost only about <i>five minutes</i> of time, and may be, and
+frequently is, made to cost <i>thirty</i>, or even <i>fifty minutes</i>; and, as
+only fifteen minutes make about a fifty-eighth part of the hours of our
+average day-light; this being the case, this is a matter of real
+importance. I once heard SIR JOHN SINCLAIR ask Mr. COCHRANE JOHNSTONE,
+whether he meaned to have a son of his (then a little boy) taught Latin.
+'No,' said Mr. JOHNSTONE, 'but I mean to do something a great deal
+better for him.' 'What is that?' said Sir John. 'Why,' said the other,
+'teach him <i>to shave with cold water and without a glass</i>.' Which, I
+dare say, he did; and for which benefit I am sure that son has had good
+reason to be grateful. Only think of the inconvenience attending the
+common practice! There must be <i>hot water</i>; to have this there must be
+<i>a fire</i>, and, in some cases, a fire for that purpose alone; to have
+these, there must be a <i>servant</i>, or you must light a fire yourself. For
+the want of these, the job is put off until a later hour: this causes a
+stripping and <i>another dressing bout</i>; or, you go in a slovenly state
+all that day, and the next day the thing must be done, or cleanliness
+must be abandoned altogether. If you be on a journey you must wait the
+pleasure of the servants at the inn before you can dress and set out in
+the morning; the pleasant time for travelling is gone before you can
+move from the spot; instead of being at the end of your day's journey in
+good time, you are benighted, and have to endure all the great
+inconveniences attendant on tardy movements. And, all this, from the
+apparently insignificant affair of shaving! How many a piece of
+important busi<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>ness has failed from a short delay! And how many thousand
+of such delays daily proceed from this unworthy cause! '<i>Toujours pr&ecirc;t</i>'
+was the motto of a famous French general; and pray let it be yours: be
+'<i>always ready</i>;' and never, during your whole life, have to say, '<i>I
+cannot go till I be shaved and dressed</i>.' Do the whole at once for the
+day, whatever may be your state of life; and then you have a day
+unbroken by those indispensable performances. Begin thus, in the days of
+your youth, and, having felt the superiority which this practice will
+give you over those in all other respects your equals, the practice will
+stick by you to the end of your life. Till you be shaved and dressed for
+the day, you cannot set steadily about any business; you know that you
+must presently quit your labour to return to the dressing affair; you,
+therefore, put it off until that be over; the interval, the precious
+interval, is spent in lounging about; and, by the time that you are
+ready for business, the best part of the day is gone.</p>
+
+<p>39. Trifling as this matter appears upon <i>naming</i> it, it is, in fact,
+one of the great concerns of life; and, for my part, I can truly say,
+that I owe more of my great labours to my strict adherence to the
+precepts that I have here given you, than to all the natural abilities
+with which I have been endowed; for these, whatever may have been their
+amount, would have been of comparatively little use, even aided by great
+sobriety and abstinence, if I had not, in early life, contracted the
+blessed habit of husbanding well my time. To this, more than to any
+other thing, I owed my very extraordinary promotion in the army. I was
+<i>always ready</i>: if I had to mount guard at <i>ten</i>, I was ready at <i>nine</i>:
+never did any man, or any thing, wait one moment <a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>for me. Being, at an
+age <i>under twenty years</i>, raised from Corporal to Serjeant Major <i>at
+once</i>, over the heads of thirty Serjeants, I naturally should have been
+an object of envy and hatred; but this habit of early rising and of
+rigid adherence to the precepts which I have given you, really subdued
+these passions; because every one felt, that what I did he had never
+done, and never could do. Before my promotion, a clerk was wanted to
+make out the morning report of the regiment. I rendered the clerk
+unnecessary; and, long before any other man was dressed for the parade,
+my work for the morning was all done, and I myself was on the parade,
+walking, in fine weather, for an hour perhaps. My custom was this: to
+get up, in summer, at day-light, and in winter at four o'clock; shave,
+dress, even to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and having
+my sword lying on the table before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I
+ate a bit of cheese, or pork, and bread. Then I prepared my report,
+which was filled up as fast as the companies brought me in the
+materials. After this I had an hour or two to read, before the time came
+for any duty out of doors, unless when the regiment or part of it went
+out to exercise in the morning. When this was the case, and the matter
+was left to me, I always had it on the ground in such time as that the
+bayonets glistened in the <i>rising sun</i>, a sight which gave me delight,
+of which I often think, but which I should in vain endeavour to
+describe. If the <i>officers</i> were to go out, eight or ten o'clock was the
+hour, sweating the men in the heat of the day, breaking in upon the time
+for cooking their dinner, putting all things out of order and all men
+out of humour. When I was commander, the men had a long day of leisure
+before them: they could ramble into the town or into the woods; go <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>to
+get raspberries, to catch birds, to catch fish, or to pursue any other
+recreation, and such of them as chose, and were qualified, to work at
+their trades. So that here, arising solely from the early habits of one
+very young man, were pleasant and happy days given to hundreds.</p>
+
+<p>40. <i>Money</i> is said to be <i>power</i>, which is, in some cases, true; and
+the same may be said of <i>knowledge</i>; but superior <i>sobriety</i>, <i>industry</i>
+and <i>activity</i>, are a still more certain source of power; for without
+these, <i>knowledge</i> is of little use; and, as to the power which <i>money</i>
+gives, it is that of <i>brute force</i>, it is the power of the bludgeon and
+the bayonet, and of the bribed press, tongue and pen. Superior sobriety,
+industry, activity, though accompanied with but a moderate portion of
+knowledge, command respect, because they have great and visible
+influence. The drunken, the lazy, and the inert, stand abashed before
+the sober and the active. Besides, all those whose interests are at
+stake prefer, of necessity, those whose exertions produce the greatest
+and most immediate and visible effect. Self-interest is no respecter of
+persons: it asks, not who knows best what ought to be done, but who is
+most likely to do it: we may, and often do, admire the talents of lazy,
+and even dissipated men, but we do not trust them with the care of our
+interests. If, therefore, you would have respect and influence in the
+circle in which you move, be more sober, more industrious, more active
+than the general run of those amongst whom you live.</p>
+
+<p>41. As to EDUCATION, this word is now applied exclusively to things
+which are taught in schools; but <i>education</i> means <i>rearing up</i>, and the
+French speak of the education of <i>pigs</i> and <i>sheep</i>. In a very famous
+French book on rural affairs, there is a <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>Chapter entitled '<i>Education
+du Cochon</i>,' that is, <i>education of the hog</i>. The word has the same
+meaning in both languages; for both take it from the Latin. Neither is
+the word LEARNING properly confined to things taught in schools, or by
+books; for, <i>learning</i> means <i>knowledge</i>; and, but a comparatively small
+part of useful knowledge comes from books. Men are not to be called
+<i>ignorant</i> merely because they cannot make upon paper certain marks with
+a pen, or because they do not know the meaning of such marks when made
+by others. A ploughman may be very <i>learned</i> in his line, though he does
+not know what the letters <i>p. l. o. u. g. h</i> mean when he sees them
+combined upon paper. The first thing to be required of a man is, that he
+understand well his own <i>calling</i>, or <i>profession</i>; and, be you in what
+state of life you may, to acquire this knowledge ought to be your first
+and greatest care. A man who has had a new-built house tumble down will
+derive little more consolation from being told that the architect is a
+great astronomer, than this distressed nation now derives from being
+assured that its distresses arise from the measures of a long list of
+the greatest orators and greatest heroes that the world ever beheld.</p>
+
+<p>42. Nevertheless, book-learning is by no means to be despised; and it is
+a thing which may be laudably sought after by persons in all states of
+life. In those pursuits which are called <i>professions</i>, it is necessary,
+and also in certain trades; and, in persons in the middle ranks of life,
+a total absence of such learning is somewhat disgraceful. There is,
+however, one danger to be carefully guarded against; namely, the opinion
+that your genius, or your literary acquirements, are such as to warrant
+you in disregarding the calling in which you are, and by which you gain
+<a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>your bread. Parents must have an uncommon portion of solid sense to
+counterbalance their natural affection sufficiently to make them
+competent judges in such a case. Friends are partial; and those who are
+not, you deem enemies. Stick, therefore, to <i>the shop; </i>rely upon your
+mercantile or mechanical or professional calling; try your strength in
+literature, if you like; but, <i>rely</i> on the shop. If BLOOMFIELD, who
+wrote a poem called the FARMER'S BOY, had placed no <i>reliance</i> on the
+faithless muses, his unfortunate and much-to-be-pitied family would, in
+all probability, have not been in a state to solicit relief from
+charity. I remember that this loyal shoemaker was flattered to the
+skies, and (ominous sign, if he had understood it) feasted at the tables
+of some of the great. Have, I beseech you, no hope of this sort; and, if
+you find it creeping towards your heart, drive it instantly away as the
+mortal foe of your independence and your peace.</p>
+
+<p>43. With this precaution, however, book-learning is not only proper, but
+highly commendable; and portions of it are absolutely necessary in every
+case of trade or profession. One of these portions is distinct reading,
+plain and neat writing, and <i>arithmetic</i>. The two former are mere
+child's work; the latter not quite so easily acquired, but equally
+indispensable, and of it you ought to have a thorough knowledge before
+you attempt to study even the grammar of your own language. Arithmetic
+is soon learned; it is not a thing that requires much natural talent; it
+is not a thing that loads the memory or puzzles the mind; and it is a
+thing of <i>every-day utility</i>. Therefore, this is, to a certain extent,
+an absolute necessary; an indispensable acquisition. Every man is not to
+be a <i>surveyor</i> or an <i>actuary</i>; and, therefore, you may stop far short
+of the knowledge, of this sort, which is <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>demanded by these professions;
+but, as far as common accounts and calculations go, you ought to be
+perfect; and this you may make yourself, without any assistance from a
+master, by bestowing upon this science, during six months, only one half
+of the time that is, by persons of your age, usually wasted over the
+tea-slops, or other kettle-slops, alone! If you become <i>fond</i> of this
+science, there may be a little danger of wasting your time on it. When,
+therefore, you have got as much of it as your business or profession can
+possibly render necessary, turn the time to some other purpose. As to
+<i>books</i>, on this subject, they are in everybody's hand; but, there is
+<i>one book</i> on the subject of calculations, which I must point out to
+you; 'THE CAMBIST,' by Dr. KELLY. This is a bad title, because, to men
+in general, it gives no idea of what the book treats of. It is a book
+which shows the value of the several pieces of money of one country when
+stated in the money of another country. For instance, it tells us what a
+Spanish Dollar, a Dutch Dollar, a French Frank, and so on, is worth in
+English money. It does the same with regard to <i>weights</i> and <i>measures</i>:
+and it extends its information to <i>all the countries in the world</i>. It is
+a work of rare merit; and every youth, be his state of life what it may,
+if it permit him to pursue book-learning of any sort, and particularly
+if he be destined, or at all likely to meddle with commercial matters,
+ought, as soon as convenient, to possess this valuable and instructive
+book.</p>
+
+<p>44. The next thing is the GRAMMAR of your own language. Without
+understanding this, you can never hope to become fit for anything beyond
+mere trade or agriculture. It is true, that we do (God knows!) but too
+often see men have great wealth, high titles, and boundless power heaped
+upon them, <a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>who can hardly write ten lines together correctly; but,
+remember, it is not <i>merit</i> that has been the cause of their
+advancement; the cause has been, in almost every such case, the
+subserviency of the party to the will of some government, and the
+baseness of some nation who have quietly submitted to be governed by
+brazen fools. Do not you imagine, that you will have luck of this sort:
+do not you hope to be rewarded and honoured for that ignorance which
+shall prove a scourge to your country, and which will earn you the
+curses of the children yet unborn. Rely you upon your merit, and upon
+nothing else. Without a knowledge of grammar, it is impossible for you
+to write correctly, and it is by mere accident if you speak correctly;
+and, pray bear in mind, that all well-informed persons judge of a man's
+mind (until they have other means of judging) by his writing or
+speaking. The labour necessary to acquire this knowledge is, indeed, not
+trifling: grammar is not, like arithmetic, a science consisting of
+several distinct departments, some of which may be dispensed with: it is
+a whole, and the whole must be learned, or no part is learned. The
+subject is abstruse: it demands much reflection and much patience: but,
+when once the task is performed, it is performed <i>for life</i>, and in
+every day of that life it will be found to be, in a greater or less
+degree, a source of pleasure or of profit or of both together. And, what
+is the labour? It consists of no bodily exertion; it exposes the student
+to no cold, no hunger, no suffering of any sort. The study need subtract
+from the hours of no business, nor, indeed, from the hours of necessary
+exercise: the hours usually spent on the tea and coffee slops and in the
+mere gossip which accompany them; those wasted hours of only <i>one year</i>,
+employed in the study of English grammar, would make you a correct
+speaker <a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>and writer for the rest of your life. You want no school, no
+room to study in, no expenses, and no troublesome circumstances of any
+sort. I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of
+sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my
+seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit of board, lying on
+my lap, was my writing-table; and the task did not demand any thing like
+a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in
+winter-time it was rarely that I could get any evening-light but that of
+<i>the fire</i>, and only my <i>turn</i> even of that. And if I, under such
+circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or encourage me,
+accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there be for <i>any youth</i>,
+however poor, however pressed with business, or however circumstanced as
+to room or other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was
+compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state of
+half-starvation; I had no moment of time that I could call my own; and I
+had to read and to write amidst the talking, laughing, singing,
+whistling and brawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless
+of men, and that too in the hours of their freedom from all control.
+Think not lightly of the <i>farthing</i> that I had to give, now and then,
+for ink, pen, or paper! That farthing was, alas! a <i>great sum</i> to me! I
+was as tall as I am now; I had great health and great exercise. The
+whole of the money, not expended for us at market, was <i>two-pence a
+week</i> for each man. I remember, and well I may! that upon one occasion
+I, after all absolutely necessary expenses, had, on a Friday, made shift
+to have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of
+a <i>red-herring</i> in the morning; but, when I pulled off my clothes at
+night, so hungry then as to <a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>be hardly able to endure life, I found that
+I had <i>lost my halfpenny</i>! I buried my head under the miserable sheet
+and rug, and cried like a child! And, again I say, if I, under
+circumstances like these, could encounter and overcome this task, is
+there, can there be, in the whole world, a youth to find an excuse for
+the non-performance? What youth, who shall read this, will not be
+ashamed to say, that he is not able to find time and opportunity for
+this most essential of all the branches of book-learning?</p>
+
+<p>45. I press this matter with such earnestness, because a knowledge of
+grammar is the foundation of all literature; and because without this
+knowledge opportunities for writing and speaking are only occasions for
+men to display their unfitness to write and speak. How many false
+pretenders to erudition, have I exposed to shame merely by my knowledge
+of grammar! How many of the insolent and ignorant great and powerful
+have I pulled down and made little and despicable! And, with what ease
+have I conveyed upon numerous important subjects, information and
+instruction to millions now alive, and provided a store of both for
+millions yet unborn! As to the course to be pursued in this great
+undertaking, it is, first, to read the grammar from the first word to
+the last, very attentively, several times over; then, to copy the whole
+of it very correctly and neatly; and then to study the Chapters one by
+one. And what do this reading and writing require as to time? Both
+together not more than the tea-slops and their gossips for <i>three
+months</i>! There are about three hundred pages in my English Grammar. Four
+of those little pages in a day, which is a mere trifle of work, do the
+thing in <i>three months</i>. Two hours a day are quite sufficient for the
+purpose; and these may, in any <i>town</i> that I have ever known, or in any
+<a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>village, be taken from that part of the morning during which the main
+part of the people are in bed. I do not like the evening-candle-light
+work: it wears the eyes much more than the same sort of light in the
+morning, because then the faculties are in vigour and wholly
+unexhausted. But for this purpose there is sufficient of that day-light
+which is usually wasted; usually gossipped or lounged away; or spent in
+some other manner productive of no pleasure, and generally producing
+pain in the end. It is very becoming in all persons, and particularly in
+the young, to be civil, and even polite: but it becomes neither young
+nor old to have an everlasting simper on their faces, and their bodies
+sawing in an everlasting bow: and, how many youths have I seen who, if
+they had spent, in the learning of grammar, a tenth part of the time
+that they have consumed in earning merited contempt for their affected
+gentility, would have laid the foundation of sincere respect towards
+them for the whole of their lives!</p>
+
+<p>46. <i>Perseverance</i> is a prime quality in every pursuit, and particularly
+in this. Yours is, too, the time of life to acquire this inestimable
+habit. Men fail much oftener from want of perseverance than from want of
+talent and of good disposition: as the race was not to the hare but to
+the tortoise, so the meed of success in study is to him who is not in
+haste, but to him who proceeds with a steady and even step. It is not to
+a want of taste or of desire or of disposition to learn that we have to
+ascribe the rareness of good scholars, so much as to the want of patient
+perseverance. Grammar is a branch of knowledge; like all other things of
+high value, it is of difficult acquirement: the study is dry; the
+subject is intricate; it engages not the passions; and, if the <i>great
+end</i> be not kept constantly in view; if you <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>lose, for a moment, sight
+of the <i>ample reward</i>, indifference begins, that is followed by
+weariness, and disgust and despair close the book. To guard against this
+result be not in <i>haste</i>; keep <i>steadily on</i>; and, when you find
+weariness approaching, rouse yourself, and remember, that if you give
+up, all that you have done has been done in vain. This is a matter of
+great moment; for out of every ten, who undertake this task, there are,
+perhaps, nine who abandon it in despair; and this, too, merely for the
+want of resolution to overcome the first approaches of weariness. The
+most effectual means of security against this mortifying result is to
+lay down a rule to write or to read a certain fixed quantity <i>every
+day</i>, Sunday excepted. Our minds are not always in the same state; they
+have not, at all times, the same elasticity; to-day we are full of hope
+on the very same grounds which, to-morrow, afford us no hope at all:
+every human being is liable to those flows and ebbs of the mind; but, if
+reason interfere, and bid you <i>overcome the fits of lassitude</i>, and
+almost mechanically to go on without the stimulus of hope, the buoyant
+fit speedily returns; you congratulate yourself that you did not yield
+to the temptation to abandon your pursuit, and you proceed with more
+vigour than ever. Five or six triumphs over temptation to indolence or
+despair lay the foundation of certain success; and, what is of still
+more importance, fix in you the <i>habit of perseverance</i>.</p>
+
+<p>47. If I have bestowed a large portion of my space on this topic, it has
+been because I know, from experience as well as from observation, that
+it is of more importance than all the other branches of book-learning
+put together. It gives you, when you possess it thoroughly, a real and
+practical superiority over the far greater part of men. How often did I
+ex<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>perience this even long before I became what is called an author! The
+<i>Adjutant</i>, under whom it was my duty to act when I was a Serjeant
+Major, was, as almost all military officers are, or at least <i>were</i>, a
+very illiterate man, perceiving that every sentence of mine was in the
+same form and manner as sentences in <i>print</i>, became shy of letting me
+see pieces of <i>his</i> writing. The writing of <i>orders</i>, and other things,
+therefore, fell to me; and thus, though no nominal addition was made to
+my pay, and no nominal addition to my authority, I acquired the latter
+as effectually as if a law had been passed to confer it upon me. In
+short, I owe to the possession of this branch of knowledge everything
+that has enabled me to do so many things that very few other men have
+done, and that now gives me a degree of influence, such as is possessed
+by few others, in the most weighty concerns of the country. The
+possession of this branch of knowledge raises you in your own esteem,
+gives just confidence in yourself, and prevents you from being the
+willing slave of the rich and the titled part of the community. It
+enables you to discover that riches and titles do not confer merit; you
+think comparatively little of them; and, as far as relates to you, at
+any rate, their insolence is innoxious.</p>
+
+<p>48. Hoping that I have said enough to induce you to set resolutely about
+the study of <i>grammar</i>, I might here leave the subject of <i>learning</i>;
+arithmetic and grammar, both <i>well learned</i>, being as much as I could
+wish in a mere youth. But these need not occupy the whole of your spare
+time; and, there are other branches of learning which ought immediately
+to follow. If your own calling or profession require book-study, books
+treating of that are to be preferred to all others; for, the first
+thing, the first object in <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>life, is to secure the honest means of
+obtaining sustenance, raiment, and a state of being suitable to your
+rank, be that rank what it may: excellence in your own calling is,
+therefore, the first thing to be aimed at. After this may come <i>general
+knowledge</i>, and of this, the first is a thorough knowledge of <i>your own
+country</i>; for, how ridiculous is it to see an English youth engaged in
+reading about the customs of the Chinese or of the Hindoos, while he is
+content to be totally ignorant of those of Kent or of Cornwall! Well
+employed he must be in ascertaining how Greece was divided and how the
+Romans parcelled out their territory, while he knows not, and apparently
+does not want to know, how England came to be divided into counties,
+hundreds, parishes and tithings.</p>
+
+<p>49. GEOGRAPHY naturally follows Grammar; and you should begin with that
+of this kingdom, which you ought to understand well, perfectly well,
+before you venture to look abroad. A rather slight knowledge of the
+divisions and customs of other countries is, generally speaking,
+sufficient; but, not to know these full well, as far as relates to our
+own country, is, in one who pretends to be a gentleman or a scholar,
+somewhat disgraceful. Yet how many men are there, and those called
+<i>gentlemen</i> too, who seem to think that counties and parishes, and
+churches and parsons, and tithes and glebes, and manors and courts-leet,
+and paupers and poor-houses, all grew up in England, or dropped down
+upon it, immediately after Noah's flood! Surely, it is necessary for
+every man, having any pretensions to scholarship, to know <i>how these
+things came</i>; and, the sooner this knowledge is acquired the better;
+for, until it be acquired, you read the <i>history</i> of your country in
+vain. Indeed, to communicate this knowledge is one main part of the
+<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>business of history; but it is a part which no historian, commonly so
+called, has, that I know of, ever yet performed, except, in part,
+myself, in the History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION. I had read HUME'S
+History of England, and the Continuation by SMOLLETT; but, in 1802, when
+I wanted to write on the subject of the <i>non-residence of the clergy</i>, I
+found, to my great mortification, that I knew nothing of the foundation
+of the office and the claims of the parsons, and that I could not even
+guess at the <i>origin of parishes</i>. This gave a new turn to my inquiries;
+and I soon found the romancers, called historians, had given me no
+information that I could rely on, and, besides, had done, apparently,
+all they could to keep me in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>50. When you come to HISTORY, begin also with that <i>of your own
+country</i>; and here it is my bounden duty to put you <i>well on your
+guard</i>; for in this respect we are <i>peculiarly</i> unfortunate, and for the
+following reasons, to which I beg you to attend. Three <i>hundred years
+ago</i>, the religion of England had been, during <i>nine hundred years</i>, the
+Catholic religion: the Catholic clergy possessed about a third part of
+all the lands and houses, which they held <i>in trust</i> for their own
+support, for the <i>building and repairing of churches</i>, and for the
+relief of the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger; but, at the
+time just mentioned, the king and the aristocracy changed the religion
+to <i>Protestant</i>, took the estates of the church and the poor <i>to
+themselves as their own property</i>, and <i>taxed the people at large</i> for
+the building and repairing of churches and for the relief of the poor.
+This great and terrible change, effected partly by force against the
+people and partly by the most artful means of deception, gave rise to a
+series of efforts, which has been continued from that day <i>to <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>this</i>, to
+cause us all to believe, <i>that that change was for the better</i>, that it
+was for <i>our good</i>; and that, <i>before that time</i>, our forefathers were a
+set of the most miserable slaves that the sun ever warmed with his
+beams. It happened, too, that the <i>art of printing</i> was not discovered,
+or, at least, it was very little understood, until about the time when
+this change took place; so that the books relating to former times were
+confined to manuscript; and, besides, even these manuscript libraries
+were destroyed with great care by those who had made the change and had
+grasped the property of the poor and the church. Our '<i>Historians</i>,' as
+they are called, have written under <i>fear</i> of the powerful, or have been
+<i>bribed</i> by them; and, generally speaking, both at the same time; and,
+accordingly, their works are, as far as they relate to former times,
+masses of lies unmatched by any others that the world has ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>51. The great object of these lies always has been to make the main body
+of the people believe, that the nation is now more happy, more populous,
+more powerful, <i>than it was before it was Protestant</i>, and thereby to
+induce us to conclude, that it was <i>a good thing for us</i> that the
+aristocracy should take to themselves the property of the poor and the
+church, and make the people at large <i>pay taxes for the support of
+both</i>. This has been, and still is, the great object of all those heaps
+of lies; and those lies are continually spread about amongst us in all
+forms of publication, from heavy folios down to halfpenny tracts. In
+refutation of those lies we have only very few and rare ancient books to
+refer to, and their information is incidental, seeing that their authors
+never dreamed of the possibility of the lying generations which were to
+come. We have the ancient acts of parliament, the common-law, the
+customs, the canons of the <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>church, and <i>the churches themselves</i>; but
+these demand <i>analyses</i> and <i>argument</i>, and they demand also a <i>really
+free press</i>, and <i>unprejudiced and patient readers</i>. Never in this
+world, before, had truth to struggle with so many and such great
+disadvantages!</p>
+
+<p>52. To refute lies is not, at present, my business; but it is my
+business to give you, in as small a compass as possible, one striking
+proof that they are lies; and thereby to put you well upon your guard
+for the whole of the rest of your life. The opinion sedulously
+inculcated by these '<i>historians</i>' is this; that, before the
+<i>Protestant</i> times came, England was, comparatively, an insignificant
+country, <i>having few people in it, and those few wretchedly poor and
+miserable</i>. Now, take the following <i>undeniable facts</i>. All the parishes
+in England are now (except where they have been <i>united</i>, and two,
+three, or four, have been made into one) in point of <i>size</i>, what they
+were <i>a thousand years ago</i>. The county of Norfolk is the best
+cultivated of any one in England. This county has <i>now</i> 731 parishes;
+and the number was formerly greater. Of these parishes 22 <i>have now no
+churches at all</i>; 74 contain less than 100 souls each: and 268 have <i>no
+parsonage-houses</i>. Now, observe, every parish had, in old times, a
+church and a parsonage-house. The county contains 2,092 square miles;
+that is to say, something less than 3 square miles to each parish, and
+that is 1,920 statute acres of land; and the <i>size</i> of each parish is,
+on an average, that of a piece of ground about one mile and a half each
+way; so that the churches are, even now, on an average, only about <i>a
+mile and a half from each other</i>. Now, the questions for you to put to
+yourself are these: Were churches formerly built and kept up <i>without
+being wanted</i>, and especially by a poor and miserable people? Did these
+miserable people build 74 churches out of <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>731, each of which 74 had not
+a hundred souls belonging to it? Is it a sign of an augmented
+population, that 22 churches out of 731 have tumbled down and been
+effaced? Was it a country <i>thinly</i> inhabited by miserable people that
+could build and keep a church in every piece of ground a mile and a half
+each way, besides having, in this same county, 77 monastic
+establishments and 142 free chapels? Is it a sign of augmented
+population, ease and plenty, that, out of 731 parishes, 268 have
+suffered the parsonage houses to fall into ruins, and their sites to
+become patches of nettles and of brambles? Put these questions calmly to
+yourself: common sense will dictate the answers; and truth will call for
+an expression of your indignation against the lying historians and the
+still more lying population-mongers.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_II" id="LETTER_II"></a><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54" ></a>LETTER II</h2>
+
+<h2>TO A YOUNG MAN</h2>
+
+<p>53. In the foregoing Letter, I have given my advice to a Youth. In
+addressing myself to you, I am to presume that you have entered upon
+your present stage of life, having acted upon the precepts contained in
+that letter; and that, of course, you are a sober, abstinent,
+industrious and well-informed young man. In the succeeding letters,
+which will be addressed to the <i>Lover</i>, the <i>Husband</i>, the <i>Father</i> and
+the <i>Citizen</i>, I shall, of course, have to include my notion of your
+duties as a <i>master</i>, and as a person employed by <i>another</i>. In the
+present letter, therefore, I shall confine myself principally to the
+conduct of a young man with regard to the management of his means, or
+money.</p>
+
+<p>54. Be you in what line of life you may, it will be amongst your
+misfortunes if you have not time properly to attend to this matter; for
+it very frequently happens, it has happened to thousands upon thousands,
+not only to be ruined, according to the common acceptation of the word;
+not only to be made poor, and to suffer from poverty, in consequence of
+want of attention to pecuniary matters; but it has frequently, and even
+generally, happened, that a want of attention to these matters has
+impeded the progress of science, and of genius itself. A man, oppressed
+with pecuniary cares and dangers, must be next to a miracle, if he have
+his mind in a state fit <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>for intellectual labours; to say nothing of the
+temptations, arising from such distress, to abandon good principles, to
+suppress useful opinions and useful facts; and, in short, to become a
+disgrace to his kindred, and an evil to his country, instead of being an
+honour to the former and a blessing to the latter. To be poor and
+independent, is very nearly an impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>55. But, then, poverty is not a positive, but a relative term. BURKE
+observed, and very truly, that a labourer who earned a sufficiency to
+maintain him as a labourer, and to maintain him in a suitable manner; to
+give him a sufficiency of good food, of clothing, of lodging, and of
+fuel, ought not to be called <i>a poor man</i>; for that, though he had
+little riches, though his, <i>compared</i> with that of a lord, was a state
+of poverty, it was not a state of poverty in itself. When, therefore, I
+say that poverty is the cause of a depression of spirit, of inactivity
+and of servility in men of literary talent, I must say, at the same
+time, that the evil arises from their own fault; from their having
+created for themselves imaginary wants; from their having indulged in
+unnecessary enjoyments, and from their having caused that to be poverty,
+which would not have been poverty, if they had been moderate in their
+enjoyments.</p>
+
+<p>56. As it may be your lot (such has been mine) to live by your literary
+talent, I will here, before I proceed to matter more applicable to
+persons in other states of life, observe, that I cannot form an idea of
+a mortal more wretched than a man of real talent, compelled to curb his
+genius, and to submit himself in the exercise of that genius, to those
+whom he knows to be far inferior to himself, and whom he must despise
+from the bottom of his soul. The late Mr. WILLIAM GIFFORD, who was the
+son of a shoe<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>maker at ASHBURTON in Devonshire; who was put to school
+and sent to the university at the expense of a generous and good
+clergyman of the name of COOKSON, and who died, the other day, a sort of
+whipper-in of MURRAY'S QUARTERLY REVIEW; this was a man of real genius;
+and, to my certain personal knowledge, he detested, from the bottom of
+his soul, the whole of the paper-money and Boroughmongering system, and
+despised those by whom the system was carried on. But, he had imaginary
+wants; he had been bred up in company with the rich and the extravagant;
+expensive indulgences had been made necessary to him by habit; and, when
+in the year 1798, or thereabouts, he had to choose between a bit of
+bacon, a scrag of mutton, and a lodging at ten shillings a week, on the
+one side, and made-dishes, wine, a fine house and a footman on the other
+side, he chose the latter. He became the servile Editor of CANNING'S
+Anti-jacobin newspaper; and he, who had more wit and learning than all
+the rest of the writers put together, became the miserable tool in
+circulating their attacks upon everything that was hostile to a system
+which he deplored and detested. But he secured the made-dishes, the
+wine, the footman and the coachman. A sinecure as '<i>clerk of the Foreign
+Estreats</i>,' gave him 329<i>l.</i> a year, a double commissionership of the
+lottery gave him 600<i>l.</i> or 700<i>l.</i> more; and, at a later period, his
+Editorship of the Quarterly Review gave him perhaps as much more. He
+rolled in his carriage for several years; he fared sumptuously; he was
+buried at <i>Westminster Abbey</i>, of which his friend and formerly his
+brother pamphleteer in defence of PITT was the <i>Dean</i>; and never is he
+to be heard of more! Mr. GIFFORD would have been full as happy; his
+health would have been better, his life longer, and his name would have
+<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>lived for ages, if he could have turned to the bit of bacon and scrag
+of mutton in 1798; for his learning and talents were such, his
+reasonings so clear and conclusive, and his wit so pointed and keen,
+that his writings must have been generally read, must have been of long
+duration! and, indeed, must have enabled him (he being always a single
+man) to live in his latter days in as good style as that which he
+procured by becoming a sinecurist, a pensioner and a <i>hack</i>, all which
+he was from the moment he lent himself to the Quarterly Review. Think of
+the mortification of such a man, when he was called upon to justify the
+power-of-imprisonment bill in 1817! But to go into particulars would be
+tedious: his life was a life of luxurious misery, than which a worse is
+not to be imagined.</p>
+
+<p>57. So that poverty is, except where there is an actual want of food and
+raiment, a thing much more imaginary than real. <i>The shame of poverty</i>,
+the shame of being thought poor, is a great and fatal weakness, though
+arising, in this country, from the fashion of the times themselves. When
+a <i>good man</i>, as in the phraseology of the city, means a <i>rich man</i>, we
+are not to wonder that every one wishes to be thought richer than he is.
+When adulation is sure to follow wealth, and when contempt would be
+awarded to many if they were not wealthy, who are spoken of with
+deference, and even lauded to the skies, because their riches are great
+and notorious; when this is the case, we are not to be surprised that
+men are ashamed to be thought to be poor. This is one of the greatest of
+all the dangers at the outset of life: it has brought thousands and
+hundreds of thousands to ruin, even to <i>pecuniary</i> ruin. One of the most
+amiable features in the character of American society is this; that men
+never boast of <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>their riches, and never disguise their poverty; but they
+talk of both as of any other matter fit for public conversation. No man
+shuns another because he is poor: no man is preferred to another because
+he is rich. In hundreds and hundreds of instances, men, not worth a
+shilling, have been chosen by the people and entrusted with their rights
+and interests, in preference to men who ride in their carriages.</p>
+
+<p>58. This shame of being thought poor, is not only dishonourable in
+itself, and fatally injurious to men of talent; but it is ruinous even
+in a <i>pecuniary</i> point of view, and equally destructive to farmers,
+traders, and even gentlemen of landed estate. It leads to everlasting
+efforts to <i>disguise one's poverty</i>: the carriage, the servants, the
+wine, (oh, that fatal wine!) the spirits, the decanters, the glasses,
+all the table apparatus, the dress, the horses, the dinners, the
+parties, all must be kept up; not so much because he or she who keeps or
+gives them, has any pleasure arising therefrom, as because not to keep
+and give them, would give rise to a suspicion <i>of the want of means</i> so
+to give and keep; and thus thousands upon thousands are yearly brought
+into a state of real poverty by their great <i>anxiety not to be thought
+poor</i>. Look round you, mark well what you behold, and say if this be not
+the case. In how many instances have you seen most amiable and even most
+industrious families brought to ruin by nothing but this! Mark it well;
+resolve to set this false shame at defiance, and when you have done
+that, you have laid the first stone of the surest foundation of your
+future tranquillity of mind. There are thousands of families, at this
+very moment, who are thus struggling to keep up appearances. The farmers
+accommodate themselves to circumstances more easily than tradesmen and
+professional men. They live at a <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>greater distance from their
+neighbours: they can change their style of living unperceived: they can
+banish the decanter, change the dishes for a bit of bacon, make a treat
+out of a rasher and eggs, and the world is none the wiser all the while.
+But the tradesman, the doctor, the attorney, and the trader, cannot make
+the change so quietly, and unseen. The accursed wine, which is a sort of
+criterion of the style of living, a sort of <i>scale</i> to the <i>plan</i>, a
+sort of <i>key</i> to the <i>tune</i>; this is the thing to banish first of all;
+because all the rest follow, and come down to their proper level in a
+short time. The accursed decanter cries footman or waiting maid, puts
+bells to the side of the wall, screams aloud for carpets; and when I am
+asked, 'Lord, <i>what</i> is a glass of wine?' my answer is, that, in this
+country, it is <i>everything</i>; it is the pitcher of the key; it demands
+all the other unnecessary expenses; it is injurious to health, and must
+be injurious, every bottle of wine that is drunk containing a certain
+portion of ardent spirits, besides other drugs deleterious in their
+nature; and, of all the friends to the doctors, this fashionable
+beverage is the greatest. And, which adds greatly to the folly, or, I
+should say, the real vice of using it, is, that the parties themselves,
+nine times out of ten, do not drink it by <i>choice</i>; do not like it; do
+not relish it; but use it from mere ostentation, being ashamed to be
+seen even by their own servants, not to drink wine. At the very moment I
+am writing this, there are thousands of families in and near London, who
+daily have wine upon their tables, and who <i>drink</i> it too, merely
+because their own servants should not suspect them to be poor, and not
+deem them to be genteel; and thus families by thousands are ruined, only
+because they are ashamed to be thought poor.</p>
+
+<p>59. There is no shame belonging to poverty, which <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>frequently arises
+from the virtues of the impoverished parties. Not so frequently, indeed,
+as from vice, folly, and indiscretion; but still very frequently. And as
+the Scripture tells us, that we are not to 'despise the poor <i>because</i>
+he is poor'; so we ought not to honour the rich because he is rich. The
+true way is, to take a fair survey of the character of a man as depicted
+in his conduct, and to respect him, or despise him, according to a due
+estimate of that character. No country upon earth exhibits so many, as
+this, of those fatal terminations of life, called suicides. These arise,
+in nine instances out of ten, from this very source. The victims are, in
+general, what may be fairly called insane; but their insanity almost
+always arises from the dread of poverty; not from the dread of a want of
+the means of sustaining life, or even decent living, but from the dread
+of being thought or known to be poor; from the dread of what is called
+falling in the scale of society; a dread which is prevalent hardly in
+any country but this. Looked at in its true light, what is there in
+poverty to make a man take away his own life? he is the same man that he
+was before: he has the same body and the same mind: if he even foresee a
+great alteration in his dress or his diet, why should he kill himself on
+that account? Are these all the things that a man wishes to live for?
+But, such is the fact; so great is the disgrace upon this country, and
+so numerous and terrible are the evils arising from this dread of being
+thought to be poor.</p>
+
+<p>60. Nevertheless, men ought to take care of their means, ought to use
+them prudently and sparingly, and to keep their expenses always within
+the bounds of their income, be it what it may. One of the effectual
+means of doing this is to purchase with ready money. ST. PAUL says,
+'<i>Owe no man any <a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>thing</i>:' and of his numerous precepts this is by no
+means the least worthy of our attention. <i>Credit</i> has been boasted of as
+a very fine thing: to decry credit seems to be setting oneself up
+against the opinions of the whole world; and I remember a paper in the
+FREEHOLDER or the SPECTATOR, published just after the funding system had
+begun, representing 'PUBLIC Credit' as a GODDESS, enthroned in a temple
+dedicated to her by her votaries, amongst whom she is dispensing
+blessings of every description. It must be more than forty years since I
+read this paper, which I read soon after the time when the late Mr. PITT
+uttered in Parliament an expression of his anxious hope, that his 'name
+would be inscribed on the <i>monument</i> which he should raise to '<i>public
+credit</i>.' Time has taught me, that PUBLIC CREDIT means, the contracting
+of debts which a nation never can pay; and I have lived to see this
+<i>Goddess</i> produce effects, in my country, which Satan himself never
+could have produced. It is a very bewitching Goddess; and not less fatal
+in her influence in private than in public affairs. It has been carried
+in this latter respect to such a pitch, that scarcely any transaction,
+however low and inconsiderable in amount, takes place in any other way.
+There is a trade in London, called the 'tally-trade,' by which,
+household goods, coals, clothing, all sorts of things, are sold upon
+credit, the seller keeping <i>a tally</i>, and receiving payment for the
+goods, little by little; so that the income and the earnings of the
+buyers are always anticipated; are always gone, in fact, before they
+come in or are earned; the sellers receiving, of course, a great deal
+more than the proper profit.</p>
+
+<p>61. Without supposing you to descend to so low a grade as this, and even
+supposing you to be lawyer, doctor, parson, or merchant; it is still the
+same thing, <a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>if you purchase on credit, and not, perhaps, in a much less
+degree of disadvantage. Besides the higher price that you pay there is
+the temptation to have what you <i>really do not want</i>. The cost seems a
+trifle, when you have not to pay the money until a future time. It has
+been observed, and very truly observed, that men used to lay out a
+one-pound note when they would not lay out a sovereign; a consciousness
+of the intrinsic value of the things produces a retentiveness in the
+latter case more than in the former: the sight and the touch assist the
+mind in forming its conclusions, and the one-pound note was parted with,
+when the sovereign would have been kept. Far greater is the difference
+between Credit and Ready money. Innumerable things are not bought at all
+with ready money, which would be bought in case of trust: it is so much
+easier to <i>order</i> a thing than to <i>pay</i> for it. A future day; a day of
+payment must come, to be sure, but that is little thought of at the
+time; but if the money were to be drawn out, the moment the thing was
+received or offered, this question would arise, '<i>Can I do without it</i>?'
+Is this thing indispensable; am I compelled to have it, or suffer a loss
+or injury greater in amount than the cost of the thing? If this question
+were put, every time we make a purchase, seldom should we hear of those
+suicides which are such a disgrace to this country.</p>
+
+<p>62. I am aware, that it will be said, and very truly said, that the
+concerns of merchants; that the purchasing of great estates, and various
+other great transactions, cannot be carried on in this manner; but these
+are rare exceptions to the rule; even in these cases there might be much
+less of bills and bonds, and all the sources of litigation; but in the
+every-day business of life; in transactions with the <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>butcher, the
+baker, the tailor, the shoemaker, what excuse can there be for pleading
+the example of the merchant, who carries on his work by ships and
+exchanges? I was delighted, some time ago, by being told of a young man,
+who, upon being advised <i>to keep a little account</i> of all he received
+and expended, answered, 'that his business was not to keep account
+books: that he was sure not to make a mistake as to his income; and
+that, as to his expenditure, the little bag that held his sovereigns
+would be an infallible guide, as he never bought anything that he did
+not immediately pay for.'</p>
+
+<p>63. I believe that nobody will deny, that, generally speaking, you pay
+for the same article a fourth part more in the case of trust than you do
+in the case of ready money. Suppose, then, the baker, butcher, tailor,
+and shoemaker, receive from you only one hundred pounds a year. Put that
+together; that is to say, multiply twenty-five by twenty, and you will
+find, that, at the end of twenty years, you have 500<i>l.</i>, besides the
+accumulating and growing interest. The fathers of the Church (I mean the
+ancient ones), and also the canons of the Church, forbade selling on
+trust at a higher price than for ready money, which was in effect to
+forbid <i>trust</i>; and this, doubtless, was one of the great objects which
+those wise and pious men had in view; for they were fathers in
+legislation and morals as well as in religion. But the doctrine of these
+fathers and canons no longer prevails; they are set at nought by the
+present age, even in the countries that adhere to their religion.
+ADDISON'S Goddess has prevailed over the fathers and the canons; and men
+not only make a difference in the price regulated by the difference in
+the mode of payment; but it would be absurd to expect them to do
+otherwise. They must not only charge something <a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>for the want of the
+<i>use</i> of the money; but they must charge something additional for the
+<i>risk</i> of its loss, which may frequently arise, and most frequently does
+arise, from the misfortunes of those to whom they have assigned their
+goods on trust. The man, therefore, who purchases on trust, not only
+pays for the trust, but he also pays his due share of what the tradesman
+loses by trust; and, after all, he is not so good a customer as the man
+who purchases cheaply with ready money; for there is his name indeed in
+the tradesman's book; but with that name the tradesman cannot go to
+market to get a fresh supply.</p>
+
+<p>64. Infinite are the ways in which gentlemen lose by this sort of
+dealing. Servants go and order sometimes things not wanted at all; at
+other times, more than is wanted; at others, things of a higher quality;
+and all this would be obviated by purchasing with ready money; for,
+whether through the hands of the party himself, or through those of an
+inferior, there would always be an actual counting out of the money;
+somebody would <i>see</i> the thing bought and see the money paid; and, as
+the master would give the housekeeper or steward a bag of money at the
+time, he would <i>see</i> the money too, would set a proper value upon it,
+and would just desire to know upon what it had been expended.</p>
+
+<p>65. How is it that farmers are so exact, and show such a disposition to
+retrench in the article of labour, when they seem to think little, or
+nothing, about the sums which they pay in tax upon malt, wine, sugar,
+tea, soap, candles, tobacco, and various other things? You find the
+utmost difficulty in making them understand, that they are affected by
+these. The reason is, that they <i>see</i> the money which they give to the
+labourer on each succeeding Saturday night; but they do not see that
+which they give in taxes on the <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>articles before mentioned. Why is it
+that they make such an outcry about the six or seven millions a year
+which are paid in poor-rates, and say not a word about the sixty
+millions a year raised in other taxes? The consumer pays all; and,
+therefore, they are as much interested in the one as the other; and yet
+the farmers think of no tax but the poor tax. The reason is, that the
+latter is collected from them in <i>money</i>: they <i>see</i> it go out of their
+hands into the hands of another; and, therefore, they are everlastingly
+anxious to reduce the poor-rates, and they take care to keep them within
+the smallest possible bounds.</p>
+
+<p>66. Just thus would it be with every man that never purchased but with
+ready money: he would make the amount as low as possible in proportion
+to his means: this care and frugality would make an addition to his
+means, and therefore, in the end, at the end of his life, he would have
+had a great deal more to spend, and still be as rich as if he had gone
+in trust; while he would have lived in tranquillity all the while, and
+would have avoided all the endless papers and writings and receipts and
+bills and disputes and law-suits inseparable from a system of credit.
+This is by no means a lesson of <i>stinginess</i>; by no means tends to
+inculcate a heaping up of money; for the purchasing with ready money
+really gives you more money to purchase with; you can afford to have a
+greater quantity and variety of things; and I will engage that, if
+horses or servants be your taste, the saving in this way gives you an
+additional horse or an additional servant, if you be in any profession
+or engaged in any considerable trade. In towns, it tends to accelerate
+your pace along the streets; for the temptation of the windows is
+answered in a moment by clapping your hand upon your thigh; and the
+question, 'Do I really want <a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>that?' is sure to occur to you immediately,
+because the touch of the money is sure to put that thought in your mind.</p>
+
+<p>67. Now, supposing you to have a plenty; to have a fortune beyond your
+wants, would not the money which you would save in this way be very well
+applied in acts of real benevolence? Can you walk many yards in the
+streets; can you ride a mile in the country; can you go to half-a-dozen
+cottages; can you, in short, open your eyes, without seeing some human
+being, some one born in the same country with yourself, and who, on that
+account alone, has some claim upon your good wishes and your charity;
+can you open your eyes without seeing some person to whom even a small
+portion of your annual savings would convey gladness of heart? Your own
+heart will suggest the answer; and, if there were no motive but this,
+what need I say more in the advice which I have here tendered to you?</p>
+
+<p>68. Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or,
+rather from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing
+which has been honoured by the name of '<i>speculation</i>;' but which ought
+to be called Gambling. It is a purchasing of something which you do not
+want either in your family or in the way of ordinary trade: a something
+to be sold again with a great profit; and on the sale of which there is
+a considerable hazard. When purchases of this sort are made with ready
+money, they are not so offensive to reason and not attended with such
+risk; but when they are made with money <i>borrowed</i> for the purpose, they
+are neither more nor less than gambling transactions; and they have
+been, in this country, a source of ruin, misery, and suicide, admitting
+of no adequate description. I grant that this gambling has arisen from
+the influence of the <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>'<i>Goddess</i>' before mentioned; I grant that it has
+arisen from the facility of obtaining the fictitious means of making
+the purchases; and I grant that that facility has been created by the
+system under the baneful influence of which we live. But it is not the
+less necessary that I beseech you not to practise such gambling; that I
+beseech you, if you be engaged in it, to disentangle yourself from it as
+soon as you can. Your life, while you are thus engaged, is the life of
+the gamester; a life of constant anxiety; constant desire to over-reach;
+constant apprehension; general gloom, enlivened, now and then, by a
+gleam of hope or of success. Even that success is sure to lead to
+further adventures; and, at last, a thousand to one, that your fate is
+that of the pitcher to the well.</p>
+
+<p>69. The great temptation to this gambling is, as is the case in other
+gambling, the <i>success of the few</i>. As young men who crowd to the army,
+in search of rank and renown, never look into the ditch that holds their
+slaughtered companions; but have their eye constantly fixed on the
+General-in-chief; and as each of them belongs to the <i>same profession</i>,
+and is sure to be conscious that he has equal merit, every one deems
+himself the suitable successor of him who is surrounded with <i>Aides des
+camps</i>, and who moves battalions and columns by his nod; so with the
+rising generation of 'speculators:' they see the great estates that have
+succeeded the pencil-box and the orange-basket; they see those whom
+nature and good laws made to black shoes, sweep chimnies or the streets,
+rolling in carriages, or sitting in saloons surrounded by gaudy footmen
+with napkins twisted round their thumbs; and they can see no earthly
+reason why they should not all do the same; forgetting the thousands and
+thousands, who, in making <a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>the attempt, have reduced themselves to that
+beggary which, before their attempt, they would have regarded as a thing
+wholly impossible.</p>
+
+<p>70. In all situations of life, avoid the <i>trammels of the law</i>. Man's
+nature must be changed before law-suits will cease; and, perhaps, it
+would be next to impossible to make them less frequent than they are in
+the present state of this country; but though no man, who has any
+property at all, can say that he will have nothing to do with law-suits,
+it is in the power of most men to avoid them in a considerable degree.
+One good rule is to have as little as possible to do with any man who is
+fond of law-suits, and who, upon every slight occasion, talks of an
+appeal to the law. Such persons, from their frequent litigations,
+contract a habit of using the technical terms of the Courts, in which
+they take a pride, and are, therefore, companions peculiarly disgusting
+to men of sense. To such men a law-suit is a luxury, instead of being as
+it is, to men of ordinary minds, a source of anxiety and a real and
+substantial scourge. Such men are always of a quarrelsome disposition,
+and avail themselves of every opportunity to indulge in that which is
+mischievous to their neighbours. In thousands of instances men go to law
+for the indulgence of mere anger. The Germans are said to bring
+<i>spite-actions</i> against one another, and to harass their poorer
+neighbours from motives of pure revenge. They have carried this their
+disposition with them to America; for which reason no one likes to live
+in a German neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>71. Before you go to law consider well the <i>cost</i>; for if you win your
+suit and are poorer than you were before, what do you accomplish? You
+only imbibe a little additional anger against your opponent; you injure
+him, but do harm to yourself. Better to put <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>up with the loss of one
+pound than of two, to which latter is to be added all the loss of time,
+all the trouble, and all the mortification and anxiety attending a
+law-suit. To set an attorney to work to worry and torment another man is
+a very base act; to alarm his family as well as himself, while you are
+sitting quietly at home. If a man owe you money which he cannot pay, why
+add to his distress without the chance of benefit to yourself? Thousands
+of men have injured themselves by resorting to the law; while very few
+ever bettered themselves by it, except such resort were unavoidable.</p>
+
+<p>72. Nothing is much more discreditable than what is called <i>hard
+dealing</i>. They say of the Turks, that they know nothing of <i>two prices</i>
+for the same article; and that to ask an abatement of the lowest
+shopkeeper is to insult him. It would be well if Christians imitated
+Mahometans in this respect. To ask one price and take another, or to
+offer one price and give another, besides the loss of time that it
+occasions, is highly dishonourable to the parties, and especially when
+pushed to the extent of solemn protestations. It is, in fact, a species
+of lying; and it answers no one advantageous purpose to either buyer or
+seller. I hope that every young man who reads this, will start in life
+with a resolution never to higgle and lie in dealings. There is this
+circumstance in favour of the bookseller's business: every book has its
+fixed price, and no one ever asks an abatement. If it were thus in all
+other trades, how much time would be saved, and how much immorality
+prevented!</p>
+
+<p>73. As to the spending of your time, your business or your profession is
+to claim the priority of everything else. Unless that be <i>duly attended
+to</i>, there can be no real pleasure in any other employment of a portion
+of your time. Men, however, must have <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>some leisure, some relaxation
+from business; and in the choice of this relaxation much of your
+happiness will depend. Where fields and gardens are at hand, they
+present the most rational scenes for leisure. As to company, I have said
+enough in the former letter to deter any young man from that of
+drunkards and rioting companions; but there is such a thing as your
+quiet '<i>pipe-and-pot-companions</i>,' which are, perhaps, the most fatal of
+all. Nothing can be conceived more dull, more stupid, more the contrary
+of edification and rational amusement, than sitting, sotting, over a pot
+and a glass, sending out smoke from the head, and articulating, at
+intervals, nonsense about all sorts of things. Seven years service as a
+galley-slave would be more bearable to a man of sense, than seven months
+confinement to society like this. Yet, such is the effect of habit,
+that, if a young man become a frequenter of such scenes, the idle
+propensity sticks to him for life. Some companions, however, every man
+must have; but these every well-behaved man will find in private houses,
+where families are found residing and where the suitable intercourse
+takes place between women and men. A man that cannot pass an evening
+without drink merits the name of a sot. Why should there be drink for
+the purpose of carrying on conversation? Women stand in need of no drink
+to stimulate them to converse; and I have a thousand times admired their
+patience in sitting quietly at their work, while their husbands are
+engaged, in the same room, with bottles and glasses before them,
+thinking nothing of the expense and still less of the shame which the
+distinction reflects upon them. We have to thank the women for many
+things, and particularly for their sobriety, for fear of following their
+example in which men drive them from the table, as if they said <a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>to
+them: 'You have had enough; food is sufficient for you; but we must
+remain to fill ourselves with drink, and to talk in language which your
+ears ought not to endure.' When women are getting up to retire from the
+table, men rise <i>in honour of</i> them; but they take special care not to
+follow their excellent example. That which is not fit to be uttered
+before women is not fit to be uttered at all; and it is next to a
+proclamation, tolerating drunkenness and indecency, to send women from
+the table the moment they have swallowed their food. The practice has
+been ascribed to a desire to leave them to themselves; but why should
+they be left to themselves? Their conversation is always the most
+lively, while their persons are generally the most agreeable objects.
+No: the plain truth is, that it is the love of the drink and of the
+indecent talk that send women from the table; and it is a practice which
+I have always abhorred. I like to see young men, especially, follow them
+out of the room, and prefer their company to that of the sots who are
+left behind.</p>
+
+<p>74. Another mode of spending the leisure time is that of books. Rational
+and well-informed companions may be still more instructive; but books
+never annoy; they cost little; and they are always at hand, and ready at
+your call. The sort of books must, in some degree, depend upon your
+pursuit in life; but there are some books necessary to every one who
+aims at the character of a well-informed man. I have slightly mentioned
+HISTORY and Geography in the preceding letter; but I must here observe,
+that, as to both these, you should begin with your own country, and make
+yourself well acquainted, not only with its ancient state, but with the
+<i>origin</i> of all its principal institutions. To read of the battles which
+it has fought, and of the intrigues by which <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>one king or one minister
+has succeeded another, is very little more profitable than the reading
+of a romance. To understand well the history of the country, you should
+first understand how it came to be divided into counties, hundreds, and
+into parishes; how judges, sheriffs, and juries, first arose; to what
+end they were all invented, and how the changes with respect to any of
+them have been produced. But it is of particular consequence that you
+ascertain the <i>state of the people</i> in former times, which is to be
+ascertained by <i>comparing the then price of labour with the then price
+of food</i>. You hear enough, and you read enough, about the <i>glorious
+wars</i> in the reign of KING EDWARD the THIRD; and it is very proper that
+those glories should be recorded and remembered; but you never read, in
+the works of the historians, that, in that reign, a common labourer
+earned threepence-halfpenny a day; and that a <i>fat sheep</i> was sold, at
+the same time, for one shilling and twopence, and a fat hog, two years
+old, for three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose for
+twopence-halfpenny. You never read that women received a penny a day for
+hay-making or weeding in the corn, and that a gallon of red wine was
+sold for fourpence. These are matters which historians have deemed to be
+beneath their notice; but they are matters of real importance: they are
+matters which ought to have practical effect at this time; for these
+furnish the criterion whereby we are to judge of our condition compared
+with that of our forefathers. The poor-rates form a great feature in the
+laws and customs of this country. Put to a thousand persons who have
+read what is called the history of England; put to them the question,
+how the poor-rates came? and nine hundred and ninety-nine of the
+thousand will tell you, that they know nothing at all of the <a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>matter.
+This is not history; a list of battles and a string of intrigues are not
+history, they communicate no knowledge applicable to our present state;
+and it really is better to amuse oneself with an avowed romance, which
+latter is a great deal worse than passing one's time in counting the
+trees.</p>
+
+<p>75. History has been described as affording arguments of experience; as
+a record of what has been, in order to guide us as to what is likely to
+be, or what ought to be; but, from this romancing history, no such
+experience is to be derived: for it furnishes no facts on which to found
+arguments relative to the existing or future state of things. To come at
+the true history of a country you must read its laws: you must read
+books treating of its usages and customs in former times; and you must
+particularly inform yourself as to <i>prices of labour and of food</i>. By
+reading the single Act of the 23rd year of EDWARD the THIRD, specifying
+the price of labour at that time; by reading an Act of Parliament passed
+in the 24th year of HENRY the EIGHTH; by reading these two Acts, and
+then reading the CHRONICON PRECIOSUM of BISHOP FLEETWOOD, which shows
+the price of food in the former reign, you come into full possession of
+the knowledge of what England was in former times. Divers books teach
+how the divisions of the country arose, and how its great institutions
+were established; and the result of this reading is a store of
+knowledge, which will afford you pleasure for the whole of your life.</p>
+
+<p>76. History, however, is by no means the only thing about which every
+man's leisure furnishes him with the means of reading; besides which,
+every man has not the same taste. Poetry, geography, moral essays, the
+divers subjects of philosophy, travels, natural history, books on
+sciences; and, in short, the <a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>whole range of book-knowledge is before
+you; but there is one thing always to be guarded against; and that is,
+not to admire and applaud anything you read, merely because it is the
+<i>fashion</i> to admire and applaud it. Read, consider well what you read,
+form <i>your own judgment</i>, and stand by that judgment in despite of the
+sayings of what are called learned men, until fact or argument be
+offered to convince you of your error. One writer praises another; and
+it is very possible for writers so to combine as to cry down and, in
+some sort, to destroy the reputation of any one who meddles with the
+combination, unless the person thus assailed be blessed with uncommon
+talent and uncommon perseverance. When I read the works of POPE and of
+SWIFT, I was greatly delighted with their lashing of DENNIS; but
+wondered, at the same time, why they should have taken so much pains in
+running down such a <i>fool</i>. By the merest accident in the world, being
+at a tavern in the woods of America, I took up an old book, in order to
+pass away the time while my travelling companions were drinking in the
+next room; but seeing the book contained the criticisms of DENNIS, I was
+about to lay it down, when the play of 'CATO' caught my eye; and having
+been accustomed to read books in which this play was lauded to the
+skies, and knowing it to have been written by ADDISON, every line of
+whose works I had been taught to believe teemed with wisdom and genius,
+I condescended to begin to read, though the work was from the pen of
+that <i>fool</i> DENNIS. I read on, and soon began to <i>laugh</i>, not at Dennis,
+but at Addison. I laughed so much and so loud, that the landlord, who
+was in the passage, came in to see what I was laughing at. In short, I
+found it a most masterly production, one of the most witty things <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>that
+I had ever read in my life. I was delighted with DENNIS, and was
+heartily ashamed of my former admiration of CATO, and felt no little
+resentment against POPE and SWIFT for their endless reviling of this
+most able and witty critic. This, as far as I recollect, was the first
+<i>emancipation</i> that had assisted me in my reading. I have, since that
+time, never taken any thing upon trust: I have judged for myself,
+trusting neither to the opinions of writers nor in the fashions of the
+day. Having been told by DR. BLAIR, in his lectures on Rhetoric, that,
+if I meant to write correctly, I must 'give my days and nights to
+ADDISON,' I read a few numbers of the Spectator at the time I was
+writing my English Grammar: I gave neither my nights nor my days to him;
+but I found an abundance of matter to afford examples <i>of false
+grammar</i>; and, upon a reperusal, I found that the criticisms of DENNIS
+might have been extended to this book too.</p>
+
+<p>77. But that which never ought to have been forgotten by those who were
+men at the time, and that which ought to be <i>made known to every young
+man of the present day</i>, in order that he may be induced to exercise his
+own judgment with regard to books, is, the transactions relative to the
+writings of SHAKSPEARE, which transactions took place about thirty years
+ago. It is still, and it was then much more, the practice to extol every
+line of SHAKSPEARE to the skies: not to admire SHAKSPEARE has been
+deemed to be a proof of want of understanding and taste. MR. GARRICK,
+and some others after him, had their own good and profitable reasons for
+crying up the works of this poet. When I was a very little boy, there
+was a <i>jubilee</i> in honour of SHAKSPEARE, and as he was said to have
+planted a <i>Mulberry tree</i>, boxes, and other little ornamental things in
+wood, <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>were sold all over the country, as having been made out of the
+trunk or limbs of this ancient and sacred tree. We Protestants laugh at
+the <i>relics</i> so highly prized by Catholics; but never was a Catholic
+people half so much duped by the relics of saints, as this nation was by
+the mulberry tree, of which, probably, more wood was sold than would
+have been sufficient in quantity to build a ship of war, or a large
+house. This madness abated for some years; but, towards the end of the
+last century it broke out again with more fury than ever. SHAKSPEARE'S
+works were published by BOYDELL, an Alderman of London, at a
+subscription of <i>five hundred pounds for each copy</i>, accompanied by
+plates, each forming a large picture. Amongst the mad men of the day was
+a MR. IRELAND, who seemed to be more mad than any of the rest. His
+adoration of the poet led him to perform a pilgrimage to an old
+farm-house, near Stratford-upon-Avon, said to have been the birth-place
+of the poet. Arrived at the spot, he requested the farmer and his wife
+to let him search the house for papers, <i>first going upon his knees</i>,
+and praying, in the poetic style, the gods to aid him in his quest. He
+found no papers; but he found that the farmer's wife, in clearing out a
+garret some years before, had found some rubbishy old papers which she
+had <i>burnt</i>, and which had probably been papers used in the wrapping up
+of pigs' cheeks to keep them from the bats. 'O, wretched woman!'
+exclaimed he; 'do you know what you have done?' 'O dear, no!' said the
+woman, half frightened out of her wits: 'no harm, I hope; for the papers
+were <i>very old</i>; I dare say as old as the house itself.' This threw him
+into an additional degree of <i>excitement</i>, as it is now fashionably
+called: he raved, he stamped, he foamed, and at last quitted the house,
+covering the poor woman with <a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>very term of reproach; and hastening back
+to Stratford, took post-chaise for London, to relate to his brother
+madmen the horrible sacrilege of this heathenish woman. Unfortunately
+for MR. IRELAND, unfortunately for his learned brothers in the
+metropolis, and unfortunately for the reputation of SHAKSPEARE, MR.
+IRELAND took with him to the scene of his adoration <i>a son, about
+sixteen years of age</i>, who was articled to an attorney in London. The
+son was by no means so sharply bitten as the father; and, upon returning
+to town, he conceived the idea of <i>supplying the place of the invaluable
+papers</i> which the farm-house heathen had destroyed. He thought, and he
+thought rightly, that he should have little difficulty in writing plays
+<i>just like those of Shakspeare</i>! To get <i>paper</i> that should seem to have
+been made in the reign of QUEEN ELIZABETH, and <i>ink</i> that should give to
+writing the appearance of having the same age, was somewhat difficult;
+but both were overcome. Young IRELAND was acquainted with a son of a
+bookseller, who dealt in <i>old books</i>: the blank leaves of these books
+supplied the young author with paper; and he found out the way of making
+proper ink for his purpose. To work he went, <i>wrote several plays</i>, some
+<i>love-letters</i>, and other things; and having got a Bible, extant in the
+time of SHAKSPEARE, he wrote <i>notes</i> in the margin. All these, together
+with <i>sonnets</i> in abundance, and other little detached pieces, he
+produced to his father, telling him he got them from a gentleman, who
+had <i>made him swear that he would not divulge his name</i>. The father
+announced the invaluable discovery to the literary world: the literary
+world rushed to him; the manuscripts were regarded as genuine by the
+most grave and learned Doctors, some of whom (and amongst these were
+DOCTORS PARR and WARTON) gave, <i>under <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>their hands</i>, an opinion, that
+the manuscripts <i>must have been written</i> by SHAKSPEARE; for that <i>no
+other man in the world could have been capable of writing them</i>!</p>
+
+<p>78. MR. IRELAND opened a subscription, published these new and
+invaluable manuscripts at an enormous price; and preparations were
+instantly made for <i>performing one of the plays</i>, called VORTIGERN. Soon
+after the acting of the play, the indiscretion of the lad caused the
+secret to explode; and, instantly, those who had declared that he had
+written as well as SHAKSPEARE, did every thing in their power <i>to
+destroy him</i>! The attorney drove him from his office; the father drove
+him from his house; and, in short, he was hunted down as if he had been
+a malefactor of the worst description. The truth of this relation is
+undeniable; it is recorded in numberless books. The young man is, I
+believe, yet alive; and, in short, no man will question any one of the
+facts.</p>
+
+<p>79. After this, where is the person of sense who will be guided in these
+matters by <i>fashion</i>? where is the man, who wishes not to be deluded,
+who will not, when he has read a book, <i>judge for himself</i>? After all
+these jubilees and pilgrimages; after BOYDELL'S subscription of 500<i>l.</i>
+for one single copy; after it had been deemed almost impiety to doubt of
+the genius of SHAKSPEARE surpassing that of all the rest of mankind;
+after he had been called the '<i>Immortal Bard</i>,' as a matter of course,
+as we speak of MOSES and AARON, there having been but one of each in the
+world; after all this, comes a lad of sixteen years of age, writes that
+which learned Doctors declare could have been written by no man but
+SHAKSPEARE, and, when it is discovered that this laughing boy is the
+real author, the DOCTORS turn round upon him, with <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>all the newspapers,
+magazines, and reviews, and, of course, the public at their back, revile
+him as an <i>impostor</i>; and, under that odious name, hunt him out of
+society, and doom him to starve! This lesson, at any rate, he has given
+us: not to rely on the judgment of Doctors and other pretenders to
+literary superiority. Every young man, when he takes up a book for the
+first time, ought to remember this story; and if he do remember it, he
+will disregard fashion with regard to the book, and will pay little
+attention to the decision of those who call themselves critics.</p>
+
+<p>80. I hope that your taste would keep you aloof from the writings of
+those detestable villains, who employ the powers of their mind in
+debauching the minds of others, or in endeavours to do it. They present
+their poison in such captivating forms, that it requires great virtue
+and resolution to withstand their temptations; and, they have, perhaps,
+done a thousand times as much mischief in the world as all the infidels
+and atheists put together. These men ought to be called <i>literary
+pimps</i>: they ought to be held in universal abhorrence, and never spoken
+of but with execration. Any appeal to bad passions is to be despised;
+any appeal to ignorance and prejudice; but here is an appeal to the
+frailties of human nature, and an endeavour to make the mind corrupt,
+just as it is beginning to possess its powers. I never have known any
+but bad men, worthless men, men unworthy of any portion of respect, who
+took delight in, or even kept in their possession, writings of the
+description to which I here allude. The writings of SWIFT have this
+blemish; and, though he is not a teacher of <i>lewdness</i>, but rather the
+contrary, there are certain parts of his poems which are much too filthy
+for any decent person to read. <a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>It was beneath him to stoop to such
+means of setting forth that wit which would have been far more brilliant
+without them. I have heard, that, in the library of what is called an
+'<i>illustrious</i> person,' sold some time ago, there was an immense
+collection of books of this infamous description; and from this
+circumstance, if from no other, I should have formed my judgment of the
+character of that person.</p>
+
+<p>81. Besides reading, a young man ought to write, if he have the capacity
+and the leisure. If you wish to remember a thing well, put it into
+writing, even if you burn the paper immediately after you have done; for
+the eye greatly assists the mind. Memory consists of a concatenation of
+ideas, the place, the time, and other circumstances, lead to the
+recollection of facts; and no circumstance more effectually than stating
+the facts upon paper. A JOURNAL should be kept by every young man. Put
+down something against every day in the year, if it be merely a
+description of the weather. You will not have done this for one year
+without finding the benefit of it. It disburthens the mind of many
+things to be recollected; it is amusing and useful, and ought by no
+means to be neglected. How often does it happen that we cannot make a
+statement of facts, sometimes very interesting to ourselves and our
+friends, for the want of a record of the places where we were, and of
+things that occurred on such and such a day! How often does it happen
+that we get into disagreeable disputes about things that have passed,
+and about the time and other circumstances attending them! As a thing of
+mere curiosity, it is of some value, and may frequently prove of very
+great utility. It demands not more than a minute in the twenty-four
+hours; and that minute is most agreeably and <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>advantageously employed.
+It tends greatly to produce regularity in the conducting of affairs: it
+is a thing demanding a small portion of attention <i>once in every day</i>; I
+myself have found it to be attended with great and numerous benefits,
+and I therefore strongly recommend it to the practice of every reader.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_III" id="LETTER_III"></a><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82" ></a>LETTER III</h2>
+
+<h2>TO A LOVER</h2>
+
+<p>82. There are two descriptions of Lovers on whom all advice would be
+wasted; namely, those in whose minds passion so wholly overpowers reason
+as to deprive the party of his sober senses. Few people are entitled to
+more compassion than young men thus affected: it is a species of
+insanity that assails them; and, when it produces self-destruction,
+which it does in England more frequently than in all the other countries
+in the world put together, the mortal remains of the sufferer ought to
+be dealt with in as tender a manner as that of which the most merciful
+construction of the law will allow. If SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY'S remains
+were, as they were, in fact, treated as those of a person labouring
+under '<i>temporary mental derangement</i>,' surely the youth who destroys
+his life on account of unrequited love, ought to be considered in as
+mild a light! SIR SAMUEL was represented, in the evidence taken before
+the Coroner's Jury, to have been <i>inconsolable for the loss of his
+wife</i>; that this loss had so dreadful an effect upon his mind, that it
+<i>bereft him of his reason</i>, made life insupportable, and led him to
+commit the act of <i>suicide</i>: and, on <i>this ground alone</i>, his <i>remains</i>
+and his <i>estate</i> were rescued from the awful, though just and wise,
+sentence of the law. But, unfortunately for the reputation of the
+administration of that just and wise law, there had been, only about two
+years <a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>before, a <i>poor</i> man, at Manchester, <i>buried in crossroads</i>, and
+under circumstances which entitled his remains to mercy much more
+clearly than in the case of SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY.</p>
+
+<p>83. This unfortunate youth, whose name was SMITH, and who was a
+shoemaker, was in love with a young woman, who, in spite of all his
+importunities and his proofs of ardent passion, refused to marry him,
+and even discovered her liking for another; and he, unable to support
+life, accompanied by the thought of her being in possession of any body
+but himself, put an end to his life by the means of a rope. If, in any
+case, we are to <i>presume</i> the existence of insanity; if, in any case, we
+are led to believe the thing <i>without positive proof</i>; if, in any case,
+there can be an apology in human nature itself, for such an act; <i>this
+was that case</i>. We all know (as I observed at the time); that is to say,
+all of us who cannot wait to calculate upon the gains and losses of the
+affair; all of us, except those who are endowed with this provident
+frigidity, know well what youthful love is; and what its torments are,
+when accompanied by even the smallest portion of jealousy. Every man,
+and especially every Englishman (for here we seldom love or hate by
+halves), will recollect how many mad pranks he has played; how many wild
+and ridiculous things he has said and done between the age of sixteen
+and that of twenty-two; how many times a kind glance has scattered all
+his reasoning and resolutions to the winds; how many times a cool look
+has plunged him into the deepest misery! Poor SMITH, who was at this age
+of love and madness, might, surely, be presumed to have done the deed in
+a moment of '<i>temporary mental derangement</i>.' He was an object of
+compassion in every humane breast: he had parents and brethren and
+kindred and friends <a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>to lament his death, and to feel shame at the
+disgrace inflicted on his lifeless body: yet, HE was pronounced to be a
+<i>felo de se</i>, or <i>self-murderer</i>, and his body was put into a hole by
+the way-side, with a stake driven down through it; while that of ROMILLY
+had mercy extended to it, on the ground that the act had been occasioned
+by '<i>temporary mental derangement</i>' caused by his grief for the death of
+his wife!</p>
+
+<p>84. To <i>reason</i> with passion like that of the unfortunate SMITH, is
+perfectly useless; you may, with as much chance of success, reason and
+remonstrate with the winds or the waves: if you make impression, it
+lasts but for a moment: your effort, like an inadequate stoppage of
+waters, only adds, in the end, to the violence of the torrent: the
+current must have and will have its course, be the consequences what
+they may. In cases not quite so decided, <i>absence</i>, the sight <i>of new
+faces</i>, the sound <i>of new voices</i>, generally serve, if not as a radical
+cure, as a mitigation, at least, of the disease. But, the worst of it
+is, that, on this point, we have the girls (and women too) against us!
+For they look upon it as right that every lover should be <i>a little
+maddish</i>; and, every attempt to rescue him from the thraldom imposed by
+their charms, they look upon as an overt act of treason against their
+natural sovereignty. No girl ever liked a young man less for his having
+done things foolish and wild and ridiculous, provided she was <i>sure</i>
+that love of her had been the cause: let her but be satisfied upon this
+score, and there are very few things which she will not forgive. And,
+though wholly unconscious of the fact, she is a great and sound
+philosopher after all. For, from the nature of things, the rearing of a
+family always has been, is, and must ever be, attended with cares and
+troubles, <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>which must infallibly produce, at times, feelings to be
+combated and overcome by nothing short of that ardent affection which
+first brought the parties together. So that, talk as long as Parson
+MALTHUS likes about 'moral <i>restraint</i>;' and report as long as the
+Committees of Parliament please about preventing '<i>premature</i> and
+<i>improvident</i> marriages' amongst the labouring classes, the passion that
+they would <i>restrain</i>, while it is necessary to the existence of
+mankind, is the greatest of all the compensations for the inevitable
+cares, troubles, hardships, and sorrows of life; and, as to the
+<i>marriages</i>, if they could once be rendered universally <i>provident</i>,
+every generous sentiment would quickly be banished from the world.</p>
+
+<p>85. The other description of lovers, with whom it is useless to reason,
+are those who love according to the <i>rules of arithmetic</i>, or who
+measure their matrimonial expectations by the <i>chain of the
+land-surveyor</i>. These are not love and marriage; they are bargain and
+sale. Young men will naturally, and almost necessarily, fix their choice
+on young women in their own rank in life; because from habit and
+intercourse they will know them best. But, if the length of the girl's
+purse, present or contingent, be a consideration with the man, or the
+length of his purse, present or contingent, be a consideration with her,
+it is an affair of bargain and sale. I know that kings, princes, and
+princesses are, in respect of marriage, restrained by the law: I know
+that nobles, if not thus restrained by positive law, are restrained, in
+fact, by the very nature of their order. And here is a disadvantage
+which, as far as real enjoyment of life is concerned, more than
+counterbalances all the advantages that they possess over the rest of
+the community. This disadvantage, generally speaking, pursues rank and
+riches downwards, till you approach <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>very nearly to that numerous class
+who live by manual labour, becoming, however, less and less as you
+descend. You generally find even very vulgar rich men making a sacrifice
+of their natural and rational taste to their mean and ridiculous pride,
+and thereby providing for themselves an ample supply of misery for life.
+By preferring '<i>provident</i> marriages' to marriages of love, they think
+to secure themselves against all the evils of poverty; but, <i>if poverty
+come</i>, and come it may, and frequently does, in spite of the best laid
+plans, and best modes of conduct; <i>if poverty come</i>, then where is the
+counterbalance for that ardent mutual affection, which troubles, and
+losses, and crosses always increase rather than diminish, and which,
+amidst all the calamities that can befall a man, whispers to his heart,
+that his best possession is still left him unimpaired? The
+WORCESTERSHIRE BARONET, who has had to endure the sneers of fools on
+account of his marriage with a beautiful and virtuous servant maid,
+would, were the present ruinous measures of the Government to drive him
+from his mansion to a cottage, still have a source of happiness; while
+many of those, who might fall in company with him, would, in addition to
+all their other troubles, have, perhaps, to endure the reproaches of
+wives to whom poverty, or even humble life, would be insupportable.</p>
+
+<p>86. If marrying for the sake of money be, under any circumstances,
+despicable, if not disgraceful; if it be, generally speaking, a species
+of legal prostitution, only a little less shameful than that which,
+under some governments, is openly licensed for the sake of a tax; if
+this be the case generally, what ought to be said of a young man, who,
+in the heyday of youth, should couple himself on to a libidinous woman,
+old enough, perhaps, to be his grandmother, <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>ugly as the nightmare,
+offensive alike to the sight and the smell, and who should pretend to
+<i>love</i> her too: and all this merely for the sake of her money? Why, it
+ought, and it, doubtless, would be said of him, that his conduct was a
+libel on both man and womankind; that his name ought, for ever, to be
+synonymous with baseness and nastiness, and that in no age and in no
+nation, not marked by a general depravity of manners, and total absence
+of all sense of shame, every associate, male or female, of such a man,
+or of his filthy mate, would be held in abhorrence. Public morality
+would drive such a hateful pair from society, and strict justice would
+hunt them from the face of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>87. BUONAPARTE could not be said to marry for <i>money</i>, but his motive
+was little better. It was for dominion, for power, for ambition, and
+that, too, of the most contemptible kind. I knew an American Gentleman,
+with whom BUONAPARTE had always been a great favourite; but the moment
+the news arrived of his divorce and second marriage, he gave him up.
+This piece of grand prostitution was too much to be defended. And the
+truth is, that BUONAPARTE might have dated his decline from the day of
+that marriage. My American friend said, 'If I had been he, I would, in
+the first place, have married the poorest and prettiest girl in all
+France.' If he had done this, he would, in all probability, have now
+been on an imperial throne, instead of being eaten by worms at the
+bottom of a very deep hole in Saint Helena; whence, however, his bones
+convey to the world the moral, that to marry for money, for ambition, or
+from any motive other than the one pointed out by affection, is not the
+road to glory, to happiness, or to peace.</p>
+
+<p>88. Let me now turn from these two descriptions <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>of lovers, with whom it
+is useless to reason, and address myself to you, my reader, whom I
+suppose to be a <i>real</i> lover, but not so smitten as to be bereft of your
+reason. You should never forget, that marriage, which is a state that
+every young person ought to have in view, is a thing to last <i>for life</i>;
+and that, generally speaking, it is to make life <i>happy</i>, or
+<i>miserable</i>; for, though a man may bring his mind to something nearly a
+state of <i>indifference</i>, even <i>that</i> is misery, except with those who
+can hardly be reckoned amongst sensitive beings. Marriage brings
+numerous <i>cares</i>, which are amply compensated by the more numerous
+delights which are their companions. But to have the delights, as well
+as the cares, the choice of the partner must be fortunate. I say
+<i>fortunate</i>; for, after all, love, real love, impassioned affection, is
+an ingredient so absolutely necessary, that no <i>perfect</i> reliance can
+be placed on the judgment. Yet, the judgment may do something; reason
+may have some influence; and, therefore, I here offer you my advice with
+regard to the exercise of that reason.</p>
+
+<p>89. The things which you ought to desire in a wife are, 1. Chastity; 2.
+sobriety; 3. industry; 4. frugality; 5. cleanliness; 6. knowledge of
+domestic affairs; 7. good temper; 8. beauty.</p>
+
+<p>90. I. CHASTITY, perfect modesty, in word, deed, and even thought, is so
+essential, that, without it, no female is fit to be a wife. It is not
+enough that a young woman abstain from everything approaching towards
+indecorum in her behaviour towards men; it is, with me, not enough that
+she cast down her eyes, or turn aside her head with a smile, when she
+hears an indelicate allusion: she ought to appear <i>not to understand</i>
+it, and to receive from it no more impression than if she were a post. A
+loose woman is a disagreeable <i>acquaintance</i>: what must she be, then,
+<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>as a <i>wife</i>? Love is so blind, and vanity is so busy in persuading us
+that our own qualities will be sufficient to ensure fidelity, that we
+are very apt to think nothing, or, at any rate, very little, of trifling
+symptoms of levity; but if such symptoms show themselves <i>now</i>, we may
+be well assured, that we shall never possess the power of effecting a
+cure. If <i>prudery</i> mean <i>false</i> modesty, it is to be despised; but if it
+mean modesty pushed to the utmost extent, I confess that I like it. Your
+'<i>free and hearty</i>' girls I have liked very well to talk and laugh with;
+but never, for one moment, did it enter into my mind that I could have
+endured a 'free and hearty' girl for a wife. The thing is, I repeat, to
+<i>last for life</i>; it is to be a counterbalance for troubles and
+misfortunes; and it must, therefore, be perfect, or it had better not be
+at all. To say that one <i>despises</i> jealousy is foolish; it is a thing to
+be lamented; but the very elements of it ought to be avoided. Gross
+indeed is the beast, for he is unworthy of the name of man; nasty indeed
+is the wretch, who can even entertain the thought of putting himself
+between a pair of sheets with a wife of whose infidelity he possesses
+the proof; but, in such cases, a man ought to be very slow to believe
+appearances; and he ought not to decide against his wife but upon the
+clearest proof. The last, and, indeed, the only effectual safeguard is,
+to <i>begin</i> well; to make a good choice; to let the beginning be such as
+to render infidelity and jealousy next to impossible. If you begin in
+grossness; if you couple yourself on to one with whom you have taken
+liberties, infidelity is the natural and <i>just</i> consequence. When a
+<i>Peer of the realm</i>, who had not been over-fortunate in his matrimonial
+affairs, was urging MAJOR CARTWRIGHT to seek for nothing more than
+'<i>moderate</i> reform,' the Major (forgetting <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>the domestic circumstances
+of his Lordship) asked him how he should relish '<i>moderate</i> chastity' in
+a wife! The bare use of the two words, thus coupled together, is
+sufficient to excite disgust. Yet with this '<i>moderate</i> chastity' you
+must be, and ought to be, content, if you have entered into marriage
+with one, in whom you have ever discovered the slightest approach
+towards lewdness, either in deeds, words, or looks. To marry has been
+your own act; you have made the contract for your own gratification; you
+knew the character of the other party; and the children, if any, or the
+community, are not to be the sufferers for your gross and corrupt
+passion. '<i>Moderate</i> chastity' is all that you have, in fact, contracted
+for: you have it, and you have no reason to complain. When I come to
+address myself to the <i>husband</i>, I shall have to say more upon this
+subject, which I dismiss for the present with observing, that my
+observation has convinced me, that, when families are rendered unhappy
+from the existence of '<i>moderate</i> chastity,' the fault, first or last,
+has been in the man, ninety-nine times out of every hundred.</p>
+
+<p>91. SOBRIETY. By <i>sobriety</i> I do not mean merely an absence of <i>drinking
+to a state of intoxication</i>; for, if that be <i>hateful</i> in a man, what
+must it be in a woman! There is a Latin proverb, which says, that wine,
+that is to say, intoxication, <i>brings forth truth</i>. Whatever it may do
+in this way, in men, in women it is sure, unless prevented by age or by
+salutary ugliness, to produce a moderate, and a <i>very moderate</i>, portion
+of chastity. There never was a drunken woman, a woman who loved strong
+drink, who was chaste, if the opportunity of being the contrary
+presented itself to her. There are cases where <i>health</i> requires wine,
+and even small portions of more ardent liquor; but (reserving what I
+have further to say on this <a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>point, till I come to the conduct of the
+husband) <i>young</i> unmarried women can seldom stand in need of these
+stimulants; and, at any rate, only in cases of well-known definite
+ailments. Wine! '<i>only</i> a <i>glass or two</i> of wine at dinner, or so'! As
+soon as have married a girl whom I had thought liable to be persuaded to
+drink, habitually, '<i>only</i> a glass or two of wine at dinner, or so;' as
+soon as have <i>married</i> such a girl, I would have taken a strumpet from
+the streets. And it has not required <i>age</i> to give me this way of
+thinking: it has always been rooted in my mind from the moment that I
+began to think the girls prettier than posts. There are few things so
+disgusting as a guzzling woman. A gormandizing one is bad enough; but,
+one who tips off the liquor with an appetite, and exclaims '<i>good!
+good!</i>' by a smack of her lips, is fit for nothing but a brothel. There
+may be cases, amongst the <i>hard</i>-labouring women, such as <i>reapers</i>,
+for instance, especially when they have children at the breast; there
+may be cases, where very <i>hard-working</i> women may stand in need of a
+little <i>good</i> beer; beer, which, if taken in immoderate quantities,
+would produce intoxication. But, while I only allow the <i>possibility</i> of
+the existence of such cases, I deny the necessity of any strong drink at
+all in every other case. Yet, in this metropolis, it is the general
+custom for tradesmen, journeymen, and even labourers, to have regularly
+on their tables the big brewers' poison, twice in every day, and at the
+rate of not less than a pot to a person, women, as well as men, as the
+allowance for the day. A pot of poison a day, at fivepence the pot,
+amounts to <i>seven pounds and two shillings</i> in the year! Man and wife
+suck down, in this way, <i>fourteen pounds four shillings</i> a year! Is it
+any wonder that they are clad in rags, that they are skin <a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>and bone, and
+that their children are covered with filth?</p>
+
+<p>92. But by the word SOBRIETY, in a young woman, I mean a great deal more
+than even a rigid abstinence from that love of <i>drink</i>, which I am not
+to suppose, and which I do not believe, to exist any thing like
+generally amongst the young women of this country. I mean a great deal
+more than this; I mean <i>sobriety of conduct</i>. The word <i>sober</i>, and its
+derivatives, do not confine themselves to matters of <i>drink</i>: they
+express <i>steadiness, seriousness, carefulness, scrupulous propriety of
+conduct</i>; and they are thus used amongst country people in many parts of
+England. When a Somersetshire fellow makes too free with a girl, she
+reproves him with, 'Come! be <i>sober</i>!' And when we wish a team, or any
+thing, to be moved on <i>steadily</i> and with <i>great care</i>, we cry out to
+the carter, or other operator, '<i>Soberly, soberly</i>.' Now, this species
+of sobriety is a great qualification in the person you mean to make your
+wife. Skipping, capering, romping, rattling girls are very amusing where
+all costs and other consequences are out of the question; and they <i>may</i>
+become <i>sober</i> in the Somersetshire sense of the word. But while you
+have <i>no certainty</i> of this, you have a presumptive argument on the
+other side. To be sure, when girls are <i>mere children</i>, they are to play
+and romp like children. But, when they arrive at that age which turns
+their thoughts towards that sort of connexion which is to be theirs for
+life; when they begin to think of having the command of a house, however
+small or poor, it is time for them to cast away the levity of the child.
+It is natural, nor is it very wrong, that I know of, for children to
+like to gad about and to see all sorts of strange sights, though I do
+not approve of this even in <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>children: but, if I could not have found a
+<i>young woman</i> (and I am sure I never should have married an <i>old</i> one)
+who I was not <i>sure</i> possessed <i>all</i> the qualities expressed by the word
+sobriety, I should have remained a bachelor to the end of that life,
+which, in that case, would, I am satisfied, have terminated without my
+having performed a thousandth part of those labours which have been, and
+are, in spite of all political prejudice, the wonder of all who have
+seen, or heard of, them. Scores of gentlemen have, at different times,
+expressed to me their surprise, that I was '<i>always in spirits</i>;' that
+nothing <i>pulled me down</i>; and the truth is, that, throughout nearly
+forty years of troubles, losses, and crosses, assailed all the while by
+more numerous and powerful enemies than ever man had before to contend
+with, and performing, at the same time, labours greater than man ever
+before performed; all those labours requiring mental exertion, and some
+of them mental exertion of the highest order; the truth is, that,
+throughout the whole of this long time of troubles and of labours, I
+have never known a single hour of <i>real anxiety</i>; the troubles have been
+no troubles to me; I have not known what <i>lowness of spirits</i> meaned;
+have been more gay, and felt less care, than any bachelor that ever
+lived. 'You are <i>always in spirits</i>, Cobbett!' To be sure; for why
+should I not? <i>Poverty</i> I have always set at defiance, and I could,
+therefore, defy the temptations of riches; and, as to <i>home</i> and
+<i>children</i>, I had taken care to provide myself with an inexhaustible
+store of that '<i>sobriety</i>,' which I am so strongly recommending my
+reader to provide himself with; or, if he cannot do that, to deliberate
+long before he ventures on the life-enduring matrimonial voyage. This
+sobriety is a title to <i>trust-worthiness</i>; and <i>this</i>, young man, is the
+treasure that <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>you ought to prize far above all others. Miserable is the
+husband, who, when he crosses the threshold of his house, carries with
+him doubts and fears and suspicions. I do not mean suspicions of the
+<i>fidelity</i> of his wife, but of her care, frugality, attention to his
+interests, and to the health and morals of his children. Miserable is
+the man, who cannot leave <i>all unlocked</i>, and who is not <i>sure</i>, quite
+certain, that all is as safe as if grasped in his own hand. He is the
+happy husband, who can go away, at a moment's warning, leaving his house
+and his family with as little anxiety as he quits an inn, not more
+fearing to find, on his return, any thing wrong, than he would fear a
+discontinuance of the rising and setting of the sun, and if, as in my
+case, leaving books and papers all lying about at sixes and sevens,
+finding them arranged in proper order, and the room, during the lucky
+interval, freed from the effects of his and his ploughman's or
+gardener's dirty shoes. Such a man has no <i>real cares</i>; such a man has
+<i>no troubles</i>; and this is the sort of life that I have led. I have had
+all the numerous and indescribable delights of home and children, and,
+at the same time, all the bachelor's freedom from domestic cares: and to
+this cause, far more than to any other, my readers owe those labours,
+which I never could have performed, if even the slightest degree of want
+of confidence at home had ever once entered into my mind.</p>
+
+<p>93. But, in order to possess this precious <i>trust-worthiness</i>, you must,
+if you can, exercise your <i>reason</i> in the choice of your partner. If she
+be vain of her person, very fond of dress, fond of <i>flattery</i>, at all
+given to gadding about, fond of what are called <i>parties of pleasure</i>,
+or coquetish, though in the least degree; if either of these, she never
+will be trust-worthy; <a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>worthy; she cannot change her nature; and if you
+marry her, you will be <i>unjust</i> if you expect trust-worthiness at her
+hands. But, besides this, even if you find in her that innate
+'<i>sobriety</i>' of which I have been speaking, there requires on your part,
+and that at once too, confidence and trust without any limit. Confidence
+is, in this case, nothing unless it be reciprocal. To have a trust-worthy
+wife, you must begin by showing her, even before you are married, that
+you have no suspicions, no fears, no doubts, with regard to her. Many a
+man has been discarded by a virtuous girl, merely on account of his
+querulous conduct. All women despise jealous men; and, if they marry
+such their motive is other than that of affection. Therefore, <i>begin</i> by
+proofs of unlimited confidence; and, as <i>example</i> may serve to assist
+precept, and as I never have preached that which I have not practised, I
+will give you the history of my own conduct in this respect.</p>
+
+<p>94. When I first saw my wife, she was <i>thirteen years old</i>, and I was
+within about a month of <i>twenty-one</i>. She was the daughter of a Serjeant
+of artillery, and I was the Serjeant-Major of a regiment of foot, both
+stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the Province of
+New-Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her, for about an hour, in
+company with others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl
+for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that I had always
+said should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I
+deemed marks of that sobriety of <i>conduct</i> of which I have said so much,
+and which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now
+dead of winter, and, of course, the snow several feet deep on the
+ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done
+my morning's writing, <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>to go out at break of day to take a walk on a
+hill at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings
+after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with
+me, got up two young men to join me in my walk; and our road lay by the
+house of her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on
+the snow, scrubbing out a washing-tub. 'That's the girl for me,' said I,
+when we had got out of her hearing. One of these young men came to
+England soon afterwards; and he, who keeps an inn in Yorkshire, came
+over to Preston, at the time of the election, to verify whether I were
+the same man. When he found that I was, he appeared surprised; but what
+was his surprise, when I told him that those tall young men, whom he saw
+around me, were the <i>sons</i> of that pretty little girl that he and I saw
+scrubbing out the washing-tub on the snow in New-Brunswick at day-break
+in the morning!</p>
+
+<p>95. From the day that I first spoke to her, I never had a thought of her
+ever being the wife of any other man, more than I had a thought of her
+being transformed into a chest of drawers; and I formed my resolution at
+once, to marry her as soon as we could get permission, and to get out of
+the army as soon as I could. So that this matter was, at once, settled
+as firmly as if written in the book of fate. At the end of about six
+months, my regiment, and I along with it, were removed to FREDERICKTON,
+a distance of a <i>hundred miles</i>, up the river of ST. JOHN; and, which
+was worse, the artillery were expected to go off to England a year or
+two before our regiment! The artillery went, and she along with them;
+and now it was that I acted a part becoming a real and sensible lover. I
+was aware, that, when she got to that gay place WOOLWICH, the house of
+her father <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>and mother, necessarily visited by numerous persons not the
+most select, might become unpleasant to her, and I did not like,
+besides, that she should continue to <i>work hard</i>. I had saved a <i>hundred
+and fifty guineas</i>, the earnings of my early hours, in writing for the
+paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in addition to the savings of
+my own pay. <i>I sent her all my money</i>, before she sailed; and wrote to
+her to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a
+lodging with respectable people: and, at any rate, not to spare the
+money, by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, and to live
+without hard work, until I arrived in England; and I, in order to induce
+her to lay out the money, told her that I should get plenty more before
+I came home.</p>
+
+<p>96. As the malignity of the devil would have it, we were kept abroad
+<i>two years longer</i> than our time, Mr. PITT (England not being so tame
+then as she is now) having knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka
+Sound. Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt too, I am
+afraid! At the end <i>of four years</i>, however, home I came; landed at
+Portsmouth, and got my discharge from the army by the great kindness of
+poor LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, who was then the Major of my regiment. I
+found my little girl <i>a servant of all work</i> (and hard work it was), at
+<i>five pounds a year</i>, in the house of a CAPTAIN BRISAC; and, without
+hardly saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands <i>the whole
+of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken</i>!</p>
+
+<p>97. Need I tell the reader what my feelings were? Need I tell
+kind-hearted English parents what effect this anecdote <i>must</i> have
+produced on the minds of our children? Need I attempt to describe what
+effect this example ought to have on every young woman who shall do me
+the honour to read this book? Admiration <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>of her conduct, and
+self-gratulation on this indubitable proof of the soundness of my own
+judgment, were now added to my love of her beautiful person.</p>
+
+<p>98. Now, I do not say that there are not many young women of this
+country who would, under similar circumstances, have acted as my wife
+did in this case; on the contrary, I hope, and do sincerely believe,
+that there are. But when <i>her age</i> is considered; when we reflect, that
+she was living in a place crowded, literally <i>crowded</i>, with
+gaily-dressed and handsome young men, many of whom really far richer and
+in higher rank than I was, and scores of them ready to offer her their
+hand; when we reflect that she was living amongst young women who put
+upon their backs every shilling that they could come at; when we see her
+keeping the bag of gold untouched, and working hard to provide herself
+with but mere necessary apparel, and doing this while she was passing
+from <i>fourteen to eighteen years of age</i>; when we view the whole of the
+circumstances, we must say that here is an example, which, while it
+reflects honour on her sex, ought to have weight with every young woman
+whose eyes or ears this relation shall reach.</p>
+
+<p>99. If any young man imagine, that this great <i>sobriety of conduct</i> in
+young women must be accompanied with seriousness approaching to <i>gloom</i>,
+he is, according to my experience and observation, very much deceived.
+The <i>contrary</i> is the fact; for I have found that as, amongst men, your
+jovial companions are, except over the bottle, the dullest and most
+insipid of souls; so amongst women, the gay, rattling, and laughing,
+are, unless some party of pleasure, or something out of domestic life,
+is going on, generally in the dumps and blue-devils. Some <i>stimulus</i> is
+<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>always craved after by this description of women; some sight to be
+seen, something to see or hear other than what is to be found <i>at home</i>,
+which, as it affords no incitement, nothing '<i>to raise and keep up the
+spirits</i>', is looked upon merely as a place <i>to be at</i> for want of a
+better; merely a place for eating and drinking, and the like; merely a
+biding place, whence to sally in search of enjoyments. A greater curse
+than a wife of this description, it would be somewhat difficult to find;
+and, in your character of Lover, you are to provide against it. I hate a
+dull, melancholy, moping thing: I could not have existed in the same
+house with such a thing for a single month. The mopers are, too, all
+giggle at other times: the gaiety is for others, and the moping for the
+husband, to comfort him, happy man, when he is alone: plenty of smiles
+and of badinage for others, and for him to participate with others; but
+the moping is reserved exclusively for him. One hour she is capering
+about, as if rehearsing a jig; and, the next, sighing to the motion of a
+lazy needle, or weeping over a novel and this is called <i>sentiment</i>!
+Music, indeed! Give me a mother singing to her clean and fat and rosy
+baby, and making the house ring with her extravagant and hyperbolical
+encomiums on it. That is the music which is '<i>the food of love</i>;' and
+not the formal, pedantic noises, an affectation of skill in which is
+now-a-days the ruin of half the young couples in the middle rank of
+life. Let any man observe, as I so frequently have, with delight, the
+excessive fondness of the labouring people for their children. Let him
+observe with what pride they dress them out on a Sunday, with means
+deducted from their own scanty meals. Let him observe the husband, who
+has toiled all the week like a horse, nursing the baby, while the wife
+is preparing the <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>bit of dinner. Let him observe them both abstaining
+from a sufficiency, lest the children should feel the pinchings of
+hunger. Let him observe, in short, the whole of their demeanour, the
+real mutual affection, evinced, not in words, but in unequivocal deeds.
+Let him observe these things, and, having then cast a look at the lives
+of the great and wealthy, he will say, with me, that, when a man is
+choosing his partner for life, the dread of poverty ought to be cast to
+the winds. A labourer's cottage, on a Sunday; the husband or wife having
+a baby in arms, looking at two or three older ones playing between the
+flower-borders going from the wicket to the door, is, according to my
+taste, the most interesting object that eyes ever beheld; and, it is an
+object to be beheld in no country upon earth but England. In France, a
+labourer's cottage means <i>a shed</i> with a <i>dung-heap</i> before the door;
+and it means much about the same in America, where it is wholly
+inexcusable. In riding once, about five years ago, from Petworth to
+Horsham, on a Sunday in the afternoon, I came to a solitary cottage
+which stood at about twenty yards distance from the road. There was the
+wife with the baby in her arms, the husband teaching another child to
+walk, while <i>four</i> more were at play before them. I stopped and looked
+at them for some time, and then, turning my horse, rode up to the
+wicket, getting into talk by asking the distance to Horsham. I found
+that the man worked chiefly in the woods, and that he was doing pretty
+well. The wife was then only <i>twenty-two</i>, and the man only
+<i>twenty-five</i>. She was a pretty woman, even for <i>Sussex</i>, which, not
+excepting Lancashire, contains the prettiest women in England. He was a
+very fine and stout young man. 'Why,' said I, 'how many children do you
+reckon to have at last?' 'I do not <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>care how many,' said the man: 'God
+never sends mouths without sending meat.' 'Did you ever hear,' said I,
+'of one PARSON MALTHUS?' 'No, sir.' 'Why, if he were to hear of your
+works, he would be outrageous; for he wants an act of parliament to
+prevent poor people from marrying young, and from having such lots of
+children.' 'Oh! the brute!' exclaimed the wife; while the husband
+laughed, thinking that I was joking. I asked the man whether he had ever
+had <i>relief from the parish</i>; and upon his answering in the negative, I
+took out my purse, took from it enough to bait my horse at Horsham, and
+to clear my turnpikes to WORTH, whither I was going in order to stay
+awhile, and gave him all the rest. Now, is it not a shame, is it not a
+sin of all sins, that people like these should, by acts of the
+government, be reduced to such misery as to be induced to abandon their
+homes and their country, to seek, in a foreign land, the means of
+preventing themselves and their children from starving? And this has
+been, and now is, actually the case with many such families in this same
+county of Sussex!</p>
+
+<p>100. An <i>ardent-minded</i> young man (who, by-the-by, will, as I am afraid,
+have been wearied by this rambling digression) may fear, that this great
+<i>sobriety of conduct</i> in a young woman, for which I have been so
+strenuously contending, argues a want of that <i>warmth</i>, which he
+naturally so much desires; and, if my observation and experience
+warranted the entertaining of this fear, I should say, had I to live my
+life over again, give me the <i>warmth</i>, and I will stand my chance as to
+the rest. But, this observation and this experience tell me the
+contrary; they tell me that <i>levity</i> is, ninety-nine times out of a
+hundred, the companion of <i>a want of ardent feeling</i>. Prostitutes <a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>never
+<i>love</i>, and, for the far greater part, never did. Their passion, which
+is more <i>mere animal</i> than any thing else, is easily gratified; they,
+like rakes, change not only without pain, but with pleasure; that is to
+say, pleasure as great as they can enjoy. Women of <i>light minds</i> have
+seldom any <i>ardent</i> passion; love is a mere name, unless confined to one
+object; and young women, in whom levity of conduct is observable, will
+not be thus restricted. I do not, however, recommend a young man to be
+<i>too severe</i> in judging, where the conduct does not go beyond <i>mere
+levity</i>, and is not bordering on <i>loose</i> conduct; for something depends
+here upon constitution and animal spirits, and something also upon the
+manners of the country. That levity, which, in a French girl, I should
+not have thought a great deal of, would have frightened me away from an
+English or an American girl. When I was in France, just after I was
+married, there happened to be amongst our acquaintance a gay, sprightly
+girl, of about seventeen. I was remonstrating with her, one day, on the
+facility with which she seemed to shift her smiles from object to
+object; and she, stretching one arm out in an upward direction, the
+other in a downward direction, raising herself upon one foot, leaning
+her body on one side, and thus throwing herself into <i>flying</i> attitude,
+answered my grave lecture by singing, in a very sweet voice
+(significantly bowing her head and smiling at the same time), the
+following lines from the <i>vaudeville</i>, in the play of Figaro:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>Si l'amour a des <i>ailles</i>;<br /></span>
+<span>N'est ce pas pour <i>voltiger</i>?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>That is, if love has <i>wings</i>, is it not <i>to flutter about</i> with? The
+wit, argument, and manner, all together, silenced me. She, after I left
+France, married a very <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>worthy man, has had a large family, and has
+been, and is, a most excellent wife and mother. But that which does
+sometimes well in France, does not do here at all. Our manners are more
+grave: steadiness is the rule, and levity the exception. Love may
+<i>voltige</i> in France; but, in England, it cannot, with safety to the
+lover: and it is a truth which, I believe, no man of attentive
+observation will deny, that, as, in general, English wives are <i>more
+warm</i> in their conjugal attachments than those of France, so, with
+regard to individuals, that those English women who are the <i>most light</i>
+in their manners, and who are the <i>least constant</i> in their attachments,
+have the smallest portion of that <i>warmth</i>, that indescribable passion
+which God has given to human beings as the great counterbalance to all
+the sorrows and sufferings of life.</p>
+
+<p>101. INDUSTRY. By <i>industry</i>, I do not mean merely <i>laboriousness</i>,
+merely labour or activity of body, for purposes of gain or of saving;
+for there may be industry amongst those who have more money than they
+know well what to do with: and there may be <i>lazy ladies</i>, as well as
+lazy farmers' and tradesmen's wives. There is no state of life in which
+<i>industry</i> in the wife is not necessary to the happiness and prosperity
+of the family, at the head of the household affairs of which she is
+placed. If she be lazy, there will be lazy servants, and, which is a
+great deal worse, children habitually lazy: every thing, however
+necessary to be done, will be put off to the last moment: then it will
+be done badly, and, in many cases, not at all: the dinner will be <i>too
+late</i>; the journey or the visit will be tardy; inconveniencies of all
+sorts will be continually arising: there will always be a heavy <i>arrear</i>
+of things unperformed; and this, even amongst the most wealthy of all,
+is <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>a great curse; for, if they have no <i>business</i> imposed upon them by
+necessity, they <i>make business</i> for themselves; life would be unbearable
+without it: and therefore a lazy woman must always be a curse, be her
+rank or station what it may.</p>
+
+<p>102. But, <i>who is to tell</i> whether a girl will make an industrious
+woman? How is the purblind lover especially, to be able to ascertain
+whether she, whose smiles and dimples and bewitching lips have half
+bereft him of his senses; how is he to be able to judge, from any thing
+that he can see, whether the beloved object will be industrious or lazy?
+Why, it is very difficult: it is a matter that reason has very little to
+do with; but there are, nevertheless, certain outward and visible signs,
+from which a man, not wholly deprived of the use of his reason, may form
+a pretty accurate judgment as to this matter. It was a story in
+Philadelphia, some years ago, that a young man, who was courting one of
+three sisters, happened to be on a visit to her, when all the three were
+present, and when one said to the others, 'I <i>wonder</i> where <i>our</i> needle
+is.' Upon which he withdrew, as soon as was consistent with the rules of
+politeness, resolved never to think more of a girl who possessed a
+needle only in partnership, and who, it appeared, was not too well
+informed as to the place where even that share was deposited.</p>
+
+<p>103. This was, to be sure, a very flagrant instance of a want of
+industry; for, if the third part of the use of a needle satisfied her
+when single, it was reasonable to anticipate that marriage would banish
+that useful implement altogether. But such instances are seldom suffered
+to come in contact with the eyes and ears of the lover, to disguise all
+defects from whom is the great business, not only of the girl herself,
+but of her whole family. There are, however, <a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>certain <i>outward signs</i>,
+which, if attended to with care, will serve as pretty sure guides. And,
+first, if you find the <i>tongue</i> lazy, you may be nearly certain that the
+hands and feet are the same. By laziness of the tongue I do not mean
+<i>silence</i>; I do not mean an <i>absence of talk</i>, for that is, in most
+cases, very good; but, I mean, a <i>slow</i> and <i>soft utterance</i>; a sort of
+<i>sighing out</i> of the words instead of <i>speaking</i> them; a sort of letting
+the sounds fall out, as if the party were <i>sick at stomach</i>. The
+pronunciation of an industrious person is generally <i>quick</i>, <i>distinct</i>,
+and the voice, if not strong, <i>firm</i> at the least. Not masculine; as
+feminine as possible; not a <i>croak</i> nor a <i>bawl</i>, but a quick, distinct,
+and sound voice. Nothing is much more disgusting than what the sensible
+country people call a <i>maw-mouthed</i> woman. A maw-mouthed man is bad
+enough: he is sure to be a lazy fellow: but, a woman of this
+description, in addition to her laziness, soon becomes the most
+disgusting of mates. In this whole world nothing is much more hateful
+than a female's under jaw, lazily moving up and down, and letting out a
+long string of half-articulate sounds. It is impossible for any man, who
+has any spirit in him, to love such a woman for any length of time.</p>
+
+<p>104. Look a little, also, at the labours of the <i>teeth</i>, for these
+correspond with those of the other members of the body, and with the
+operations of the mind. 'Quick at <i>meals</i>, quick at <i>work</i>,' is a saying
+as old as the hills, in this, the most industrious nation upon earth;
+and never was there a truer saying. But fashion comes in here, and
+decides that you shall not be quick at meals; that you shall sit and be
+carrying on the affair of eating for an hour, or more. Good God! what
+have I not suffered on this account! However, though she must <i>sit</i> as
+long <a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>as the rest, and though she must join in the <i>performance</i> (for it
+is a real performance) unto the end of the last scene, she cannot make
+her <i>teeth</i> abandon their character. She may, and must, suffer the slice
+to linger on the plate, and must make the supply slow, in order to fill
+up the time; but when she <i>does</i> bite, she cannot well disguise what
+nature has taught her to do; and you may be assured, that if her jaws
+move in slow time, and if she rather <i>squeeze</i> than bite the food; if
+she so deal with it as to leave you in doubt as to whether she mean
+finally to admit or reject it; if she deal with it thus, set her down as
+being, in her very nature, incorrigibly lazy. Never mind the pieces of
+needle-work, the tambouring, the maps of the world made by her needle.
+Get to see her at work upon a mutton chop, or a bit of bread and cheese;
+and, if she deal quickly with these, you have a pretty good security for
+that activity, that <i>stirring</i> industry, without which a wife is a
+burden instead of being a help. And, as to <i>love</i>, it cannot live for
+more than a month or two (in the breast of a man of spirit) towards a
+lazy woman.</p>
+
+<p>105. Another mark of industry is, a <i>quick step</i>, and a somewhat <i>heavy
+tread</i>, showing that the foot comes down with a <i>hearty good will</i>; and
+if the body lean a little forward, and the eyes keep steadily in the
+same direction, while the feet are going, so much the better, for these
+discover <i>earnestness</i> to arrive at the intended point. I do not like,
+and I never liked, your <i>sauntering</i>, soft-stepping girls, who move as
+if they were perfectly indifferent as to the result; and, as to the
+<i>love</i> part of the story, whoever expects ardent and lasting affection
+from one of these sauntering girls, will, when too late, find his
+mistake: the character runs the same all the way through; and no man
+ever yet saw a sauntering girl, who did not, when <a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>married, make a
+<i>mawkish</i> wife, and a cold-hearted mother; cared very little for either
+by husband or children; and, of course, having no store of those
+blessings which are the natural resources to apply to in sickness and in
+old age.</p>
+
+<p>106. <i>Early-rising</i> is another mark of industry; and though, in the
+higher situations of life, it may be of no importance in a mere
+pecuniary point of view, it is, even there, of importance in other
+respects; for it is, I should imagine, pretty difficult to keep love
+alive towards a woman who <i>never sees the dew</i>, never beholds the
+<i>rising sun</i>, and who constantly comes directly from a reeking bed to
+the breakfast table, and there chews about, without appetite, the
+choicest morsels of human food. A man might, perhaps, endure this for a
+month or two, without being disgusted; but that is ample allowance of
+time. And, as to people in the middle rank of life, where a living and a
+provision for children is to be sought by labour of some sort or other,
+late rising in the wife is <i>certain ruin</i>; and, never was there yet an
+early-rising wife, who had been a late-rising girl. If brought up to
+late rising, she will like it; it will be her <i>habit</i>; she will, when
+married, never want excuses for indulging in the habit; at first she
+will be indulged without bounds; to make a <i>change</i> afterwards will be
+difficult; it will be deemed a <i>wrong</i> done to her; she will ascribe it
+to diminished affection; a quarrel must ensue, or, the husband must
+submit to be ruined, or, at the very least, to see half the fruit of his
+labour snored and lounged away. And, is this being <i>rigid</i>? Is it being
+<i>harsh</i>; is it being <i>hard</i> upon women? Is it the offspring of the
+frigid severity of age? It is none of these: it arises from an ardent
+desire to promote the happiness, and to add to the natural, legitimate,
+and <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>salutary influence, of the female sex. The tendency of this advice
+is to promote the preservation of their health; to prolong the duration
+of their beauty; to cause them to be beloved to the last day of their
+lives; and to give them, during the whole of those lives, weight and
+consequence, of which laziness would render them wholly unworthy.</p>
+
+<p>107. FRUGALITY. This means the contrary of <i>extravagance</i>. It does not
+mean <i>stinginess</i>; it does not mean a pinching of the belly, nor a
+stripping of the back; but it means an abstaining from all <i>unnecessary</i>
+expenditure, and all <i>unnecessary</i> use, of goods of any and of every
+sort; and a quality of great importance it is, whether the rank in life
+be high or low. Some people are, indeed, so rich, they have such an
+overabundance of money and goods, that how to get rid of them would, to
+a looker-on, seem to be their only difficulty. But while the
+inconvenience of even these immense masses is not too great to be
+overcome by a really extravagant woman, who jumps with joy at a basket
+of strawberries at a guinea an ounce, and who would not give a straw for
+green peas later in the year than January; while such a dame would
+lighten the bags of a loan-monger, or shorten the rent-roll of
+half-a-dozen peerages amalgamated into one possession, she would, with
+very little study and application of her talent, send a nobleman of
+ordinary estate to the poor-house or the pension list, which last may be
+justly regarded as the poor-book of the aristocracy. How many noblemen
+and gentlemen, of fine estates, have been ruined and degraded by the
+extravagance of their wives! More frequently by their <i>own</i>
+extravagance, perhaps; but, in numerous instances, by that of those
+whose duty it is to assist in upholding their stations by husbanding
+their fortunes.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>108. If this be the case amongst the opulent, who have estates to draw
+upon, what must be the consequences of a want of frugality in the middle
+and lower ranks of life? Here it must be fatal, and especially amongst
+that description of persons whose wives have, in many cases, the
+<i>receiving</i> as well as the expending of money. In such a case, there
+wants nothing but extravagance in the wife to make ruin as sure as the
+arrival of old age. To obtain <i>security</i> against this is very difficult;
+yet, if the lover be not <i>quite blind</i>, he may easily discover a
+propensity towards extravagance. The object of his addresses will, nine
+times out of ten, not be the manager of a house; but she must have her
+<i>dress</i>, and other little matters under her control. If she be <i>costly</i>
+in these; if, in these, she step above her rank, or even to the top of
+it; if she purchase all she is <i>able</i> to purchase, and prefer the showy
+to the useful, the gay and the fragile to the less sightly and more
+durable, he may be sure that the disposition will cling to her through
+life. If he perceive in her a taste for costly food, costly furniture,
+costly amusements; if he find her love of gratification to be bounded
+only by her want of means; if he find her full of admiration of the
+trappings of the rich, and of desire to be able to imitate them, he may
+be pretty sure that she will not spare his purse, when once she gets her
+hand into it; and, therefore, if he can bid adieu to her charms, the
+sooner he does it the better.</p>
+
+<p>109. The outward and visible and vulgar signs of extravagance are
+<i>rings</i>, <i>broaches</i>, <i>bracelets</i>, <i>buckles</i>, <i>necklaces</i>, <i>diamonds</i>
+(real or mock), and, in short, all the <i>hard-ware</i> which women put upon
+their persons. These things may be proper enough in <i>palaces</i>, or in
+scenes resembling palaces; but, when they make their appearance amongst
+people in the middle rank of <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>life, where, after all, they only serve to
+show that poverty in the parties which they wish to disguise; when the
+nasty, mean, tawdry things make their appearance in this rank of life,
+they are the sure indications of a disposition that will <i>always be
+straining at what it can never attain</i>. To marry a girl of this
+disposition is really self-destruction. You never can have either
+property or peace. Earn her a horse to ride, she will want a gig: earn
+the gig, she will want a chariot: get her that, she will long for a
+coach and four: and, from stage to stage, she will torment you to the
+end of her or your days; for, still there will be somebody with a finer
+equipage than you can give her; and, as long as this is the case, you
+will never have rest. Reason would tell her, that she could never be at
+the <i>top</i>; that she must stop at some point short of that; and that,
+therefore, all expenses in the rivalship are so much thrown away. But,
+<i>reason</i> and broaches and bracelets do not go in company: the girl who
+has not the sense to perceive that her person is disfigured, and not
+beautified, by parcels of brass and tin (for they are generally little
+better) and other hard-ware, stuck about her body; the girl that is so
+foolish as not to perceive, that, when silks and cottons and cambrics,
+in their neatest form, have done their best, nothing more is to be done;
+the girl that cannot perceive this is too great a fool to be trusted
+with the purse of any man.</p>
+
+<p>110. CLEANLINESS. This is a capital ingredient; for there never yet was,
+and there never will be, love of long duration, sincere and ardent love,
+in any man, towards a '<i>filthy mate</i>.' I mean any man <i>in England</i>, or
+in those parts of <i>America</i> where the people have descended from the
+English. I do not say, that there are not men enough, even in England,
+<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>to live <i>peaceably</i> and even contentedly, with dirty, sluttish women;
+for, there are some who seem to like the filth well enough. But what I
+contend for is this: that there never can exist, for any length of time,
+<i>ardent affection</i> in any man towards a woman who is filthy either in
+her person, or in her house affairs. Men may be careless as to their own
+persons; they may, from the nature of their business, or from their want
+of time to adhere to neatness in dress, be slovenly in their own dress
+and habits; but, they do not relish this in their wives, who must still
+have <i>charms</i>; and charms and filth do not go together.</p>
+
+<p>111. It is not <i>dress</i> that the husband wants to be perpetual: it is not
+<i>finery</i>; but <i>cleanliness</i> in every thing. The French women dress
+enough, especially when they <i>sally forth</i>. My excellent neighbour, Mr.
+JOHN TREDWELL, of Long Island, used to say, that the French were 'pigs
+in the parlour, and peacocks on the promenade;' an alliteration which
+'CANNING'S SELF' might have envied! This <i>occasional</i> cleanliness is not
+the thing that an English or an American husband wants: he wants it
+always; indoors as well as out; by night as well as by day; on the floor
+as well as on the table; and, however he may grumble about the '<i>fuss</i>'
+and the '<i>expense</i>' of it, he would grumble more if he had it not. I
+once saw a picture representing the <i>amusements</i> of Portuguese Lovers;
+that is to say, three or four young men, dressed in gold or silver laced
+clothes, each having a young girl, dressed like a princess, and
+affectionately engaged in hunting down and <i>killing the vermin in his
+head</i>! This was, perhaps, an <i>exaggeration</i>; but that it should have had
+the shadow of foundation, was enough to fill me with contempt for the
+whole nation.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>112. The <i>signs</i> of cleanliness are, in the first place,
+a clean <i>skin</i>. An English girl will hardly let her lover see the stale
+dirt between her fingers, as I have many times seen it between those of
+French women, and even ladies, of all ages. An English girl will have
+her <i>face</i> clean, to be sure, if there be soap and water within her
+reach; but, get a glance, just a glance, at her <i>poll</i>, if you have any
+doubt upon the subject; and, if you find there, or <i>behind the ears</i>,
+what the Yorkshire people call <i>grime</i>, the sooner you cease your visits
+the better. I hope, now, that no young woman will be offended at this,
+and think me too severe on her sex. I am only saying, I am only telling
+the women, that which <i>all men think</i>; and, it is a decided advantage to
+them to be fully informed of <i>our thoughts</i> on the subject. If any one,
+who shall read this, find, upon self-examination, that she is defective
+in this respect, there is plenty of time for correcting the defect.</p>
+
+<p>113. In the <i>dress</i> you can, amongst rich people, find little whereon to
+form a judgment as to cleanliness, because they have not only the dress
+prepared for them, but <i>put upon them</i> into the bargain. But, in the
+middle rank of life, the dress is a good criterion in two respects:
+first, as to its <i>colour</i>; for, if the <i>white</i> be a sort of <i>yellow</i>,
+cleanly hands would have been at work to prevent that. A <i>white-yellow</i>
+cravat, or shirt, on a man, speaks, at once, the character of his wife;
+and, be you assured, that she will not take with your dress pains which
+she has never taken with her own. Then, the manner <i>of putting on</i> the
+dress is no bad foundation for judging. If it be careless, slovenly, if
+it do not fit properly, no matter for its <i>mean quality</i>: mean as it may
+be, it may be neatly and trimly put on; and, if it be not, take care of
+yourself; for, as you will soon find to your cost, <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>a sloven in one
+thing is a sloven in all things. The country-people judge greatly from
+the state of the covering of the <i>ancles</i> and, if that be not clean and
+tight, they conclude, that all out of sight is not what it ought to be.
+Look at the <i>shoes</i>! If they be trodden on one side, loose on the foot,
+or run down at the heel, it is a very bad sign; and, as to <i>slip-shod</i>,
+though at coming down in the morning and even before day-light, make up
+your mind to a rope, rather than to live with a slip-shod wife.</p>
+
+<p>114. Oh! how much do women lose by inattention to these matters! Men, in
+general, say nothing about it to their wives; but they <i>think</i> about it;
+they envy their luckier neighbours; and in numerous cases, consequences
+the most serious arise from this apparently trifling cause. Beauty is
+valuable; it is one of the ties, and a strong tie too; that, however,
+cannot last to old age; but, the charm of cleanliness never ends but
+with life itself. I dismiss this part of my subject with a quotation
+from my 'YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN AMERICA,' containing words which I venture
+to recommend to every young woman to engrave on her heart: 'The sweetest
+flowers, when they become putrid, stink the most; and a nasty woman is
+the nastiest thing in nature.'</p>
+
+<p>115. KNOWLEDGE OF DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. Without more or less of this
+knowledge, <i>a lady</i>, even the wife of a peer, is but a poorish thing. It
+was the fashion, in former times, for ladies to understand a great deal
+about these affairs, and it would be very hard to make me believe that
+this did not tend to promote the interests and honour of their husbands.
+The affairs of a great family never can be <i>well</i> managed, if left
+<i>wholly</i> to hirelings; and there are many parts of these affairs in
+which it would be unseemly for the husband to meddle. Surely, no lady
+can be too high <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>in rank to make it proper for her to be well acquainted
+with the characters and general demeanour of all the <i>female servants</i>.
+To receive and give them characters is too much to be left to a servant,
+however good, and of service however long. Much of the ease and
+happiness of the great and rich must depend on the character of those by
+whom they are served: they live under the same roof with them; they are
+frequently the children of their tenants, or poorer neighbours; the
+conduct of their whole lives must be influenced by the examples and
+precepts which they here imbibe; and when ladies consider how much more
+weight there must be in one word from them than in ten thousand words
+from a person who, call her what you like, is still a <i>fellow-servant</i>,
+it does appear strange that they should forego the performance of this
+at once important and pleasing part of their duty. It was from the
+mansions of noblemen and gentlemen, and not from boarding-schools, that
+farmers and tradesmen formerly took their wives; and though these days
+are gone, with little chance of returning, there is still something left
+for ladies to do in checking that torrent of immorality which is now
+crowding the streets with prostitutes and cramming the jails with
+thieves.</p>
+
+<p>116. I am, however, addressing myself, in this work, to persons in the
+middle rank of life; and here a <i>knowledge of domestic affairs</i> is so
+necessary in every wife, that the lover ought to have it continually in
+his eye. Not only a <i>knowledge</i> of these affairs; not only to know how
+things <i>ought to be done</i>, but how <i>to do them</i>; not only to know what
+ingredients ought to be put into a pie or a pudding, but to be able <i>to
+make</i> the pie or the pudding. Young people, when they come together,
+ought not, unless they have fortunes, or are in a great way of business,
+to think <a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>about <i>servants</i>! Servants for what! To help them to eat and
+drink and sleep? When children come, there must be some <i>help</i> in a
+farmer's or tradesman's house; but until then, what call for a servant
+in a house, the master of which has to <i>earn</i> every mouthful that is
+consumed?</p>
+
+<p>117. I shall, when I come to address myself to the husband, have much
+more to say upon this subject of <i>keeping servants</i>; but, what the
+lover, if he be not quite blind, has to look to, is, that his intended
+wife know <i>how to do</i> the work of a house, unless he have fortune
+sufficient to keep her like a lady. 'Eating and drinking,' as I observe
+in COTTAGE ECONOMY, came <i>three times every day</i>; they must come; and,
+however little we may, in the days of our health and vigour, care about
+choice food and about cookery, we very soon get <i>tired</i> of heavy or
+burnt bread and of spoiled joints of meat: we bear them for a time, or
+for two, perhaps; but, about the third time, we lament <i>inwardly</i>; about
+the fifth time, it must be an extraordinary honey-moon that will keep us
+from complaining: if the like continue for a month or two, we begin to
+<i>repent</i>, and then adieu to all our anticipated delights. We discover,
+when it is too late, that we have not got a help-mate, but a burden;
+and, the fire of love being damped, the unfortunately educated creature,
+whose parents are more to blame than she is, is, unless she resolve to
+learn her duty, doomed to lead a life very nearly approaching to that of
+misery; for, however considerate the husband, he never can esteem her as
+he would have done, had she been skilled and able in domestic affairs.</p>
+
+<p>118. The mere <i>manual</i> performance of domestic labours is not, indeed,
+absolutely necessary in the female head of the family of professional
+men, such as lawyers, doctors, and parsons; but, even here, and <a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>also in
+the case of great merchants and of gentlemen living on their fortunes,
+surely the head of the household ought to be able to give directions as
+to the purchasing of meat, salting meat, making bread, making preserves
+of all sorts, and ought to see the things done, or that they be done.
+She ought to take care that food be well cooked, drink properly prepared
+and kept; that there be always a sufficient supply; that there be good
+living without waste; and that, in her department, nothing shall be seen
+inconsistent with the rank, station, and character of her husband, who,
+if he have a skilful and industrious wife, will, unless he be of a
+singularly foolish turn, gladly leave all these things to her absolute
+dominion, controlled only by the extent of the whole expenditure, of
+which he must be the best, and, indeed, the sole, judge.</p>
+
+<p>119. But, in a farmer's or a tradesman's family, the <i>manual
+performance</i> is absolutely necessary, whether there be servants or not.
+No one knows how to teach another so well as one who has done, and can
+do, the thing himself. It was said of a famous French commander, that,
+in attacking an enemy, he did not say to his men '<i>go</i> on,' but '<i>come</i>
+on;' and, whoever have well observed the movements of servants, must
+know what a prodigious difference there is in the effect of the words,
+<i>go</i> and <i>come</i>. A very good rule would be, to have nothing to eat, in a
+farmer's or tradesman's house, that the mistress did not know how to
+prepare and to cook; no pudding, tart, pie or cake, that she did not
+know how to make. Never fear the toil to her: exercise is good for
+health; and without <i>health</i> there is <i>no beauty</i>; a sick beauty may
+excite pity, but pity is a short-lived passion. Besides, what is the
+labour in such a case? And how many thousands of ladies, who loll away
+the day, would give half their <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>fortunes for that sound sleep which the
+stirring house-wife seldom fails to enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>120. Yet, if a young farmer or tradesman <i>marry</i> a girl, who has been
+brought up to <i>play music</i>, to what is called <i>draw</i>, to <i>sing</i>, to
+waste paper, pen and ink, in writing long and half romantic letters, and
+to see shows, and plays, and read novels; if a young man do <i>marry</i> such
+an unfortunate young creature, let him bear the consequences with
+temper; let him be <i>just</i>; and justice will teach him to treat her with
+great indulgence; to endeavour to cause her to learn her business as a
+wife; to be patient with her; to reflect that he has taken her, being
+apprised of her inability; to bear in mind, that he was, or seemed to
+be, pleased with her showy and useless acquirements; and that, when the
+gratification of his passion has been accomplished, he is unjust and
+cruel and unmanly, if he turn round upon her, and accuse her of a want
+of that knowledge, which he well knew that she did not possess.</p>
+
+<p>121. For my part, I do not know, nor can I form an idea of, a more
+unfortunate being than a girl with a mere boarding-school education, and
+without a fortune to enable her to keep a servant, when married. Of what
+<i>use</i> are her accomplishments? Of what use her music, her drawing, and
+her romantic epistles? If she be good in <i>her nature</i>, the first little
+faint cry of her first baby drives all the tunes and all the landscapes
+and all the Clarissa Harlowes out of her head for ever. I once saw a
+very striking instance of this sort. It was a climb-over-the-wall match,
+and I gave the bride away, at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, the
+pair being as handsome a pair as ever I saw in my life. Beauty, however,
+though in double quantity, would not pay the baker and butcher; and,
+after an absence of little better than a year, I found <a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>the husband in
+prison for debt; but I there found also his wife, with her baby, and
+she, who had never, before her marriage, known what it was to get water
+to wash her own hands, and whose talk was all about music, and the like,
+was now the cheerful sustainer of her husband, and the most affectionate
+of mothers. All the <i>music</i> and all the <i>drawing</i>, and all the plays and
+romances were gone to the winds! The husband and baby had fairly
+supplanted them; and even this prison-scene was a blessing, as it gave
+her, at this early stage, an opportunity of proving her devotion to her
+husband, who, though I have not seen him for about fifteen years, he
+being in a part of America which I could not reach when last there, has,
+I am sure, amply repaid her for that devotion. They have now a numerous
+family (not less than twelve children, I believe), and she is, I am
+told, a most excellent and able mistress of a respectable house.</p>
+
+<p>122. But, this is a rare instance: the husband, like his countrymen in
+general, was at once brave, humane, gentle, and considerate, and the
+love was so sincere and ardent, on both sides, that it made losses and
+sufferings appear as nothing. When I, in a sort of half-whisper, asked
+Mrs. DICKENS where her <i>piano</i> was, she smiled, and turned her face
+towards her baby, that was sitting on her knee; as much as to say, 'This
+little fellow has beaten the piano;' and, if what I am now writing
+should ever have the honour to be read by her, let it be the bearer of a
+renewed expression of my admiration of her conduct, and of that regard
+for her kind and sensible husband, which time and distance have not in
+the least diminished, and which will be an inmate of my heart until it
+shall cease to beat.</p>
+
+<p>123. The like of this is, however, not to be expected: no man ought to
+think that he has even a <a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>chance of it: besides, the husband was, in
+this case, a man of learning and of great natural ability: he has not
+had to get his bread by farming or trade; and, in all probability, his
+wife has had the leisure to practise those acquirements which she
+possessed at the time of her marriage. But, can this be the case with
+the farmer or the tradesman's wife? She has to <i>help to earn</i> a
+provision for her children; or, at the least, to help to earn a store
+for sickness or old age. She, therefore, ought to be qualified to begin,
+at once, to assist her husband in his earnings: the way in which she can
+most efficiently assist, is by taking care of his property; by expending
+his money to the greatest advantage; by wasting nothing; by making the
+table sufficiently abundant with the least expense. And how is she to do
+these things, unless she have been <i>brought up</i> to understand domestic
+affairs? How is she to do these things, if she have been taught to think
+these matters beneath her study? How is any man to expect her to do
+these things, if she have been so bred up as to make her habitually look
+upon them as worthy the attention of none but low and <i>ignorant</i> women?</p>
+
+<p>124. <i>Ignorant</i>, indeed! Ignorance consists in a want of knowledge of
+those things which your calling or state of life naturally supposes you
+to understand. A ploughman is not an <i>ignorant man</i> because he does not
+know how to read: if he knows how to plough, he is not to be called an
+ignorant man; but, a wife may be justly called an ignorant woman, if she
+does not know how to provide a dinner for her husband. It is cold
+comfort for a hungry man, to tell him how delightfully his wife plays
+and sings: lovers may live on very a&euml;rial diet; but husbands stand in
+need of the solids; and young women may take my word for it, that a
+constantly clean board, well cooked <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>victuals, a house in order, and a
+cheerful fire, will do more in preserving a husband's heart, than all
+the '<i>accomplishments</i>,' taught in all the '<i>establishments</i>' in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>125. GOOD TEMPER. This is a very difficult thing to ascertain
+beforehand. Smiles are so cheap; they are so easily put on for the
+occasion; and, besides, the frowns are, according to the lover's whim,
+interpreted into the contrary. By '<i>good temper</i>,' I do not mean <i>easy
+temper</i>, a serenity which nothing disturbs, for that is a mark of
+laziness. <i>Sulkiness</i>, if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a
+temper to be avoided by all means. A sulky man is bad enough; what,
+then, must be a sulky woman, and that woman <i>a wife</i>; a constant inmate,
+a companion day and night! Only think of the delight of sitting at the
+same table, and sleeping in the same bed, for a week, and not exchange a
+word all the while! Very bad to be scolding for such a length of time;
+but this is far better than the sulks. If you have your eyes, and look
+sharp, you will discover symptoms of this, if it unhappily exist. She
+will, at some time or other, show it towards some one or other of the
+family; or, perhaps, towards yourself; and you may be quite sure that,
+in this respect, marriage will not mend her. Sulkiness arises from
+capricious displeasure, displeasure not founded in reason. The party
+takes offence unjustifiably; is unable to frame a complaint, and
+therefore expresses displeasure by silence. The remedy for sulkiness is,
+to suffer it to take its <i>full swing</i>; but it is better not to have the
+disease in your house; and to be <i>married to it</i> is little short of
+madness.</p>
+
+<p>126. <i>Querulousness</i> is a great fault. No man, and, especially, no
+<i>woman</i>, likes to hear eternal plaintiveness. That she complain, and
+roundly complain, of <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>your want of punctuality, of your coolness, of
+your neglect, of your liking the company of others: these are all very
+well, more especially as they are frequently but too just. But an
+everlasting complaining, without rhyme or reason, is a bad sign. It
+shows want of patience, and, indeed, want of sense. But, the contrary of
+this, a <i>cold indifference</i>, is still worse. 'When will you come again?
+You can never find time to come here. You like any company better than
+mine.' These, when groundless, are very teasing, and demonstrate a
+disposition too full of anxiousness; but, from a girl who always
+receives you with the same <i>civil</i> smile, lets you, at your own good
+pleasure, depart with the same; and who, when you take her by the hand,
+holds her cold fingers as straight as sticks, I say (or should if I were
+young), God, in his mercy, preserve me!</p>
+
+<p>127. <i>Pertinacity</i> is a very bad thing in anybody, and especially in a
+young woman; and it is sure to increase in force with the age of the
+party. To have the last word is a poor triumph; but with some people it
+is a species of disease of the mind. In a wife it must be extremely
+troublesome; and, if you find an ounce of it in the maid, it will become
+a pound in the wife. An eternal <i>disputer</i> is a most disagreeable
+companion; and where young women thrust their <i>say</i> into conversations
+carried on by older persons, give their opinions in a positive manner,
+and court a contest of the tongue, those must be very bold men who will
+encounter them as wives.</p>
+
+<p>128. Still, of all the faults as to <i>temper</i>, your <i>melancholy</i> ladies
+have the worst, unless you have the same mental disease. Most wives are,
+at times, <i>misery-makers</i>; but these carry it on as a regular trade.
+They are always unhappy about <i>something</i>, either past, present, or to
+come. Both arms full of children <a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>is a pretty efficient remedy in most
+cases; but, if the ingredients be wanting, a little <i>want</i>, a little
+<i>real trouble</i>, a little <i>genuine affliction</i> must, if you would effect
+a cure, be resorted to. But, this is very painful to a man of any
+feeling; and, therefore, the best way is to avoid a connexion, which is
+to give you a life of wailing and sighs.</p>
+
+<p>129. BEAUTY. Though I have reserved this to the last of the things to be
+desired in a wife, I by no means think it the last in point of
+importance. The less favoured part of the sex say, that 'beauty is but
+<i>skin-deep</i>;' and this is very true; but, it is very <i>agreeable</i>,
+though, for all that. Pictures are only paint-deep, or pencil-deep; but
+we admire them, nevertheless. &quot;Handsome is that handsome <i>does</i>,&quot; used
+to say to me an old man, who had marked me out for his not over handsome
+daughter. 'Please your <i>eye</i> and plague your heart' is an adage that
+want of beauty invented, I dare say, more than a thousand years ago.
+These adages would say, if they had but the courage, that beauty is
+inconsistent with chastity, with sobriety of conduct, and with all the
+female virtues. The argument is, that beauty exposes the possessor <i>to
+greater temptation</i> than women not beautiful are exposed to; and that,
+<i>therefore</i>, their fall is more probable. Let us see a little how this
+matter stands.</p>
+
+<p>130. It is certainly true, that pretty girls will have more, and more
+ardent, admirers than ugly ones; but, as to the <i>temptation</i> when in
+their unmarried state, there are few so very ugly as to be exposed to no
+<i>temptation</i> at all; and, which is the most likely to resist; she who
+has a choice of lovers, or she who if she let the occasion slip may
+never have it again? Which of the two is most likely to set a high value
+upon her reputation, she whom all beholders admire, <a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>or she who is
+admired, at best, by mere chance? And as to women in the married state,
+this argument assumes, that, when they fall, it is from their own
+vicious disposition; when the fact is, that, if you search the annals of
+conjugal infidelity, you will find, that, nine times out of ten, the
+<i>fault is in the husband</i>. It is his neglect, his flagrant disregard,
+his frosty indifference, his foul example; it is to these that, nine
+times out of ten, he owes the infidelity of his wife; and, if I were to
+say ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the facts, if verified, would, I
+am certain, bear me out. And whence this neglect, this disregard, this
+frosty indifference; whence this foul example? Because it is easy, in so
+many cases, to find some woman more beautiful than the wife. This is no
+<i>justification</i> for the husband to plead; for he has, with his eyes
+open, made a solemn contract: if he have not beauty enough to please
+him, he should have sought it in some other woman: if, as is frequently
+the case, he have preferred rank or money to beauty, he is an
+unprincipled man, if he do any thing to make her unhappy who has brought
+him the rank or the money. At any rate, as conjugal infidelity is, in so
+many cases; as it is <i>generally</i> caused by the want of affection and due
+attention in the husband, it follows, of course, that it must more
+frequently happen in the case of ugly than in that of handsome women.</p>
+
+<p>131. In point of <i>dress</i>, nothing need be said to convince any
+reasonable man, that beautiful women will be less expensive in this
+respect than women of a contrary description. Experience teaches us,
+that ugly women are always the most studious about their dress; and, if
+we had never observed upon the subject, <i>reason</i> would tell us, that it
+must be so. Few women are handsome without knowing it; and if they know
+that their features naturally attract <a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>admiration, will they desire to
+draw it off, and to fix it on lace and silks and jewels?</p>
+
+<p>132. As to <i>manners</i> and <i>temper</i> there are certainly some handsome
+women who are conceited and arrogant; but, as they have all the best
+reasons in the world for being pleased with themselves, they afford you
+the best chance of general good humour; and this good humour is a very
+valuable commodity in the married state. Some that are called handsome,
+and that are such at the first glance, are dull, inanimate things, that
+might as well have been made of wax, or of wood. But, the truth is, that
+this is <i>not beauty</i>, for this is not to be found <i>only</i> in the <i>form</i>
+of the features, but in the movements of them also. Besides, here nature
+is very impartial; for she gives animation promiscuously to the handsome
+as well as to the ugly; and the want of this in the former is surely as
+bearable as in the latter.</p>
+
+<p>133. But, the great use of female beauty, the great practical advantage
+of it is, that it naturally and unavoidably tends to <i>keep the husband
+in good humour with himself</i>, to make him, to use the dealer's phrase,
+<i>pleased with his bargain</i>. When old age approaches, and the parties
+have become endeared to each other by a long series of joint cares and
+interests, and when children have come and bound them together by the
+strongest ties that nature has in store; at this age the features and
+the person are of less consequence; but, in the <i>young days</i> of
+matrimony, when the roving eye of the bachelor is scarcely become steady
+in the head of the husband, it is dangerous for him to see, every time
+he stirs out, a face more captivating than that of the person to whom he
+is bound for life. Beauty is, in some degree, a matter of <i>taste</i>: what
+one man admires, another does not; and it is fortunate for us that it
+<a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>is thus. But still there are certain things that all men admire; and a
+husband is always pleased when he perceives that a portion, at least, of
+these things are in his own possession: he takes this possession as a
+<i>compliment to himself</i>: there must, he will think the world will
+believe, have been <i>some merit in him</i>, some charm, seen or unseen, to
+have caused him to be blessed with the acquisition.</p>
+
+<p>134. And then there arise so many things, sickness, misfortune in
+business, losses, many many things, wholly unexpected; and, there are so
+many circumstances, perfectly <i>nameless</i>, to communicate to the
+new-married man the fact, that it is not a real <i>angel</i> of whom he has
+got the possession; there are so many things of this sort, so many and
+such powerful dampers of the passions, and so many incentives to <i>cool
+reflection</i>; that it requires something, and a good deal too, to keep
+the husband in countenance in this his altered and enlightened state.
+The passion of women does not cool so soon: the lamp of their love burns
+more steadily, and even brightens as it burns: and, there is, the young
+man may be assured, a vast difference in the effect of the fondness of a
+pretty woman and that of one of a different description; and, let reason
+and philosophy say what they will, a man will come down stairs of a
+morning better pleased after seeing the former, than he would after
+seeing the latter, in her <i>night-cap</i>.</p>
+
+<p>135. To be sure, when a man has, from whatever inducement, once married
+a woman, he is unjust and cruel if he even <i>slight</i> her on account of
+her want of beauty, and, if he treat her harshly, on this account, he is
+a brute. But, it requires a greater degree of reflection and
+consideration than falls to the lot of men in general to make them act
+with justice in such a case; and, therefore, the best way is to guard,
+if you <a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>can, against the temptation to commit such injustice, which is
+to be done in no other way, than by not marrying any one that you <i>do
+not think handsome</i>.</p>
+
+<p>136. I must not conclude this address to THE LOVER without something on
+the subject of <i>seduction</i> and <i>inconstancy</i>. In, perhaps, nineteen
+cases out of twenty, there is, in the unfortunate cases of illicit
+gratification, no seduction at all, the passion, the absence of virtue,
+and the crime, being all mutual. But, there are other cases of a very
+different description; and where a man goes coolly and deliberately to
+work, first to gain and rivet the affections of a young girl, then to
+take advantage of those affections to accomplish that which he knows
+must be her ruin, and plunge her into misery for life; when a man does
+this merely for the sake of a momentary gratification, he must be either
+a selfish and unfeeling brute, unworthy of the name of man, or he must
+have a heart little inferior, in point of obduracy, to that of the
+murderer. Let young women, however, be aware; let them be well aware,
+that few, indeed, are the cases in which this apology can possibly avail
+them. Their character is not solely theirs, but belongs, in part, to
+their family and kindred. They may, in the case contemplated, be objects
+of compassion with the world; but what contrition, what repentance, what
+remorse, what that even the tenderest benevolence can suggest, is to
+heal the wounded hearts of humbled, disgraced, but still affectionate,
+parents, brethren and sisters?</p>
+
+<p>137. As to <i>constancy</i> in Lovers, though I do not approve of the saying,
+'At lovers' lies Jove laughs;' yet, when people are young, one object
+may supplant another in their affections, not only without criminality
+in the party experiencing the change, but without blame; and it is
+honest, and even <a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>humane, to act upon the change; because it would be
+both foolish and cruel to marry one girl while you liked another better:
+and the same holds good with regard to the other sex. Even when
+<i>marriage</i> has been <i>promised</i>, and that, too, in the most solemn
+manner, it is better for both parties to break off, than to be coupled
+together with the reluctant assent of either; and I have always thought,
+that actions for damages, on this score, if brought by the girl, show a
+want of delicacy as well as of spirit; and, if brought by the man,
+excessive meanness. Some damage may, indeed, have been done to the
+complaining party; but no damage equal to what that party would have
+sustained from a marriage, to which the other party would have yielded
+by a sort of compulsion, producing to almost a certainty what Hogarth,
+in his <i>Marriage &agrave; la Mode</i>, most aptly typifies by two curs, of
+different sexes, fastened together by what sportsmen call <i>couples</i>,
+pulling different ways, and snarling and barking and foaming like
+furies.</p>
+
+<p>138. But when promises have been made to a young woman; when they have
+been relied on for any considerable time; when it is manifest that her
+peace and happiness, and, perhaps, her life, depend upon their
+fulfilment; when things have been carried to this length, the change in
+the Lover ought to be announced in the manner most likely to make the
+disappointment as supportable as the case will admit of; for, though it
+is better to break the promise than to marry one while you like another
+better; though it is better for both parties, you have no right to break
+the heart of her who has, and that, too, with your accordance, and,
+indeed, at your instigation, or, at least, by your encouragement,
+confided it to your fidelity. You cannot help your change of affections;
+but you can help making the <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>transfer in such a way as to cause the
+destruction, or even probable destruction, nay, if it were but the deep
+misery, of her, to gain whose heart you had pledged your own. You ought
+to proceed by slow degrees; you ought to call time to your aid in
+executing the painful task; you ought scrupulously to avoid every thing
+calculated to aggravate the sufferings of the disconsolate party.</p>
+
+<p>139. A striking, a monstrous, instance of conduct the contrary of this
+has recently been placed upon the melancholy records of the Coroner of
+Middlesex; which have informed an indignant public, that a young man,
+having first secured the affections of a virtuous young woman, next
+promised her marriage, then caused the banns to be published, and then,
+on the very day appointed for the performance of the ceremony, married
+another woman, in the same church; and this, too, without, as he avowed,
+any provocation, and without the smallest intimation or hint of his
+intention to the disappointed party, who, unable to support existence
+under a blow so cruel, put an end to that existence by the most deadly
+and the swiftest poison. If any thing could wipe from our country the
+stain of having given birth to a monster so barbarous as this, it would
+be the abhorrence of him which the jury expressed; and which, from every
+tongue, he ought to hear to the last moment of his life.</p>
+
+<p>140. Nor has a man any right to <i>sport</i> with the affections of a young
+woman, though he stop short of <i>positive promises</i>. Vanity is generally
+the tempter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being admired by
+the women: a very despicable species of vanity, but frequently greatly
+mischievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, actually, in so many
+words, promise to marry; but the general tenor of your <a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>language and
+deportment has that meaning; you know that your meaning is so
+understood; and if you have not such meaning; if you be fixed by some
+previous engagement with, or greater liking for, another; if you know
+you are here sowing the seeds of disappointment; and if you, keeping
+your previous engagement or greater liking a secret, persevere, in spite
+of the admonitions of conscience, you are guilty of deliberate
+deception, injustice and cruelty: you make to God an ungrateful return
+for those endowments which have enabled you to achieve this inglorious
+and unmanly triumph; and if, as is frequently the case, you <i>glory</i> in
+such triumph, you may have person, riches, talents to excite envy; but
+every just and humane man will abhor your heart.</p>
+
+<p>141. There are, however, certain cases in which you deceive, or nearly
+deceive, <i>yourself</i>; cases in which you are, by degrees and by
+circumstances, deluded into something very nearly resembling sincere
+love for a second object, the first still, however, maintaining her
+ground in your heart; cases in which you are not actuated by vanity, in
+which you are not guilty of injustice and cruelty; but cases in which
+you, nevertheless, <i>do wrong</i>: and as I once did a wrong of this sort
+myself, I will here give a history of it, as a warning to every young
+man who shall read this little book; that being the best and, indeed,
+the only atonement, that I can make, or ever could have made, for this
+only <i>serious sin</i> that I ever committed against the female sex.</p>
+
+<p>142. The Province of New Brunswick, in North America, in which I passed
+my years from the age of eighteen to that of twenty-six, consists, in
+general, of heaps of rocks, in the interstices of which grow the pine,
+the spruce, and various sorts of fir trees, or, where the woods have
+been burnt down, the bushes <a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>of the raspberry or those of the
+huckleberry. The province is cut asunder lengthwise, by a great river,
+called the St. John, about two hundred miles in length, and, at half way
+from the mouth, full a mile wide. Into this main river run innumerable
+smaller rivers, there called CREEKS. On the sides of these creeks the
+land is, in places, clear of rocks; it is, in these places, generally
+good and productive; the trees that grow here are the birch, the maple,
+and others of the deciduous class; natural meadows here and there
+present themselves; and some of these spots far surpass in rural beauty
+any other that my eyes ever beheld; the creeks, abounding towards their
+sources in water-falls of endless variety, as well in form as in
+magnitude, and always teeming with fish, while water-fowl enliven their
+surface, and while wild-pigeons, of the gayest plumage, flutter, in
+thousands upon thousands, amongst the branches of the beautiful trees,
+which, sometimes, for miles together, form an arch over the creeks.</p>
+
+<p>143. I, in one of my rambles in the woods, in which I took great
+delight, came to a spot at a very short distance from the source of one
+of these creeks. Here was every thing to delight the eye, and especially
+of one like me, who seem to have been born to love rural life, and trees
+and plants of all sorts. Here were about two hundred acres of natural
+meadow, interspersed with patches of maple-trees in various forms and of
+various extent; the creek (there about thirty miles from its point of
+joining the St. John) ran down the middle of the spot, which formed a
+sort of dish, the high and rocky hills rising all round it, except at
+the outlet of the creek, and these hills crowned with lofty pines: in
+the hills were the sources of the creek, the waters of which came down
+in cascades, for any one of which many <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>a nobleman in England would, if
+he could transfer it, give a good slice of his fertile estate; and in
+the creek, at the foot of the cascades, there were, in the season,
+salmon the finest in the world, and so abundant, and so easily taken, as
+to be used for manuring the land.</p>
+
+<p>144. If nature, in her very best humour, had made a spot for the express
+purpose of captivating me, she could not have exceeded the efforts which
+she had here made. But I found something here besides these rude works
+of nature; I found something in the fashioning of which <i>man</i> had had
+something to do. I found a large and well-built log dwelling house,
+standing (in the month of September) on the edge of a very good field of
+Indian Corn, by the side of which there was a piece of buck-wheat just
+then mowed. I found a homestead, and some very pretty cows. I found all
+the things by which an easy and happy farmer is surrounded: and I found
+still something besides all these; something that was destined to give
+me a great deal of pleasure and also a great deal of pain, both in their
+extreme degree; and both of which, in spite of the lapse of forty years,
+now make an attempt to rush back into my heart.</p>
+
+<p>145. Partly from misinformation, and partly from miscalculation, I had
+lost my way; and, quite alone, but armed with my sword and a brace of
+pistols, to defend myself against the bears, I arrived at the log-house
+in the middle of a moonlight night, the hoar frost covering the trees
+and the grass. A stout and clamorous dog, kept off by the gleaming of my
+sword, waked the master of the house, who got up, received me with great
+hospitality, got me something to eat, and put me into a feather-bed, a
+thing that I had been a stranger to for some years. I, being very tired,
+had tried to pass the night in the woods, <a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>between the trunks of two
+large trees, which had fallen side by side, and within a yard of each
+other. I had made a nest for myself of dry fern, and had made a covering
+by laying boughs of spruce across the trunks of the trees. But unable to
+sleep on account of the cold; becoming sick from the great quantity of
+water that I had drank during the heat of the day, and being, moreover,
+alarmed at the noise of the bears, and lest one of them should find me
+in a defenceless state, I had roused myself up, and had crept along as
+well as I could. So that no hero of eastern romance ever experienced a
+more enchanting change.</p>
+
+<p>146. I had got into the house of one of those YANKEE LOYALISTS, who, at
+the close of the revolutionary war (which, until it had succeeded, was
+called a rebellion) had accepted of grants of land in the King's
+Province of New Brunswick; and who, to the great honour of England, had
+been furnished with all the means of making new and comfortable
+settlements. I was suffered to sleep till breakfast time, when I found a
+table, the like of which I have since seen so many in the United States,
+loaded with good things. The master and the mistress of the house, aged
+about fifty, were like what an English farmer and his wife were half a
+century ago. There were two sons, tall and stout, who appeared to have
+come in from work, and the youngest of whom was about my age, then
+twenty-three. But there was <i>another member</i> of the family, aged
+nineteen, who (dressed according to the neat and simple fashion of New
+England, whence she had come with her parents five or six years before)
+had her long light-brown hair twisted nicely up, and fastened on the top
+of her head, in which head were a pair of lively blue eyes, associated
+with features of which that softness and that sweetness, so
+<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>characteristic of American girls, were the predominant expressions, the
+whole being set off by a complexion indicative of glowing health, and
+forming, figure, movements, and all taken together, an assemblage of
+beauties, far surpassing any that I had ever seen but <i>once</i> in my life.
+That <i>once</i> was, too, <i>two years agone</i>; and, in such a case and at such
+an age, two years, two whole years, is a long, long while! It was a
+space as long as the eleventh part of my then life! Here was the
+<i>present</i> against the <i>absent</i>: here was the power of the <i>eyes</i> pitted
+against that of the <i>memory</i>: here were all the senses up in arms to
+subdue the influence of the thoughts: here was vanity, here was passion,
+here was the spot of all spots in the world, and here were also the
+life, and the manners and the habits and the pursuits that I delighted
+in: here was every thing that imagination can conceive, united in a
+conspiracy against the poor little brunette in England! What, then, did
+I fall in love at once with this bouquet of lilies and roses? Oh! by no
+means. I was, however, so enchanted with <i>the place</i>; I so much enjoyed
+its tranquillity, the shade of the maple trees, the business of the
+farm, the sports of the water and of the woods, that I stayed at it to
+the last possible minute, promising, at my departure, to come again as
+often as I possibly could; a promise which I most punctually fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>147. Winter is the great season for jaunting and <i>dancing</i> (called
+<i>frolicking</i>) in America. In this Province the river and the creeks were
+the only <i>roads</i> from settlement to settlement. In summer we travelled
+in <i>canoes</i>; in winter in <i>sleighs</i> on the ice or snow. During more than
+two years I spent all the time I could with my Yankee friends: they were
+all fond of me: I talked to them about country affairs, <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>my evident
+delight in which they took as a compliment to themselves: the father and
+mother treated me as one of their children; the sons as a brother; and
+the daughter, who was as modest and as full of sensibility as she was
+beautiful, in a way to which a chap much less sanguine than I was would
+have given the tenderest interpretation; which treatment I, especially
+in the last-mentioned case, most cordially repaid.</p>
+
+<p>148. It is when you meet in company with others of your own age that you
+are, in love matters, put, most frequently, to the test, and exposed to
+detection. The next door neighbour might, in that country, be ten miles
+off. We used to have a frolic, sometimes at one house and sometimes at
+another. Here, where female eyes are very much on the alert, no secret
+can long be kept; and very soon father, mother, brothers and the whole
+neighbourhood looked upon the thing as certain, not excepting herself,
+to whom I, however, had never once even talked of marriage, and had
+never even told her that I <i>loved</i> her. But I had a thousand times done
+these by <i>implication</i>, taking into view the interpretation that she
+would naturally put upon my looks, appellations and acts; and it was of
+this, that I had to accuse myself. Yet I was not a <i>deceiver</i>; for my
+affection for her was very great: I spent no really pleasant hours but
+with her: I was uneasy if she showed the slightest regard for any other
+young man: I was unhappy if the smallest matter affected her health or
+spirits: I quitted her in dejection, and returned to her with eager
+delight: many a time, when I could get leave but for a day, I paddled in
+a canoe two whole succeeding nights, in order to pass that day with her.
+If this was not love, it was first cousin to it; for as to any
+<i>criminal</i> intention I no <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>more thought of it, in her case, than if she
+had been my sister. Many times I put to myself the questions: 'What am I
+at? Is not this wrong? <i>Why do I go?</i>' But still I went.</p>
+
+<p>149. Then, further in my excuse, my <i>prior engagement</i>, though carefully
+left unalluded to by both parties, was, in that thin population, and
+owing to the singular circumstances of it, and to the great talk that
+there always was about me, <i>perfectly well known</i> to her and all her
+family. It was matter of so much notoriety and conversation in the
+Province, that GENERAL CARLETON (brother of the late Lord Dorchester),
+who was the Governor when I was there, when he, about fifteen years
+afterwards, did me the honour, on his return to England, to come and see
+me at my house in Duke Street, Westminster, asked, before he went away,
+to see my <i>wife</i>, of whom <i>he had heard so much</i> before her marriage. So
+that here was no <i>deception</i> on my part: but still I ought not to have
+suffered even the most distant hope to be entertained by a person so
+innocent, so amiable, for whom I had so much affection, and to whose
+heart I had no right to give a single twinge. I ought, from the very
+first, to have prevented the possibility of her ever feeling pain on my
+account. I was young, to be sure; but I was old enough to know what was
+my duty in this case, and I ought, dismissing my own feelings, to have
+had the resolution to perform it.</p>
+
+<p>150. The <i>last parting</i> came; and now came my just punishment! The time
+was known to every body, and was irrevocably fixed; for I had to move
+with a regiment, and the embarkation of a regiment is an <i>epoch</i> in a
+thinly settled province. To describe this parting would be too painful
+even at this distant day, and with this frost of age upon my head. The
+<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>kind and virtuous father came forty miles to see me just as I was going
+on board in the river. <i>His</i> looks and words I have never forgotten. As
+the vessel descended, she passed the mouth of <i>that creek</i> which I had
+so often entered with delight; and though England, and all that England
+contained, were before me, I lost sight of this creek with an aching
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>151. On what trifles turn the great events in the life of man! If I had
+received a <i>cool</i> letter from my intended wife; if I had only heard a
+rumour of any thing from which fickleness in her might have been
+inferred; if I had found in her any, even the smallest, abatement of
+affection; if she had but let go any one of the hundred strings by which
+she held my heart: if any of these, never would the world have heard of
+me. Young as I was; able as I was as a soldier; proud as I was of the
+admiration and commendations of which I was the object; fond as I was,
+too, of the command, which, at so early an age, my rare conduct and
+great natural talents had given me; sanguine as was my mind, and
+brilliant as were my prospects: yet I had seen so much of the
+meannesses, the unjust partialities, the insolent pomposity, the
+disgusting dissipations of that way of life, that I was weary of it: I
+longed, exchanging my fine laced coat for the Yankee farmer's home-spun,
+to be where I should never behold the supple crouch of servility, and
+never hear the hectoring voice of authority, again; and, on the lonely
+banks of this branch-covered creek, which contained (she out of the
+question) every thing congenial to my taste and dear to my heart, I,
+unapplauded, unfeared, unenvied and uncalumniated, should have lived and
+died.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_IV" id="LETTER_IV"></a><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137" ></a>LETTER IV</h2>
+
+<h2>TO A HUSBAND</h2>
+
+<p>152. It is in this capacity that your conduct will have the greatest
+effect on your happiness; and a great deal will depend on the manner in
+which you <i>begin</i>. I am to suppose that you have made a <i>good choice</i>;
+but a good young woman may be made, by a weak, a harsh, a neglectful, an
+extravagant, or a profligate husband, a really bad wife and mother. All
+in a wife, beyond her own natural disposition and education is, nine
+times out of ten, the work of her husband.</p>
+
+<p>153. The first thing of all, be the rank in life what it may, is to
+convince her of the necessity of <i>moderation in expense</i>; and to make
+her clearly see the justice of beginning to act upon the presumption,
+that there are <i>children coming</i>, that they are to be provided for, and
+that she is to <i>assist</i> in the making of that provision. Legally
+speaking, we have a right to do what we please with our own property,
+which, however, is not our own, unless it exceed our debts. And, morally
+speaking, we, at the moment of our marriage, contract a debt with the
+naturally to be expected fruit of it; and, therefore (reserving further
+remarks upon this subject till I come to speak of the education of
+children), the scale of expense should, at the beginning, be as low as
+that of which a due attention to rank in life will admit.</p>
+
+<p>154. The great danger of all is, beginning with <i>servants</i>, or a
+<i>servant</i>. Where there are riches, or <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>where the business is so great as
+to demand <i>help</i> in the carrying on of the affairs of a house, one or
+more female servants must be kept; but, where the work of a house can be
+done by one pair of hands, why should there be two; especially as you
+cannot have the hands without having the <i>mouth</i>, and, which is
+frequently not less costly, inconvenient and injurious, the <i>tongue</i>?
+When children come, there must, at times, be some foreign aid; but,
+until then, what need can the wife of a young tradesman, or even farmer
+(unless the family be great) have of a servant? The wife is young, and
+why is she not to work as well as the husband? What justice is there in
+wanting you to keep two women instead of one? You have not married them
+both in form; but, if they be inseparable, you have married them in
+substance; and if you are free from the crime of bigamy, you have the
+far most burthensome part of its consequences.</p>
+
+<p>155. I am well aware of the unpopularity of this doctrine; well aware of
+its hostility to prevalent habits; well aware that almost every
+tradesman and every farmer, though with scarcely a shilling to call his
+own; and that every clerk, and every such person, begins by keeping a
+servant, and that the latter is generally provided before the wife be
+installed: I am well aware of all this; but knowing, from long and
+attentive observation, that it is the great bane of the marriage life;
+the great cause of that penury, and of those numerous and tormenting
+embarrassments, amidst which conjugal felicity can seldom long be kept
+alive, I give the advice, and state the reasons on which it was founded.</p>
+
+<p>156. In London, or near it, a maid servant cannot be kept at an expense
+so low as that of <i>thirty pounds a year</i>; for, besides her wages, board
+and <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>lodging, there must be a <i>fire</i> solely for her; or she must sit
+with the husband and wife, hear every word that passes between them, and
+between them and their friends; which will, of course, greatly add to
+the pleasures of their fire-side! To keep her tongue still would be
+impossible, and, indeed, unreasonable; and if, as may frequently happen,
+she be prettier than the wife, she will know how to give the suitable
+interpretation to the looks which, to a next to a certainty, she will
+occasionally get from him, whom, as it were in mockery, she calls by the
+name of '<i>master</i>.' This is almost downright bigamy; but this can never
+do; and, therefore, she must have a <i>fire to herself</i>. Besides the blaze
+of coals, however, there is another sort of <i>flame</i> that she will
+inevitably covet. She will by no means be sparing of the coals; but,
+well fed and well lodged, as <i>she</i> will be, whatever you may be, she
+will naturally sigh for the fire of love, for which she carries in her
+bosom a match always ready prepared. In plain language, you have a man
+to keep, a part, at least, of every week; and the leg of lamb, which
+might have lasted you and your wife for three days, will, by this
+gentleman's sighs, be borne away in one. Shut the door against this
+intruder; out she goes herself; and, if she go empty-handed, she is no
+true Christian, or, at least, will not be looked upon as such by the
+charitable friend at whose house she meets the longing soul, dying
+partly with love and partly with hunger.</p>
+
+<p>157. The cost, altogether, is nearer fifty pounds a year than thirty.
+How many thousands of tradesmen and clerks, and the like, who might have
+passed through life without a single embarrassment, have lived in
+continual trouble and fear, and found a premature grave, from this very
+cause, and this cause alone! When I, on my return from America, in 1800,
+lived a <a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>short time in Saint James's Street, following my habit of early
+rising, I used to see the servant maids, at almost every house,
+dispensing charity at the expense of their masters, long before they,
+good men, opened their eyes, who thus did deeds of benevolence, not only
+without boasting of them, but without knowing of them. Meat, bread,
+cheese, butter, coals, candles; all came with equal freedom from these
+liberal hands. I have observed the same, in my early walks and rides, in
+every part of this great place and its environs. Where there is <i>one</i>
+servant it is worse than where there are <i>two</i> or more; for, happily for
+their employers, they do not always agree. So that the oppression is
+most heavy on those who are the least able to bear it: and particularly
+on <i>clerk</i>, and such like people, whose wives seem to think, that,
+because the husband's work is of a genteel description, they ought to
+live the life of <i>ladies</i>. Poor fellows! their work is not hard and
+rough, to be sure; but, it is <i>work</i>, and work for many hours too, and
+painful enough; and as to their income, it scarcely exceeds, on an
+average, the double, at any rate, of that of a journeyman carpenter,
+bricklayer, or tailor.</p>
+
+<p>158. Besides, the man and wife will live on cheaper diet and drink than
+a servant will live. Thousands, who would never have had beer in their
+house, have it for the servant, who will not live without it. However
+frugal your wife, her frugality is of little use, if she have one of
+these inmates to provide for. Many a hundred thousand times has it
+happened that the butcher and the butter-man have been applied to solely
+because there was a servant to satisfy. You cannot, with this clog
+everlastingly attached to you, be frugal, if you would: you can save
+nothing against the days of expense, which are, however, pretty sure to
+come. And why should you <a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>bring into your house a trouble like this; an
+absolute annoyance; a something for your wife to watch, to be a
+constraint upon her, to thwart her in her best intentions, to make her
+uneasy, and to sour her temper? Why should you do this foolish thing?
+Merely to comply with corrupt fashion; merely from false shame, and
+false and contemptible pride? If a young man were, on his marriage, to
+find any difficulty in setting this ruinous fashion at defiance, a very
+good way would be to count down to his wife, at the end of every week,
+the amount of the expense of a servant for that week, and request her to
+deposit it in her drawer. In a short time she would find the sum so
+large, that she would be frightened at the thoughts of a servant; and
+would never dream of one again, except in case of absolute necessity,
+and then for as short a time as possible.</p>
+
+<p>159. But the wife may not be <i>able</i> to do all the work to be done in the
+house. Not <i>able</i>! A young woman not able to cook and wash, and mend and
+make, and clean the house and make the bed for one young man and
+herself, and that young man her husband too, who is quite willing (if he
+be worth a straw) to put up with cold dinner, or with a crust; to get up
+and light her fire; to do any thing that the mind can suggest to spare
+her labour, and to conduce to her convenience! Not <i>able</i> to do this?
+Then, if she brought no fortune, and he had none, she ought not to have
+been <i>able to marry</i>: and, let me tell you, young man, a <i>small fortune</i>
+would not put a servant-keeping wife upon an equality with one who
+required no such inmate.</p>
+
+<p>160. If, indeed, the work of a house were <i>harder</i> than a young woman
+could perform without pain, or great fatigue; if it had a tendency to
+impair her health or deface her beauty; then you might <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>hesitate: but,
+it is not too hard, and it tends to preserve health, to keep the spirits
+buoyant, and, of course, to preserve beauty. You often hear girls, while
+scrubbing or washing, singing till they are out of breath; but never
+while they are at what they call <i>working</i> at the needle. The American
+wives are most exemplary in this respect. They have none of that false
+pride, which prevents thousands in England from doing that which
+interest, reason, and even their own inclination would prompt them to
+do. They work, not from necessity; not from compulsion of any sort; for
+their husbands are the most indulgent in the whole world. In the towns
+they go to the market, and cheerfully carry home the result: in the
+country, they not only do the work in the house, but extend their
+labours to the garden, plant and weed and hoe, and gather and preserve
+the fruits and the herbs; and this, too, in a climate far from being so
+favourable to labour as that of England; and they are amply repaid for
+these by those gratifications which their excellent economy enables
+their husbands to bestow upon them, and which it is their universal
+habit to do with a liberal hand.</p>
+
+<p>161. But did I <i>practise</i> what I am here preaching? Aye, and to the full
+extent. Till I had a second child, no servant ever entered my house,
+though well able to keep one; and never, in my whole life, did I live in
+a house so clean, in such trim order, and never have I eaten or drunk,
+or slept or dressed, in a manner so perfectly to my fancy, as I did
+then. I had a great deal of business to attend to, that took me a great
+part of the day from home; but, whenever I could spare a minute from
+business, the child was in my arms; I rendered the mother's labour as
+light as I could; any bit of food satisfied <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>me; when watching was
+necessary, we shared it between us; and that famous GRAMMAR for teaching
+French people English, which has been for thirty years, and still is,
+the great work of this kind, throughout all America, and in every nation
+in Europe, was written by me, in hours not employed in business, and, in
+great part, during my share of the night-watchings over a sick, and then
+only child, who, after lingering many months, died in my arms.</p>
+
+<p>162. This was the way that we went on: this was the way that we <i>began</i>
+the married life; and surely, that which we did with pleasure no young
+couple, unendowed with fortune, ought to be ashamed to do. But she may
+be <i>ill</i>; the time may be near at hand, or may have actually arrived,
+when she must encounter that particular pain and danger of which <i>you
+have been the happy cause</i>! Oh! that is quite another matter! And if you
+now exceed in care, in watchings over her, in tender attention to all
+her wishes, in anxious efforts to quiet her fears; if you exceed in
+pains and expense to procure her relief and secure her life; if you, in
+any of these, exceed that which I would recommend, you must be romantic
+indeed! She deserves them all, and more than all, ten thousand times
+told. And now it is that you feel the blessing conferred by her economy.
+That heap of money, which might have been squandered on, or by, or in
+consequence of, an useless servant, you now have in hand wherewith to
+procure an abundance of that skill and that attendance of which she
+stands in absolute need; and she, when restored to you in smiling
+health, has the just pride to reflect, that she may have owed her life
+and your happiness to the effects of her industry.</p>
+
+<p>163. It is the <i>beginning</i> that is every thing in this important case;
+and you will have, perhaps, <a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>much to do to convince her, not that what
+you recommend is advantageous; not that it is right; but to convince her
+that she can do it without sinking below the station that she ought to
+maintain. She would cheerfully do it; but there are her <i>next-door
+neighbours</i>, who do not do it, though, in all other respects, on a par
+with her. It is not laziness, but pernicious fashion, that you will have
+to combat. But the truth is, that there ought to be <i>no combat</i> at all;
+this important matter ought to be settled and fully agreed on
+<i>beforehand</i>. If she really love you, and have common sense, she will
+not hesitate a moment; and if she be deficient in either of these
+respects; and if you be so mad in love as to be unable to exist without
+her, it is better to cease to exist at once, than to become the toiling
+and embarrassed slave of a wasting and pillaging servant.</p>
+
+<p>164. The next thing to be attended to is, your <i>demeanor</i> towards a
+young wife. As to oldish ones, or widows, time and other things have, in
+most cases, blunted their feelings, and rendered harsh or stern demeanor
+in the husband a matter not of heart-breaking consequence. But with a
+young and inexperienced one, the case is very different; and you should
+bear in mind, that the first frown that she receives from <i>you</i> is a
+dagger to her heart. Nature has so ordered it, that men shall become
+less ardent in their passion after the wedding day; and that women shall
+not. Their ardour increases rather than the contrary; and they are
+surprisingly quick-sighted and inquisitive on this score. When the
+<i>child</i> comes, it divides this ardour with the father; but until then
+you have it all; and if you have a mind to be happy, repay it with all
+your soul. Let what may happen to put you out of humour with others, let
+nothing put you out of humour with her. <a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>Let your words and looks and
+manners be just what they were before you called her wife.</p>
+
+<p>165. But now, and throughout your life, show your affection for her, and
+your admiration of her, not in nonsensical compliment; not in picking up
+her handkerchief, or her glove, or in carrying her fan or parasol; not,
+if you have the means, in hanging trinkets and baubles upon her; not in
+making yourself a fool by winking at, and seeming pleased at, her
+foibles, or follies, or faults; but show them by acts of real goodness
+towards her; prove by unequivocal deeds the high value that you set on
+her health and life and peace of mind; let your praise of her go to the
+full extent of her deserts, but let it be consistent with truth and with
+sense, and such as to convince her of your sincerity. He who is the
+flatterer of his wife only prepares her ears for the hyperbolical stuff
+of others. The kindest appellation that her Christian name affords is
+the best you can use, especially before faces. An everlasting '<i>my
+dear</i>' is but a sorry compensation for a want of that sort of love that
+makes the husband cheerfully toil by day, break his rest by night,
+endure all sorts of hardships, if the life or health of his wife demand
+it. Let your deeds, and not your words, carry to her heart a daily and
+hourly confirmation of the fact, that you value her health and life and
+happiness beyond all other things in the world; and let this be manifest
+to her, particularly at those times when life is always more or less in
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>166. I began my young marriage days in and near Philadelphia. At one of
+those times to which I have just alluded, in the middle of the burning
+hot month of July, I was greatly afraid of fatal consequences to my wife
+for want of sleep, she not having, after the great danger was over, had
+any sleep for <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>more than forty-eight hours. All great cities, in hot
+countries, are, I believe, full of dogs; and they, in the very hot
+weather, keep up, during the night, a horrible barking and fighting and
+howling. Upon the particular occasion to which I am adverting, they made
+a noise so terrible and so unremitted, that it was next to impossible
+that even a person in full health and free from pain should obtain a
+minute's sleep. I was, about nine in the evening, sitting by the bed: 'I
+do think,' said she, 'that I could go to sleep <i>now</i>, if it were not
+<i>for the dogs</i>.' Down stairs I went, and out I sallied, in my shirt and
+trowsers, and without shoes and stockings; and, going to a heap of
+stones lying beside the road, set to work upon the dogs, going backward
+and forward, and keeping them at two or three hundred yards' distance
+from the house. I walked thus the whole night, barefooted, lest the
+noise of my shoes might possibly reach her ears; and I remember that the
+bricks of the causeway were, even in the night, so hot as to be
+disagreeable to my feet. My exertions produced the desired effect: a
+sleep of several hours was the consequence; and, at eight o'clock in the
+morning, off went I to a day's business, which was to end at six in the
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>167. Women are all patriots of the soil; and when her neighbours used to
+ask my wife whether <i>all</i> English husbands were like hers, she boldly
+answered in the affirmative. I had business to occupy the whole of my
+time, Sundays and weekdays, except sleeping hours; but I used to make
+time to assist her in the taking care of her baby, and in all sorts of
+things: get up, light her fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm
+water in cold weather, take the child while she dressed herself and got
+the breakfast ready, then breakfast, get her <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>in water and wood for the
+day, then dress myself neatly, and sally forth to my business. The
+moment that was over I used to hasten back to her again; and I no more
+thought of spending a moment <i>away from her</i>, unless business compelled
+me, than I thought of quitting the country and going to sea. The
+<i>thunder</i> and <i>lightning</i> are tremendous in America, compared with what
+they are in England. My wife was, at one time, very much afraid of
+thunder and lightning; and as is the feeling of all such women, and,
+indeed, all men too, she wanted company, and particularly her husband,
+in those times of danger. I knew well, of course, that my presence would
+not diminish the danger; but, be I at what I might, if within reach of
+home, I used to quit my business and hasten to her, the moment I
+perceived a thunder storm approaching. Scores of miles have I, first and
+last, <i>run</i> on this errand, in the streets of Philadelphia! The
+Frenchmen, who were my scholars, used to laugh at me exceedingly on this
+account; and sometimes, when I was making an appointment with them, they
+would say, with a smile and a bow, '<i>Sauve la tonnerre toujours,
+Monsieur Cobbett</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>168. I never <i>dangled</i> about at the heels of my wife; seldom, very
+seldom, ever <i>walked out</i>, as it is called, with her; I never 'went <i>a
+walking</i>' in the whole course of my life; never went to walk without
+having some <i>object</i> in view other than the walk; and, as I never could
+walk at a slow pace, it would have been <i>hard work</i> for her to keep up
+with me; so that, in the nearly forty years of our married life, we have
+not walked out together, perhaps, twenty times. I hate a <i>dangler</i>, who
+is more like a footman than a husband. It is very cheap to be kind in
+<i>trifles</i>; but that which rivets the affections <a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>is not to be purchased
+with money. The great thing of all, however, is to prove your anxiety at
+those times of peril to her, and for which times you, nevertheless,
+wish. Upon those occasions I was never from home, be the necessity for
+it ever so great: it was my rule, that every thing must give way to
+that. In the year 1809, some English local militiamen were <i>flogged</i>, in
+the Isle of Ely, in England, under a guard of <i>Hanoverians</i>, then
+stationed in England. I, reading an account of this in a London
+newspaper, called the COURIER, expressed my indignation at it in such
+terms as it became an Englishman to do. The Attorney General, Gibbs, was
+set on upon me; he harassed me for nearly a year, then brought me to
+trial, and I was, by Ellenborough, Grose, Le Blanc, and Bailey,
+sentenced to <i>two years' imprisonment</i> in Newgate, to pay a fine to <i>the
+king</i> of <i>a thousand pounds</i>, and to be held in heavy bail for <i>seven
+years</i> after the expiration of the imprisonment! Every one regarded it
+as a sentence of <i>death</i>. I lived in the country at the time, seventy
+miles from London; I had a farm on my hands; I had a family of small
+children, amongst whom I had constantly lived; I had a most anxious and
+devoted wife, who was, too, in that state, which rendered the separation
+more painful ten-fold. I was put into a place amongst <i>felons</i>, from
+which I had to rescue myself at the price of <i>twelve guineas a week</i> for
+the whole of the two years. The <i>King</i>, poor man! was, at the close of
+my imprisonment, not <i>in a condition</i> to receive the <i>thousand pounds</i>;
+but his son, the present king, punctually received it <i>'in his name and
+behalf</i>;' and he keeps it still.</p>
+
+<p>169. The sentence, though it proved not to be one of <i>death</i>, was, in
+effect, one of <i>ruin</i>, as far as then-possessed property went. But this
+really ap<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>peared as nothing, compared with the circumstance, that I must
+now have <i>a child born in a felons' jail</i>, or be absent from the scene
+at the time of the birth. My wife, who had come to see me for the last
+time previous to her lying-in, perceiving my deep dejection at the
+approach of her departure for Botley, resolved not to go; and actually
+went and took a lodging as near to Newgate as she could find one, in
+order that the communication between us might be as speedy as possible;
+and in order that I might see the doctor, and receive assurances from
+him relative to her state. The nearest lodging that she could find was
+in Skinner-street, at the corner of a street leading to Smithfield. So
+that there she was, amidst the incessant rattle of coaches and butchers'
+carts, and the noise of cattle, dogs, and bawling men; instead of being
+in a quiet and commodious country-house, with neighbours and servants
+and every thing necessary about her. Yet, so great is the power of the
+mind in such cases, she, though the circumstances proved uncommonly
+perilous, and were attended with the loss of the child, bore her
+sufferings with the greatest composure, because, at any minute she could
+send a message to, and hear from, me. If she had gone to Botley, leaving
+me in that state of anxiety in which she saw me, I am satisfied that she
+would have died; and that event taking place at such a distance from me,
+how was I to contemplate her corpse, surrounded by her distracted
+children, and to have escaped death, or madness, myself? If such was not
+the effect of this merciless act of the government towards me, that
+amiable body may be well assured that I have <i>taken and recorded the
+will for the deed</i>, and that as such it will live in my memory as long
+as that memory shall last.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>170. I make no apology for this account of my own conduct, because
+example is better than precept, and because I believe that my example
+may have weight with many thousands, as it has had in respect to early
+rising, abstinence, sobriety, industry, and mercy towards the poor. It
+is not, then, dangling about after a wife; it is not the loading her
+with baubles and trinkets; it is not the jaunting of her about from show
+to show, and from what is called pleasure to pleasure. It is none of
+these that endears you to her: it is the adherence to that part of the
+promise you have made her: 'With my <i>body</i> I thee <i>worship</i>;' that is to
+say, <i>respect</i> and <i>honour</i> by personal attention and acts of affection.
+And remember, that the greatest possible proof that you can give of real
+and solid affection is to give her your <i>time</i>, when not wanted in
+matters of business; when not wanted for the discharge of some <i>duty</i>,
+either towards the public or towards private persons. Amongst duties of
+this sort, we must, of course, in some ranks and circumstances of life,
+include the intercourse amongst friends and neighbours, which may
+frequently and reasonably call the husband from his home: but what are
+we to think of the husband who is in the habit of leaving his own
+fire-side, after the business of the day is over, and seeking
+promiscuous companions in the ale or the coffee house? I am told that,
+in France, it is rare to meet with a husband who does not spend every
+evening of his life in what is called a <i>caff&eacute;</i>; that is to say, a place
+for no other purpose than that of gossipping, drinking and gaming. And
+it is with great sorrow that I acknowledge that many English husbands
+indulge too much in a similar habit. Drinking clubs, smoking clubs,
+singing clubs, clubs of odd-fellows, whist clubs, sotting clubs: these
+are inexcusable, they are cen<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>surable, they are at once foolish and
+wicked, even in single men; what must they be, then, in <i>husbands</i>; and
+how are they to answer, not only to their wives, but to their children,
+for this profligate abandonment of their homes; this breach of their
+solemn vow made to the former, this evil example to the latter?</p>
+
+<p>171. Innumerable are the miseries that spring from this cause. The
+<i>expense</i> is, in the first place, very considerable. I much question
+whether, amongst tradesmen, a <i>shilling</i> a night pays the average score;
+and that, too, for that which is really <i>worth</i> nothing at all, and
+cannot, even by possibility, be attended with any one single advantage,
+however small. Fifteen pounds a year thus thrown away, would amount, in
+the course of a tradesman's life, to a decent fortune for a child. Then
+there is the injury to <i>health</i> from these night adventures; there are
+the <i>quarrels</i>, there is the vicious habit of loose and filthy talk;
+there are the slanders and the back-bitings; there is the admiration of
+contemptible wit, and there are the scoffings at all that is sober and
+serious.</p>
+
+<p>172. And does the husband who thus abandons his wife and children
+imagine that she will not, in some degree at least, follow his example?
+If he do, he is very much deceived. If she imitate him even in drinking,
+he has no great reason to complain; and then the cost may be <i>two
+shillings</i> the night instead of one, equal in amount to the cost of all
+the bread wanted in the family, while the baker's bill is, perhaps,
+unpaid. Here are the slanderings, too, going on at home; for, while the
+husbands are assembled, it would be hard if the wives were not to do the
+same; and the very least that is to be expected is, that the <i>tea-pot</i>
+should keep pace with the <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>porter-pot or grog-glass. Hence crowds of
+female acquaintances and intruders, and all the consequent and
+inevitable squabbles which form no small part of the torment of the life
+of man.</p>
+
+<p>173. If you have <i>servants</i>, they know to a moment the time of your
+absence; and they regulate their proceedings accordingly. 'Like master
+like man,' is an old and true proverb; and it is natural, if not just,
+that it should be thus; for it would be unjust if the careless and
+neglectful sot were served as faithfully as the vigilant, attentive and
+sober man. Late hours, cards and dice, are amongst the consequences of
+the master's absence; and why not, seeing that he is setting the
+example? Fire, candle, profligate visitants, expences, losses, children
+ruined in habits and morals, and, in short, a train of evils hardly to
+be enumerated, arise from this most vicious habit of the master spending
+his leisure time from home. But beyond all the rest is the
+<i>ill-treatment of the wife</i>. When left to ourselves we all seek the
+company that we <i>like best</i>; the company in which we <i>take the most
+delight</i>: and therefore every husband, be his state of life what it may,
+who spends his leisure time, or who, at least, is in the habit of doing
+it, in company other than that of his wife and family, tells her and
+them, as plainly by deeds as he could possibly do by words, that he
+<i>takes more delight in other company than in theirs</i>. Children repay
+this with <i>disregard</i> for their father; but to a wife of any
+sensibility, it is either a dagger to her heart or an incitement to
+revenge, and revenge, too, of a species which a young woman will seldom
+be long in want of the means to gratify. In conclusion of these remarks
+respecting <i>absentee husbands</i>, I would recommend all those who are
+prone to, or likely to fall into, the practice, to remember the <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>words
+of Mrs. SULLEN, in the BEAUX' STRATAGEM: 'My husband,' says she,
+addressing a footman whom she had taken as a paramour, 'comes reeling
+home at midnight, tumbles in beside me as a salmon flounces in a net,
+oversets the economy of my bed, belches the fumes of his drink in my
+face, then twists himself round, leaving me half naked, and listening
+till morning to that tuneful nightingale, his nose.' It is at least
+forty-three years since I read the BEAUX' STRATAGEM, and I now quote
+from memory; but the passage has always occurred to me whenever I have
+seen a sottish husband; and though that species of revenge, for the
+taking of which the lady made this apology, was carrying the thing too
+far, yet I am ready to confess, that if I had to sit in judgment on her
+for taking even this revenge, my sentence would be very lenient; for
+what right has such a husband to expect <i>fidelity</i>? He has broken his
+vow; and by what rule of right has she to be bound to hers? She thought
+that she was marrying <i>a man</i>; and she finds that she was married to a
+beast. He has, indeed, committed no offence that <i>the law of the land</i>
+can reach; but he has violated the vow by which he obtained possession
+of her person; and, in the eye of justice, the compact between them is
+dissolved.</p>
+
+<p>174. The way to avoid the sad consequences of which I have been speaking
+is <i>to begin well</i>: many a man has become a sottish husband, and brought
+a family to ruin, without being sottishly <i>inclined</i>, and without
+<i>liking</i> the gossip of the ale or coffee house. It is by slow degrees
+that the mischief is done. He is first inveigled, and, in time, he
+really likes the thing; and, when arrived at that point, he is
+incurable. Let him resolve, from the very first, <i>never to spend an hour
+from home</i>, unless business, <a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>or, at least, some necessary and rational
+purpose demand it. Where ought he to be, but with the person whom he
+himself hath chosen to be his partner for life, and the mother of his
+children? What <i>other company</i> ought he to deem so good and so fitting
+as this? With whom else can he so pleasantly spend his hours of leisure
+and relaxation? Besides, if he quit her to seek company more agreeable,
+is not she set at large by that act of his? What justice is there in
+confining her at home without any company at all, while he rambles forth
+in search of company more gay than he finds at home?</p>
+
+<p>175. Let the young married man try the thing; let him resolve not to be
+seduced from his home; let him never go, in one single instance,
+unnecessarily from his own fire-side. <i>Habit</i> is a powerful thing; and
+if he begin right, the pleasure that he will derive from it will induce
+him to continue right. This is not being '<i>tied to the apron-strings</i>,'
+which means quite another matter, as I shall show by-and-by. It is being
+at the husband's place, whether he have children or not. And is there
+any want of matter for conversation between a man and his wife? Why not
+talk of the daily occurrences to her, as well as to any body else; and
+especially to a company of tippling and noisy men? If you excuse
+yourself by saying that you go <i>to read the newspaper</i>, I answer, <i>buy
+the newspaper</i>, if you must read it: the cost is not half of what you
+spend per day at the pot-house; and then you have it your own, and may
+read it at your leisure, and your wife can read it as well as yourself,
+if read it you must. And, in short, what must that man be made of, who
+does not prefer sitting by his own fire-side with his wife and children,
+reading to them, or hearing them read, <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>to hearing the gabble and
+balderdash of a club or a pot-house company!</p>
+
+<p>176. Men must frequently be from home at all hours of the day and night.
+Sailors, soldiers, merchants, all men out of the common track of labour,
+and even some in the very lowest walks, are sometimes compelled by their
+affairs, or by circumstances, to be from their homes. But what I protest
+against is, the <i>habit</i> of spending <i>leisure</i> hours from home, and near
+to it; and doing this without any necessity, and by <i>choice</i>: liking the
+next door, or any house in the same street, better than your own. When
+absent from <i>necessity</i>, there is no wound given to the heart of the
+wife; she concludes that you would be with her if you could, and that
+satisfies; she laments the absence, but submits to it without
+complaining. Yet, in these cases, her feelings ought to be consulted as
+much as possible; she ought to be fully apprised of the probable
+duration of the absence, and of the time of return; and if these be
+dependent on circumstances, those circumstances ought to be fully
+stated; for you have no right to keep her mind upon the rack, when you
+have it in your power to put it in a state of ease. Few men have been
+more frequently taken from home by business, or by a necessity of some
+sort, than I have; and I can positively assert, that, as to my return, I
+never once disappointed my wife in the whole course of our married life.
+If the time of return was contingent, I never failed to keep her
+informed <i>from day to day</i>: if the time was fixed, or when it became
+fixed, my arrival was as sure as my life. Going from London to Botley,
+once, with Mr. FINNERTY, whose name I can never pronounce without an
+expression of my regard for his memory, we stopped at ALTON, to dine
+with a friend, who, delighted with <a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>Finnerty's talk, as every body else
+was, kept us till ten or eleven o'clock, and was proceeding to <i>the
+other bottle</i>, when I put in my protest, saying, 'We must go, my wife
+will be frightened.' 'Blood, man,' said Finnerty, 'you do not mean to go
+home to-night!' I told him I did; and then sent my son, who was with us,
+to order out the post-chaise. We had twenty-three miles to go, during
+which we debated the question, whether Mrs. COBBETT would be up to
+receive us, I contending for the affirmative, and he for the negative.
+She was up, and had a nice fire for us to sit down at. She had not
+committed the matter to a servant: her servants and children were all in
+bed; and she was up, to perform the duty of receiving her husband and
+his friend. 'You did not expect him?' said Finnerty. 'To be sure I did,'
+said she; 'he never disappointed me in his life.'</p>
+
+<p>177. Now, if all young men knew how much value women set upon this
+species of fidelity, there would be fewer unhappy couples than there
+are. If men have appointments with <i>lords</i>, they never dream of breaking
+them; and I can assure them that wives are as sensitive in this respect
+as lords. I had seen many instances of conjugal unhappiness arising out
+of that carelessness which left wives in a state of uncertainty as to
+the movements of their husbands; and I took care, from the very outset,
+to guard against it. For no man has a right to sport with the feelings
+of any innocent person whatever, and particularly with those of one who
+has committed her happiness to his hands. The truth is, that men in
+general look upon women as having no feelings different from their own;
+and they know that they themselves would regard such disappointments as
+nothing. But this is a great mistake: women feel more acutely than men;
+their love is more ardent, <a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>more pure, more lasting, and they are more
+frank and sincere in the utterance of their feelings. They ought to be
+treated with due consideration had for all their amiable qualities and
+all their weaknesses, and nothing by which their minds are affected
+ought to be deemed a <i>trifle</i>.</p>
+
+<p>178. When we consider what a young woman gives up on her wedding day;
+she makes a surrender, an absolute surrender, of her liberty, for the
+joint lives of the parties; she gives the husband the absolute right of
+causing her to live in what place, and in what manner and what society,
+he pleases; she gives him the power to take from her, and to use, for
+his own purposes, all her goods, unless reserved by some legal
+instrument; and, above all, she surrenders to him <i>her person</i>. Then,
+when we consider the pains which they endure for us, and the large share
+of all the anxious parental cares that fall to their lot; when we
+consider their devotion to us, and how unshaken their affection remains
+in our ailments, even though the most tedious and disgusting; when we
+consider the offices that they perform, and cheerfully perform, for us,
+when, were we left to one another, we should perish from neglect; when
+we consider their devotion to their children, how evidently they love
+them better, in numerous instances, than their own lives; when we
+consider these things, how can a just man think any thing a trifle that
+affects their happiness? I was once going, in my gig, up the hill, in
+the village of FRANKFORD, near Philadelphia, when a little girl, about
+two years old, who had toddled away from a small house, was lying
+basking in the sun, in the middle of the road. About two hundred yards
+before I got to the child, the teams, five big horses in each, of three
+wagons, the drivers of which had <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>stopped to drink at a tavern on the
+brow of the hill, started off, and came, nearly abreast, galloping down
+the road. I got my gig off the road as speedily as I could; but expected
+to see the poor child crushed to pieces. A young man, a journeyman
+carpenter, who was shingling a shed by the side of the road, seeing the
+child, and seeing the danger, though a stranger to the parents, jumped
+from the top of the shed, ran into the road, and snatched up the child,
+from scarcely an inch before the hoof of the leading horse. The horse's
+leg knocked him down; but he, catching the child by its clothes, flung
+it back, out of the way of the other horses, and saved himself by
+rolling back with surprising agility. The mother of the child, who had,
+apparently, been washing, seeing the teams coming, and seeing the
+situation of the child, rushed out, and catching up the child, just as
+the carpenter had flung it back, and hugging it in her arms, uttered <i>a
+shriek</i> such as I never heard before, never heard since, and, I hope,
+shall never hear again; and then she dropped down, as if perfectly dead!
+By the application of the usual means, she was restored, however, in a
+little while; and I, being about to depart, asked the carpenter if he
+were a married man, and whether he were a relation of the parents of the
+child. He said he was neither: 'Well, then,' said I, 'you merit the
+gratitude of every father and mother in the world, and I will show mine,
+by giving you what I have,' pulling out the nine or ten dollars that I
+had in my pocket. 'No; I thank you, Sir,' said he: 'I have only done
+what it was my duty to do.'</p>
+
+<p>179. Bravery, disinterestedness, and maternal affection surpassing
+these, it is impossible to imagine. The mother was going right in
+amongst the feet of these powerful and wild horses, and amongst the
+<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>wheels of the wagons. She had no thought for herself; no feeling of
+fear for her own life; her <i>shriek</i> was the sound of inexpressible joy;
+joy too great for her to support herself under. Perhaps ninety-nine
+mothers out of every hundred would have acted the same part, under
+similar circumstances. There are, comparatively, very few women not
+replete with maternal love; and, by-the-by, take you care, if you meet
+with a girl who '<i>is not fond of children</i>,' not to marry her <i>by any
+means</i>. Some few there are who even make a boast that they 'cannot bear
+children,' that is, cannot <i>endure</i> them. I never knew a man that was
+good for <i>much</i> who had a dislike to little children; and I never knew a
+woman of that taste who was good for any thing at all. I have seen a few
+such in the course of my life, and I have never wished to see one of
+them a second time.</p>
+
+<p>180. Being fond of little children argues no <i>effeminacy</i> in a man, but,
+as far as my observation has gone, the contrary. A regiment of soldiers
+presents no bad school wherein to study character. Soldiers have
+leisure, too, to play with children, as well as with 'women and dogs,'
+for which the proverb has made them famed. And I have never observed
+that effeminacy was at all the marked companion of fondness for little
+children. This fondness manifestly arises from a compassionate feeling
+towards creatures that are helpless, and that must be innocent. For my
+own part, how many days, how many months, all put together, have I spent
+with babies in my arms! My time, when at home, and when babies were
+going on, was chiefly divided between the pen and the baby. I have fed
+them and put them to sleep hundreds of times, though there were servants
+to whom the task might have been transferred. Yet, I have not been
+effeminate; I have not been idle; <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>I have not been a waster of time; but
+I should have been all these if I had disliked babies, and had liked the
+porter pot and the grog glass.</p>
+
+<p>181. It is an old saying, 'Praise the child, and you make love to the
+mother;' and it is surprising how far this will go. To a fond mother you
+can do nothing so pleasing as to praise the baby, and, the younger it
+is, the more she values the compliment. Say fine things to her, and take
+no notice of her baby, and she will despise you. I have often beheld
+this, in many women, with great admiration; and it is a thing that no
+husband ought to overlook; for if the wife wish her child to be admired
+by others, what must be the ardour of her wishes with regard to <i>his</i>
+admiration. There was a drunken dog of a Norfolk man in our regiment,
+who came from Thetford, I recollect, who used to say, that his wife
+would forgive him for spending all the pay, and the washing money into
+the bargain, 'if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was
+pretty.' Now, though this was a very profligate fellow, he had
+<i>philosophy</i> in him; and certain it is, that there is nothing worthy of
+the name of conjugal happiness, unless the husband clearly evince that
+he is fond of his children, and that, too, from their very birth.</p>
+
+<p>182. But though all the aforementioned considerations demand from us the
+kindest possible treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful
+deportment at her hands. He is not to be her slave; he is not to yield
+to her against the dictates of his own reason and judgment; it is her
+duty to obey all his lawful commands; and, if she have sense, she will
+perceive that it is a disgrace to herself to acknowledge, as a husband,
+a thing over which she has an absolute controul. It should always be
+recollected that <i>you</i> are the party whose body must, <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>if any do, lie in
+jail for debt, and for debts of her contracting, too, as well as of your
+own contracting. Over her <i>tongue</i>, too, you possess a clear right to
+exercise, if necessary, some controul; for if she use it in an
+unjustifiable manner, it is against <i>you</i>, and not against her, that the
+law enables, and justly enables, the slandered party to proceed; which
+would be monstrously unjust, if the law were not founded on the <i>right</i>
+which the husband has to control, if necessary, the tongue of the wife,
+to compel her to keep it within the limits prescribed by the law. A
+charming, a most enchanting, life, indeed, would be that of a husband,
+if he were bound to cohabit with and to maintain one for all the debts
+and all the slanders of whom he was answerable, and over whose conduct
+he possessed no compulsory controul.</p>
+
+<p>183. Of the <i>remedies</i> in the case of <i>really bad</i> wives, squanderers,
+drunkards, adultresses, I shall speak further on; it being the habit of
+us all to put off to the last possible moment the performance of
+disagreeable duties. But, far short of these vices, there are several
+faults in a wife that may, if not cured in time, lead to great
+unhappiness, great injury to the interests as well as character of her
+husband and children; and which faults it is, therefore, the husband's
+duty to correct. A wife may be chaste, sober in the full sense of the
+word, industrious, cleanly, frugal, and may be devoted to her husband
+and her children to a degree so enchanting as to make them all love her
+beyond the power of words to express. And yet she may, partly under the
+influence of her natural disposition, and partly encouraged by the great
+and constant homage paid to her virtues, and presuming, too, on the pain
+with which she knows her will would be thwarted; she may, <a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>with all her
+virtues, be thus led to <i>a bold interference in the affairs of her
+husband</i>; may attempt to dictate to him in matters quite out of her own
+sphere; and, in the pursuit of the gratification of her love of power
+and command, may wholly overlook the acts of folly or injustice which
+she would induce her husband to commit, and overlook, too, the
+contemptible thing that she is making the man whom it is her duty to
+honour and obey, and the abasement of whom cannot take place without
+some portion of degradation falling upon herself. At the time when 'THE
+BOOK' came out, relative to the late ill-treated QUEEN CAROLINE, I was
+talking upon the subject, one day, with <i>a parson</i>, who had not read the
+Book, but who, as was the fashion with all those who were looking up to
+the government, condemned the Queen unheard. 'Now,' said I, 'be not so
+shamefully unjust; but <i>get the book</i>, <i>read</i> it, <i>and then</i> give your
+judgment.'&mdash;'Indeed,' said his wife, who was sitting by, 'but HE
+SHA'N'T,' pronouncing the words <i>sha'n't</i> with an emphasis and a voice
+tremendously masculine. 'Oh!' said I, 'if he SHA'N'T, that is another
+matter; but, if he sha'n't read, if he sha'n't hear the evidence, he
+sha'n't be looked upon, by me, as a just judge; and I sha'n't regard
+him, in future, as having any opinion of his own in any thing.' All
+which the husband, the poor henpecked thing, heard without a word
+escaping his lips.</p>
+
+<p>184. A husband thus under command, is the most contemptible of God's
+creatures. Nobody can place reliance on him for any thing; whether in
+the capacity of employer or employed, you are never sure of him. No
+bargain is firm, no engagement sacred, with such a man. Feeble as a reed
+before the boisterous she-commander, he is bold in injustice towards
+those whom it pleases her caprice to mark out for <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>vengeance. In the
+eyes of neighbours, for <i>friends</i> such a man cannot have, in the eyes of
+servants, in the eyes of even the beggars at his door, such a man is a
+mean and despicable creature, though he may roll in wealth and possess
+great talents into the bargain. Such a man has, in fact, no property; he
+has nothing that he can rightly call <i>his own</i>; he is a beggarly
+dependent under his own roof; and if he have any thing of the man left
+in him, and if there be rope or river near, the sooner he betakes him to
+the one or the other the better. How many men, how many families, have I
+known brought to utter ruin only by the husband suffering himself to be
+subdued, to be cowed down, to be held in fear, of even a virtuous wife!
+What, then, must be the lot of him who submits to a commander who, at
+the same time, sets all virtue at defiance!</p>
+
+<p>185. Women are a <i>sisterhood</i>. They make <i>common cause</i> in behalf of the
+<i>sex</i>; and, indeed, this is natural enough, when we consider the vast
+power that the <i>law</i> gives us over them. The law is for us, and they
+combine, wherever they can, to mitigate its effects. This is perfectly
+natural, and, to a certain extent, laudable, evincing fellow-feeling and
+public spirit: but when carried to the length of '<i>he sha'n't</i>,' it is
+despotism on the one side and slavery on the other. Watch, therefore,
+the incipient steps of encroachment; and they come on so slowly, so
+softly, that you must be sharp-sighted if you perceive them; but the
+moment you <i>do perceive them</i>: your love will blind for too long a time;
+but the moment you do perceive them, put at once an effectual stop to
+their progress. Never mind the pain that it may give you: a day of pain
+at this time will spare you years of pain in time to come. Many a man
+has been miserable, and made his wife miserable too, for a <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>score or two
+of years, only for want of resolution to bear one day of pain: and it is
+a great deal to bear; it is a great deal to do to thwart the desire of
+one whom you so dearly love, and whose virtues daily render her more and
+more dear to you. But (and this is one of the most admirable of the
+mother's traits) as she herself will, while the tears stream from her
+eyes, force the nauseous medicine down the throat of her child, whose
+every cry is a dagger to her heart; as she herself has the courage to do
+this for the sake of her child, why should you flinch from the
+performance of a still more important and more sacred duty towards
+herself, as well as towards you and your children?</p>
+
+<p>186. Am I recommending <i>tyranny</i>? Am I recommending <i>disregard</i> of the
+wife's opinions and wishes? Am I recommending a <i>reserve</i> towards her
+that would seem to say that she was not trust-worthy, or not a party
+interested in her husband's affairs? By no means: on the contrary,
+though I would keep any thing disagreeable from her, I should not enjoy
+the prospect of good without making her a participator. But reason says,
+and God has said, that it is the duty of wives to be obedient to their
+husbands; and the very nature of things prescribes that there must be <i>a
+head</i> of every house, and an <i>undivided</i> authority. And then it is so
+clearly <i>just</i> that the authority should rest with him on whose head
+rests the whole responsibility, that a woman, when patiently reasoned
+with on the subject, must be a virago in her very nature not to submit
+with docility to the terms of her marriage vow.</p>
+
+<p>187. There are, in almost every considerable neighbourhood, a little
+squadron of she-commanders, generally the youngish wives of old or
+weak-minded men, and generally without children. These are the
+<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>tutoresses of the young wives of the vicinage; they, in virtue of their
+experience, not only school the wives, but scold the husbands; they
+teach the former how to encroach and the latter how to yield: so that if
+you suffer this to go quietly on, you are soon under the care of a
+<i>comit&eacute;</i> as completely as if you were insane. You want no <i>comit&eacute;</i>:
+reason, law, religion, the marriage vow; all these have made you head,
+have given you full power to rule your family, and if you give up your
+right, you deserve the contempt that assuredly awaits you, and also the
+ruin that is, in all probability, your doom.</p>
+
+<p>188. Taking it for granted that you will not suffer more than a second
+or third session of the female <i>comit&eacute;</i>, let me say a word or two about
+the conduct of men in deciding between the conflicting opinions of
+husbands and wives. When a wife has <i>a point to carry</i>, and finds
+herself hard pushed, or when she thinks it necessary to call to her aid
+all the force she can possibly muster, one of her resources is, the vote
+on her side of all her husband's visiting friends. 'My husband thinks so
+and so, and I think so and so; now, Mr. Tomkins, don't you think <i>I am
+right</i>?' To be sure he does; and so does Mr. Jenkins, and so does
+Wilkins, and so does Mr. Dickins, and you would swear that they were all
+her <i>kins</i>. Now this is very foolish, to say the least of it. None of
+these complaisant <i>kins</i> would like this in their own case. It is the
+fashion to say <i>aye</i> to all that a woman asserts, or contends for,
+especially in contradiction to her husband; and a very pernicious
+fashion it is. It is, in fact, not to pay her a compliment worthy of
+acceptance, but to treat her as an empty and conceited fool; and no
+sensible woman will, except from mere inadvertence, make the appeal.
+This fashion, however, foolish and <a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>contemptible as it is in itself, is
+attended, very frequently, with serious consequences. Backed by the
+opinions of her husband's friends, the wife returns to the charge with
+redoubled vigour and obstinacy; and if you do not yield, ten to one but
+a <i>quarrel</i> is the result; or, at least, something approaching towards
+it. A gentleman at whose house I was, about five years ago, was about to
+take a farm for his eldest son, who was a very fine young man, about
+eighteen years old. The mother, who was as virtuous and as sensible a
+woman as I have ever known, wished him to be 'in the law.' There were
+six or eight intimate friends present, and all unhesitatingly joined the
+lady, thinking it a pity that HARRY, who had had 'such a good
+education,' should be <i>buried</i> in a farm-house. 'And don't <i>you</i> think
+so too, Mr. Cobbett,' said the lady, with great earnestness. 'Indeed,
+Ma'am,' said I, 'I should think it very great presumption in me to offer
+any opinion at all, and especially in opposition to the known decision
+of the father, who is the best judge, and the only rightful judge, in
+such a case.' This was a very sensible and well-behaved woman, and I
+still respect her very highly; but I could perceive that I instantly
+dropped out of her good graces. Harry, however, I was glad to hear, went
+'to be <i>buried</i> in the farm-house.'</p>
+
+<p>189. 'A house divided against itself,' or, rather, <i>in</i> itself, 'cannot
+stand;' and it <i>is</i> divided against itself if there be a <i>divided
+authority</i>. The wife ought to be <i>heard</i>, and <i>patiently</i> heard; she
+ought to be reasoned with, and, if possible, convinced; but if, after
+all endeavours in this way, she remain opposed to the husband's opinion,
+his will <i>must</i> be obeyed; or he, at once, becomes nothing; she is, in
+fact, the <i>master</i>, and he is nothing but an <a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>insignificant inmate. As
+to matters of little comparative moment; as to what shall be for dinner;
+as to how the house shall be furnished; as to the management of the
+house and of menial servants; as to these matters, and many others, the
+wife may have her way without any danger; but when the questions are,
+what is to be the <i>calling</i> to be pursued; what is to be the <i>place of
+residence</i>; what is to be the <i>style</i> of living and <i>scale</i> of expence;
+what is to be done with <i>property</i>; what the manner and place of
+educating children; what is to be their <i>calling</i> or state of life; who
+are to be employed or entrusted by the husband; what are the principles
+that he is to adopt as to public matters; whom he is to have for
+coadjutors or friends; all these must be left solely to the husband; in
+all these he must have his will; or there never can be any harmony in
+the family.</p>
+
+<p>190. Nevertheless, in some of these concerns, wives should be heard with
+a great deal of attention, especially in the affairs of choosing your
+male acquaintances and friends and associates. Women are more
+quick-sighted than men; they are less disposed to confide in persons
+upon a first acquaintance; they are more suspicious as to motives; they
+are less liable to be deceived by professions and protestations; they
+watch words with a more scrutinizing ear, and looks with a keener eye;
+and, making due allowance for their prejudices in particular cases,
+their opinions and remonstrances, with regard to matters of this sort,
+ought not to be set at naught without great deliberation. LOUVET, one of
+the Brissotins, who fled for their lives in the time of ROBESPIERRE;
+this LOUVET, in his narrative, entitled '<i>Mes Perils</i>' and which I read,
+for the first time, to divert my mind from the perils of the
+<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>yellow-fever, in Philadelphia, but with which I was so captivated as to
+have read it many times since; this writer, giving an account of his
+wonderful dangers and escapes, relates, that being on his way to Paris
+from the vicinity of Bordeaux, and having no regular <i>passport</i>, fell
+lame, but finally crept on to a miserable pot-house, in a small town in
+the Limosin. The landlord questioned him with regard to who and what he
+was and whence he came and was satisfied with his answers. But the
+landlady, who had looked sharply at him on his arrival, whispered a
+little boy, who ran away, and quickly returned with the mayor of the
+town. LOUVET soon discovered that there was no danger in the mayor, who
+could not decipher his forged passport, and who, being well plied with
+wine, wanted to hear no more of the matter. The landlady, perceiving
+this, slipped out and brought a couple of aldermen, who asked <i>to see
+the passport</i>. 'O, yes; but <i>drink first</i>.' Then there was a laughing
+story to tell over again, at the request of the half-drunken mayor; then
+a laughing and more drinking; the passport in LOUVET'S hand, but <i>never
+opened</i>, and, while another toast was drinking, the passport slid back
+quietly into the pocket; the woman looking furious all the while. At
+last, the mayor, the aldermen, and the landlord, all nearly drunk, shook
+hands with LOUVET, and wished him a good journey, swore he was a <i>true
+sans culotte</i>; but, he says, that the 'sharp-sighted woman, who was to
+be deceived by none of his stories or professions, saw him get off with
+deep and manifest disappointment and chagrin.' I have thought of this
+many times since, when I have had occasion to witness the
+quick-sightedness and penetration of women. The same quality that makes
+them, as they notoriously are, more quick in discovering expedients in
+cases of <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>difficulty, makes them more apt to penetrate into motives and
+character.</p>
+
+<p>191. I now come to a matter of the greatest possible importance; namely,
+that great troubler of the married state, that great bane of families,
+JEALOUSY; and I shall first speak of <i>jealousy</i> in the <i>wife</i>. This is
+always an unfortunate thing, and sometimes fatal. Yet, if there be a
+great propensity towards it, it is very difficult to be prevented. One
+thing, however, every husband can do in the way of prevention; and that
+is, <i>to give no ground for it</i>. And here, it is not sufficient that he
+strictly adhere to his marriage vow; he ought further to abstain from
+every art, however free from guilt, calculated to awaken the slightest
+degree of suspicion in a mind, the peace of which he is bound by every
+tie of justice and humanity not to disturb, or, if he can avoid it, to
+suffer it to be disturbed by others. A woman that is very fond of her
+husband, and this is the case with nine-tenths of English and American
+women, does not like to share with another any, even the smallest
+portion, not only of his affection, but of his assiduities and applause;
+and, as the bestowing of them on another, and receiving payment in kind,
+can serve no purpose other than of gratifying one's <i>vanity</i>, they ought
+to be abstained from, and especially if the gratification be to be
+purchased with even the chance of exciting uneasiness in her, whom it is
+your sacred duty to make as happy as you can.</p>
+
+<p>192. For about two or three years after I was married, I, retaining some
+of my military manners, used, both in France and America, to <i>romp</i> most
+famously with the girls that came in my way; till one day, at
+Philadelphia, my wife said to me, in a very gentle manner, 'Don't do
+that: <i>I do not like it</i>.' <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>That was quite enough: I had never <i>thought</i>
+on the subject before: one hair of her head was more dear to me than all
+the other women in the world, and this I knew that she knew; but I now
+saw that this was not all that she had a right to from me; I saw, that
+she had the further claim upon me that I should abstain from every thing
+that might induce others to believe that there was any other woman for
+whom, even if I were at liberty, I had any affection. I beseech young
+married men to bear this in mind; for, on some trifle of this sort, the
+happiness or misery of a long life frequently turns. If the mind of a
+wife be disturbed on this score, every possible means ought to be used
+to restore it to peace; and though her suspicions be perfectly
+groundless; though they be wild as the dreams of madmen; though they may
+present a mixture of the furious and the ridiculous, still they are to
+be treated with the greatest lenity and tenderness; and if, after all,
+you fail, the frailty is to be lamented as a misfortune, and not
+punished as a fault, seeing that it <i>must</i> have its foundation in a
+feeling towards you, which it would be the basest of ingratitude, and
+the most ferocious of cruelty, to repay by harshness of any description.</p>
+
+<p>193. As to those husbands who make the <i>unjust</i> suspicions of their
+wives a <i>justification</i> for making those suspicions just; as to such as
+can make a sport of such suspicions, rather brag of them than otherwise,
+and endeavour to aggravate rather than assuage them; as to such I have
+nothing to say, they being far without the scope of any advice that I
+can offer. But to such as are not of this description, I have a remark
+or two to offer with respect to measures of <i>prevention</i>.</p>
+
+<p>194. And, first, I never could see the <i>sense</i> of its <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>being a piece of
+etiquette, a sort of mark of <i>good breeding</i>, to make it a rule that man
+and wife are not to sit side by side in a mixed company; that if a party
+walk out, the wife is to give her arm to some other than her husband;
+that if there be any other hand near, <i>his</i> is not to help to a seat or
+into a carriage. I never could see the <i>sense</i> of this; but I have
+always seen the <i>nonsense</i> of it plainly enough; it is, in short,
+amongst many other foolish and mischievous things that we do in aping
+the manners of those whose riches (frequently ill-gotten) and whose
+power embolden them to set, with impunity, pernicious examples; and to
+their examples this nation owes more of its degradation in morals than
+to any other source. The truth is, that this is a piece <i>of false
+refinement</i>: it, being interpreted, means, that so free are the parties
+from a liability to suspicion, so innately virtuous and pure are they,
+that each man can safely trust his wife with another man, and each woman
+her husband with another woman. But this piece of false refinement, like
+all others, overshoots its mark; it says too much; for it says that the
+parties have <i>lewd thoughts in their minds</i>. This is not the <i>fact</i>,
+with regard to people in general; but it must have been the origin of
+this set of consummately ridiculous and contemptible rules.</p>
+
+<p>195. Now I would advise a young man, especially if he have a pretty
+wife, not to commit her unnecessarily to the care of any other man; not
+to be separated from her in this studious and ceremonious manner; and
+not to be ashamed to prefer her company and conversation to that of any
+other woman. I never could discover any <i>good-breeding</i> in setting
+another man, almost expressly, to poke his nose up in the face of my
+wife, and talk nonsense to her; for, in such cases, nonsense it
+generally is. It is not <a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>a thing of much consequence, to be sure; but
+when the wife is young, especially, it is not seemly, at any rate, and
+it cannot possibly lead to any good, though it may not lead to any great
+evil. And, on the other hand, you may be quite sure that, whatever she
+may <i>seem</i> to think of the matter, she will not like <i>you</i> the better
+for your attentions of this sort to other women, especially if they be
+young and handsome: and as this species of fashionable nonsense can do
+you no good, why gratify your love of talk, or the vanity of any woman,
+at even the risk of exciting uneasiness in that mind of which it is your
+most sacred duty to preserve, if you can, the uninterrupted
+tranquillity.</p>
+
+<p>196. The truth is, that the greatest security of all against jealousy in
+a wife is to show, to <i>prove</i>, by your <i>acts</i>, by your words also, but
+more especially by your <i>acts</i>, that you prefer her to all the world;
+and, as I said before, I know of no act that is, in this respect, equal
+to spending in her company every moment of your <i>leisure</i> time. Every
+body knows, and young wives better than any body else, that people, who
+can choose, will be where <i>they like best to be</i>, and that they will be
+along with those <i>whose company they best like</i>. The matter is very
+plain, then, and I do beseech you to bear it in mind. Nor do I see the
+use, or sense, of keeping a great deal of <i>company</i>, as it is called.
+What company can a young man and woman want more than their two selves,
+and their children, if they have any? If here be not company enough, it
+is but a sad affair. The pernicious <i>cards</i> are brought forth by the
+company-keeping, the rival expenses, the sittings up late at night, the
+seeing of '<i>the ladies home</i>,' and a thousand squabbles and disagreeable
+consequences. But, the great thing of all is, that this hankering after
+com<a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>pany, proves, clearly proves, that <i>you want something beyond the
+society of your wife</i>; and that she is sure to feel most acutely: the
+bare fact contains an imputation against her, and it is pretty sure to
+lay the foundation of jealousy, or of something still worse.</p>
+
+<p>197. If acts of kindness in you are necessary in all cases, they are
+especially so in cases of her <i>illness</i>, from whatever cause arising. I
+will not suppose myself to be addressing any husband capable of being
+<i>unconcerned</i> while his wife's life is in the most distant danger from
+illness, though it has been my very great mortification to know in my
+life time, two or three brutes of this description; but, far short of
+this degree of brutality, a great deal of fault may be committed. When
+men are ill, they feel every neglect with double anguish, and, what then
+must be in such cases the feelings of women, whose ordinary feelings are
+so much more acute than those of men; what must be their feelings in
+case of neglect in illness, and especially if the neglect come <i>from the
+husband</i>! Your own heart will, I hope, tell you what those feelings must
+be, and will spare me the vain attempt to describe them; and, if it do
+thus instruct you, you will want no arguments from me to induce you, at
+such a season, to prove the sincerity of your affection by every kind
+word and kind act that your mind can suggest. This is the time to try
+you; and, be you assured, that the impression left on her mind now will
+be the true and <i>lasting</i> impression; and, if it be good, will be a
+better preservative against her being jealous, than ten thousand of your
+professions ten thousand times repeated. In such a case, you ought to
+spare no expense that you can possibly afford; you ought to neglect
+nothing that your means will enable you to do; for, what is the use of
+money if it <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>be not to be expended in this case? But, more than all the
+rest, is your own <i>personal</i> attention. This is the valuable thing; this
+is the great balm to the sufferer, and, it is efficacious in proportion
+as it is proved to be sincere. Leave nothing to other hands that you can
+do yourself; the mind has a great deal to do in all the ailments of the
+body, and, bear in mind, that, whatever be the event, you have a more
+than ample reward. I cannot press this point too strongly upon you; the
+bed of sickness presents no charms, no allurements, and women know this
+well; they watch, in such a case, your every word and every look: and
+now it is that their confidence is secured, or their suspicions excited,
+for life.</p>
+
+<p>198. In conclusion of these remarks, as to jealousy in a wife, I cannot
+help expressing my abhorrence of those husbands who treat it as a matter
+for ridicule. To be sure, infidelity in a man is less heinous than
+infidelity in the wife; but still, is the marriage vow nothing? Is a
+promise solemnly made before God, and in the face of the world, nothing?
+Is a violation of a contract, and that, too, with a feebler party,
+nothing of which a man ought to be ashamed? But, besides all these,
+there is the <i>cruelty</i>. First, you win, by great pains, perhaps, a
+woman's affections; then, in order to get possession of her person, you
+marry her; then, after enjoyment, you break your vow, you bring upon her
+the mixed pity and jeers of the world, and thus you leave her to weep
+out her life. Murder is more horrible than this, to be sure, and the
+criminal <i>law</i>, which punishes divers other crimes, does not reach this;
+but, in the eye of reason and of moral justice, it is surpassed by very
+few of those crimes. <i>Passion</i> may be pleaded, and so it may, for almost
+every other crime of which man can be guilty. It is not a crime <i>against
+nature</i>; nor are any of <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>these which men commit in consequence of their
+necessities. <i>The temptation is great</i>; and is not the temptation great
+when men thieve or rob? In short, there is no excuse for an act so
+unjust and so cruel, and the world is just as to this matter; for, I
+have always observed, that, however men are disposed to <i>laugh</i> at these
+breaches of vows in men, the act seldom fails to produce injury to the
+whole character; it leaves, after all the joking, a stain, and, amongst
+those who depend on character for a livelihood, it often produces ruin.
+At the very least, it makes an unhappy and wrangling family; it makes
+children despise or hate their fathers, and it affords an example at the
+thought of the ultimate consequences of which a father ought to shudder.
+In such a case, children will take part, and they ought to take part,
+with the mother: she is the injured party; the shame brought upon her
+attaches, in part, to them: they feel the injustice done them; and, if
+such a man, when the grey hairs, and tottering knees, and piping voice
+come, look round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, be just, and
+acknowledge that he has now the due reward of his own wanton cruelty to
+one whom he had solemnly sworn to love and to cherish to the last hour
+of his or her life.</p>
+
+<p>199. But, bad as is conjugal infidelity in the <i>husband</i>, it is much
+worse in the <i>wife</i>: a proposition that it is necessary to maintain by
+the force of reason, because <i>the women</i>, as a sisterhood, are prone to
+deny the truth of it. They say that <i>adultery</i> is <i>adultery</i>, in men as
+well as in them; and that, therefore, the offence is <i>as great</i> in the
+one case as in the other. As a crime, abstractedly considered, it
+certainly is; but, as to the <i>consequences</i>, there is a wide difference.
+In both cases, there is the breach of a solemn vow, but, there is this
+great distinction, that the husband, <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>by his breach of that vow, only
+brings <i>shame</i> upon his wife and family; whereas the wife, by a breach
+of her vow, may bring the husband a spurious offspring to maintain, and
+may bring that spurious offspring to rob of their fortunes, and in some
+cases of their bread, her legitimate children. So that here is a great
+and evident wrong done to numerous parties, besides the deeper disgrace
+inflicted in this case than in the other.</p>
+
+<p>200. And why is the disgrace <i>deeper</i>? Because here is a total want of
+<i>delicacy</i>; here is, in fact, <i>prostitution</i>; here is grossness and
+filthiness of mind; here is every thing that argues baseness of
+character. Women should be, and they are, except in few instances, far
+more reserved and more delicate than men; nature bids them be such; the
+habits and manners of the world confirm this precept of nature; and
+therefore, when they commit this offence, they excite loathing, as well
+as call for reprobation. In the countries where a <i>plurality of wives</i>
+is permitted, there is no <i>plurality of husbands</i>. It is there thought
+not at all indelicate for a man to have several wives; but the bare
+thought of a woman having <i>two husbands</i> would excite horror. The
+<i>widows</i> of the Hindoos burn themselves in the pile that consumes their
+husbands; but the Hindoo <i>widowers</i> do not dispose of themselves in this
+way. The widows devote their bodies to complete destruction, lest, even
+after the death of their husbands, they should be tempted to connect
+themselves with other men; and though this is carrying delicacy far
+indeed, it reads to Christian wives a lesson not unworthy of their
+attention; for, though it is not desirable that their bodies should be
+turned into handfuls of ashes, even that transmutation were preferable
+to that infidelity which fixes the brand of shame on the cheeks of their
+parents, <a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>their children, and on those of all who ever called them
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>201. For these plain and forcible reasons it is that this species of
+offence is far more heinous in the wife than in the husband; and the
+people of all civilized countries act upon this settled distinction. Men
+who have been guilty of the offence are not cut off from society, but
+women who have been guilty of it are; for, as we all know well, no
+woman, married or single, of <i>fair reputation</i>, will risk that
+reputation by being ever seen, if she can avoid it, with a woman who has
+ever, at any time, committed this offence, which contains in itself, and
+by universal award, a sentence of social excommunication for life.</p>
+
+<p>202. If, therefore, it be the duty of the husband to adhere strictly to
+his marriage vow: if his breach of that vow be naturally attended with
+the fatal consequences above described: how much more imperative is the
+duty on the wife to avoid, even the semblance of a deviation from that
+vow! If the man's misconduct, in this respect, bring shame on so many
+innocent parties, what shame, what dishonour, what misery follow such
+misconduct in the wife! Her parents, those of her husband, all her
+relations, and all her friends, share in her dishonour. And <i>her
+children</i>! how is she to make atonement to them! They are commanded to
+honour their father and their mother; but not such a mother as this,
+who, on the contrary, has no claim to any thing from them but hatred,
+abhorrence, and execration. It is she who has broken the ties of nature;
+she has dishonoured her own offspring; she has fixed a mark of reproach
+on those who once made a part of her own body; nature shuts her out of
+the pale of its influence, and condemns her to the just detestation of
+those whom it formerly bade love her as their own life.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>203. But as the crime is so much more heinous, and the punishment so
+much more severe, in the case of the wife than it is in the case of the
+husband, so the caution ought to be greater in making the accusation, or
+entertaining the suspicion. Men ought to be very slow in entertaining
+such suspicions: they ought to have clear <i>proof</i> before they can
+<i>suspect</i>; a proneness to such suspicions is a very unfortunate turn of
+the mind; and, indeed, few characters are more despicable than that of a
+<i>jealous-headed husband</i>; rather than be tied to the whims of one of
+whom, an innocent woman of spirit would earn her bread over the
+washing-tub, or with a hay-fork, or a reap-hook. With such a man there
+can be no peace; and, as far as children are concerned, the false
+accusation is nearly equal to the reality. When a wife discovers her
+jealousy, she merely imputes to her husband inconstancy and breach of
+his marriage vow; but jealousy in him imputes to her a willingness to
+palm a spurious offspring upon him, and upon her legitimate children, as
+robbers of their birthright; and, besides this, grossness, filthiness,
+and prostitution. She imputes to him injustice and cruelty: but he
+imputes to her that which banishes her from society; that which cuts her
+off for life from every thing connected with female purity; that which
+brands her with infamy to her latest breath.</p>
+
+<p>204. Very slow, therefore, ought a husband to be in entertaining even
+the thought of this crime in his wife. He ought to be <i>quite sure</i>
+before he take the smallest step in the way of accusation; but if
+unhappily he have the proof, no consideration on earth ought to induce
+him to cohabit with her one moment longer. Jealous husbands are not
+despicable because they have <i>grounds</i>; but because they <i>have not
+grounds</i>; and this is generally the case. When <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>they have grounds, their
+own honour commands them to cast off the object, as they would cut out a
+corn or a cancer. It is not the jealousy in itself, which is despicable;
+but the <i>continuing to live in that state</i>. It is no dishonour to be a
+slave in Algiers, for instance; the dishonour begins only where you
+remain a slave <i>voluntarily</i>; it begins the moment you can escape from
+slavery, and do not. It is despicable unjustly to be jealous of your
+wife; but it is infamy to cohabit with her if you <i>know</i> her to be
+guilty.</p>
+
+<p>205. I shall be told that the <i>law</i> compels you to live with her, unless
+you be <i>rich</i> enough to disengage yourself from her; but the law does
+not compel you to remain <i>in the same country with her</i>; and, if a man
+have no other means of ridding himself of such a curse, what are
+mountains or seas or traverse? And what is the risk (if such there be)
+of exchanging a life of bodily ease for a life of labour? What are
+these, and numerous other ills (if they happen) superadded? Nay, what is
+death itself, compared with the baseness, the infamy, the never-ceasing
+shame and reproach of living under the same roof with a prostituted
+woman, and calling her your <i>wife</i>? But, there are <i>children</i>, and what
+are to become of these? To be taken away from the prostitute, to be
+sure; and this is a duty which you owe to them: the sooner they forget
+her the better, and the farther they are from her, the sooner that will
+be. There is no excuse for continuing to live with an adultress; no
+inconvenience, no loss, no suffering, ought to deter a man from
+delivering himself from such a state of filthy infamy; and to suffer
+his children to remain in such a state, is a crime that hardly admits of
+adequate description; a jail is paradise compared with such a life, and
+he who can endure this latter, <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>from the fear of encountering hardship,
+is a wretch too despicable to go by the name of man.</p>
+
+<p>206. But, now, all this supposes, that the husband has <i>well and truly
+acted his part</i>! It supposes, not only that he has been faithful; but,
+that he has not, in any way, been the cause of temptation to the wife to
+be unfaithful. If he have been cold and neglectful; if he have led a
+life of irregularity; if he have proved to her that <i>home</i> was not his
+delight; if he have made his house the place of resort for loose
+companions; if he have given rise to a taste for visiting, junketting,
+parties of pleasure and gaiety; if he have introduced the habit of
+indulging in what are called '<i>innocent freedoms</i>;' if these, or any of
+these, <i>the fault is his</i>, he must take the consequences, and he has <i>no
+right</i> to inflict punishment on the offender, the offence being in fact
+of his own creating. The laws of God, as well as the laws of man, have
+given him all power in this respect: it is for him to use that power for
+the honour of his wife as well as for that of himself: if he neglect to
+use it, all the consequences ought to fall on him; and, as far as my
+observation has gone, in nineteen out of twenty cases of infidelity in
+wives, the crimes have been <i>fairly ascribable to the husbands</i>. Folly
+or misconduct in the husband, cannot, indeed, justify or even palliate
+infidelity in the wife, whose very nature ought to make her recoil at
+the thought of the offence; but it may, at the same time, deprive him of
+the right of inflicting punishment on her: her kindred, her children,
+and the world, will justly hold her in abhorrence; but the husband must
+hold his peace.</p>
+
+<p>207. '<i>Innocent freedoms!</i>' I know of none that a wife can indulge in.
+The words, as applied to the demeanour of a married woman, or even a
+single one, <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>imply a contradiction. For <i>freedom</i>, thus used, means an
+exemption or departure from the <i>strict rules of female reserve</i>; and, I
+do not see how this can be <i>innocent</i>. It may not amount to <i>crime</i>,
+indeed; but, still it is not <i>innocent</i>; and the use of the phrase is
+dangerous. If it had been my fortune to be yoked to a person, who liked
+'innocent freedoms,' I should have unyoked myself in a very short time.
+But, to say the truth, it is all a man's own fault. If he have not sense
+and influence enough to prevent 'innocent freedoms,' even <i>before</i>
+marriage, he will do well to let the thing alone, and leave wives to be
+managed by those who have. But, men will talk to your wife, and natter
+her. To be sure they will, if she be young and pretty; and would you go
+and pull her away from them? O no, by no means; but you must have very
+little sense, or must have made very little use of it, if her manner do
+not soon convince them that they employ their flattery in vain.</p>
+
+<p>208. So much of a man's happiness and of his <i>efficiency</i> through life
+depends upon his mind being quite free from all anxieties of this sort,
+that too much care cannot be taken to guard against them; and, I repeat,
+that the great preservation of all is, the young couple living as much
+as possible <i>at home</i>, and having as few visitors as possible. If they
+do not prefer the company of each other to that of all the world
+besides; if either of them be weary of the company of the other; if they
+do not, when separated by business or any other cause, think with
+pleasure of the time of meeting again, it is a bad omen. Pursue this
+course when young, and the very thought of jealousy will never come into
+your mind; and, if you do pursue it, and show by your <i>deeds</i> that you
+value your wife as you do your own life, you must be <a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>pretty nearly an
+idiot, if she do not think you to be the wisest man in the world. The
+<i>best</i> man she will be sure to think you, and she will never forgive any
+one that calls your talents or your wisdom in question.</p>
+
+<p>209. Now, will you say that, if to be happy, nay, if to avoid misery and
+ruin in the married state, requires all these precautions, all these
+cares, to fail to any extent in any of which is to bring down on a man's
+head such fearful consequences; will you say that, if this be the case,
+<i>it is better to remain single</i>? If you should say this, it is my
+business to show that you are in error. For, in the first place, it is
+against nature to suppose that children can cease to be born; they must
+and will come; and then it follows, that they must come by promiscuous
+intercourse, or by particular connexion. The former nobody will contend
+for, seeing that it would put us, in this respect, on a level with the
+brute creation. Then, as the connexion is to be <i>particular</i>, it must be
+<i>during pleasure</i>, or for the <i>joint lives of the parties</i>. The former
+would seldom hold for any length of time: the tie would seldom be
+durable, and it would be feeble on account of its uncertain duration.
+Therefore, to be a <i>father</i>, with all the lasting and delightful ties
+attached to the name, you must first be a husband; and there are very
+few men in the world who do not, first or last, desire to be <i>fathers</i>.
+If it be said, that marriage ought not to be for life, but that its
+duration ought to be subject to the will, the <i>mutual will</i> at least, of
+the parties; the answer is, that it would seldom be of long duration.
+Every trifling dispute would lead to a separation; a hasty word would be
+enough. Knowing that the engagement is for life, prevents disputes too;
+it checks anger in its beginnings. Put a rigging horse into a field
+<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>with a weak fence, and with captivating pasture on the other side, and
+he is continually trying to get out; but, let the field be walled round,
+he makes the best of his hard fare, and divides his time between grazing
+and sleeping. Besides, there could be no <i>families</i>, no assemblages of
+persons worthy of that name; all would be confusion and indescribable
+intermixture: the names of <i>brother</i> and <i>sister</i> would hardly have a
+meaning; and, therefore, there must be marriage, or there can be nothing
+worthy of the name of family or of father.</p>
+
+<p>210. The <i>cares</i> and <i>troubles</i> of the married life are many; but, are
+those of the single life few? Take the <i>farmer</i>, and it is nearly the
+same with the tradesman; but, take the farmer, for instance, and let
+him, at the age of twenty-five, go into business unmarried. See his maid
+servants, probably rivals for his smiles, but certainly rivals in the
+charitable distribution of his victuals and drink amongst those of their
+own rank: behold <i>their</i> guardianship of his pork-tub, his bacon rack,
+his butter, cheese, milk, poultry, eggs, and all the rest of it: look at
+<i>their</i> care of all his household stuff, his blankets, sheets,
+pillow-cases, towels, knives and forks, and particularly of his
+<i>crockery ware</i>, of which last they will hardly exceed a single
+cart-load of broken bits in the year. And, how nicely they will get up
+and take care of his linen and other wearing apparel, and always have it
+ready for him without his thinking about it! If absent at market, or
+especially at a distant fair, how scrupulously they will keep all their
+cronies out of his house, and what special care they will take of his
+<i>cellar</i>, more particularly that which holds the strong beer! And his
+groceries and his spirits and his <i>wine</i> (for a bachelor can <i>afford</i>
+it), how safe these will all be! Bachelors have not, indeed, any more
+than <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>married men, a security for <i>health</i>; but if our young farmer be
+sick, there are his couple of maids to take care of him, to administer
+his medicine, and to perform for him all other nameless offices, which
+in such a case are required; and what is more, take care of every thing
+down stairs at the same time, especially his desk with the money in it!
+Never will they, good-humoured girls as they are, scold him for coming
+home too late; but, on the contrary, like him the better for it; and if
+he have drunk a little too much, so much the better, for then he will
+sleep late in the morning, and when he comes out at last, he will find
+that his men have been <i>so hard</i> at work, and that all his animals have
+been taken such good care of!</p>
+
+<p>211. Nonsense! a bare glance at the thing shows, that a farmer, above
+all men living, can never carry on his affairs with profit without a
+wife, or a mother, or a daughter, or some such person; and <i>mother</i> and
+<i>daughter</i> imply matrimony. To be sure, a wife would cause some
+<i>trouble</i>, perhaps, to this young man. There might be the midwife and
+nurse to gallop after at midnight; there might be, and there ought to
+be, if called for, a little complaining of late hours; but, good God!
+what are these, and all the other <i>troubles</i> that could attend a married
+life; what are they, compared to the one single circumstance of the want
+of a wife at your bedside during one single night of illness! A nurse!
+what is a nurse to do for you? Will she do the things that a wife will
+do? Will she watch your looks and your half-uttered wishes? Will she use
+the urgent persuasions so often necessary to save life in such cases?
+Will she, by her acts, convince you that it is not a toil, but a
+delight, to break her rest for your sake? In short, now it is that you
+find that what the women them<a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>selves say is strictly true, namely, that
+without wives, <i>men are poor helpless mortals</i>.</p>
+
+<p>212. As to the <i>expense</i>, there is no comparison between that of a woman
+servant and a wife, in the house of a farmer or a tradesman. The wages
+of the former is not the expense; it is the want of a <i>common interest</i>
+with you, and this you can obtain in no one but a wife. But there are
+<i>the children</i>. I, for my part, firmly believe that a farmer, married at
+twenty-five, and having ten children during the first ten years, would
+be able to save more money during these years, than a bachelor, of the
+same age, would be able to save, on the same farm, in a like space of
+time, he keeping only one maid servant. One single fit of illness, of
+two months' duration, might sweep away more than all the children would
+cost in the whole ten years, to say nothing of the continual waste and
+pillage, and the idleness, going on from the first day of the ten years
+to the last.</p>
+
+<p>213. Besides, is the money <i>all</i>? What a life to lead!! No one to talk
+to without going from home, or without getting some one to come to you;
+no friend to sit and talk to: pleasant evenings to pass! Nobody to share
+with you your sorrows or your pleasures: no soul having a common
+interest with you: all around you taking care of themselves, and no care
+of you: no one to cheer you in moments of depression: to say all in a
+word, no one to <i>love</i> you, and no prospect of ever seeing any such one
+to the end of your days. For, as to parents and brethren, if you have
+them, they have other and very different ties; and, however laudable
+your feelings as son and brother, those feelings are of a different
+character. Then as to gratifications, from which you will hardly abstain
+altogether, are they generally of little expense? and are they attended
+<a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>with no trouble, no vexation, no disappointment, no <i>jealousy</i> even,
+and are they never followed by shame or remorse?</p>
+
+<p>214. It does very well in bantering songs, to say that the bachelor's
+life is '<i>devoid of care</i>.' My observation tells me the contrary, and
+reason concurs, in this regard, with experience. The bachelor has no one
+on whom he can in all cases rely. When he quits his home, he carries
+with him cares that are unknown to the married man. If, indeed, like the
+common soldier, he have merely a lodging-place, and a bundle of clothes,
+given in charge to some one, he may be at his ease; but if he possess
+any thing of a home, he is never sure of its safety; and this
+uncertainty is a great enemy to cheerfulness. And as to <i>efficiency</i> in
+life, how is the bachelor to equal the married man? In the case of
+farmers and tradesmen, the latter have so clearly the advantage over the
+former, that one need hardly insist upon the point; but it is, and must
+be, the same in all the situations of life. To provide for a wife and
+children is the greatest of all possible spurs to exertion. Many a man,
+naturally prone to idleness, has become active and industrious when he
+saw children growing up about him; many a dull sluggard has become, if
+not a bright man, at least a bustling man, when roused to exertion by
+his love. Dryden's account of the change wrought in CYMON, is only a
+strong case of the kind. And, indeed, if a man will not exert himself
+for the sake of a wife and children, he can have no exertion in him; or
+he must be deaf to all the dictates of nature.</p>
+
+<p>215. Perhaps the world never exhibited a more striking proof of the
+truth of this doctrine than that which is exhibited in me; and I am sure
+that every one will say, without any hesitation, that a fourth <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>part of
+the labours I have performed, never would have been performed, <i>if I had
+not been a married man</i>. In the first place, they could not; for I
+should, all the early part of my life, have been rambling and roving
+about as most bachelors are. I should have had <i>no home</i> that I cared a
+straw about, and should have wasted the far greater part of my time. The
+great affair of home being <i>settled</i>, having the home secured, I had
+leisure to employ my mind on things which it delighted in. I got rid at
+once of all cares, all <i>anxieties</i>, and had only to provide for the very
+moderate wants of that home. But the children began to come. They
+sharpened my industry: they spurred me on. To be sure, I had other and
+strong motives: I wrote for fame, and was urged forward by
+ill-treatment, and by the desire to triumph over my enemies; but, after
+all, a very large part of my <i>nearly a hundred volumes</i> may be fairly
+ascribed to the wife and children.</p>
+
+<p>216. I might have done <i>something</i>; but, perhaps, not a <i>thousandth</i>
+part of what I have done; not even a thousandth part: for the chances
+are, that I, being fond of a military life, should have ended my days
+ten or twenty years ago, in consequence of wounds, or fatigue, or, more
+likely, in consequence of the persecutions of some haughty and insolent
+fool, whom nature had formed to black my shoes, and whom a system of
+corruption had made my commander. <i>Love</i> came and rescued me from this
+state of horrible slavery; placed the whole of my time at my own
+disposal; made me as free as air; removed every restraint upon the
+operations of my mind, naturally disposed to communicate its thoughts to
+others; and gave me, for my leisure hours, a companion, who, though
+deprived of all opportunity of acquiring what is <i>called learning</i>, had
+so much good sense, so <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>much useful knowledge, was so innocent, so just
+in all her ways, so pure in thought, word and deed, so disinterested, so
+generous, so devoted to me and her children, so free from all disguise,
+and, withal, so beautiful and so talkative, and in a voice so sweet, so
+cheering, that I must, seeing the health and the capacity which it had
+pleased God to give me, have been a <i>criminal</i>, if I had done much less
+than that which I have done; and I have always said, that, if my country
+feel any gratitude for my labours, that gratitude is due to her full as
+much as to me.</p>
+
+<p>217. <i>'Care'!</i> What <i>care</i> have I known! I have been buffeted about by
+this powerful and vindictive Government; I have repeatedly had the fruit
+of my labour snatched away from me by it; but I had a partner that never
+frowned, that was never melancholy, that never was subdued in spirit,
+that never abated a smile, on these occasions, that fortified me, and
+sustained me by her courageous example, and that was just as busy and as
+zealous in taking care of the remnant as she had been in taking care of
+the whole; just as cheerful, and just as full of caresses, when brought
+down to a mean hired lodging, as when the mistress of a fine country
+house, with all its accompaniments; and, whether from her words or her
+looks, no one could gather that she regretted the change. What '<i>cares</i>'
+have I had, then? What have I had worthy of the name of '<i>cares</i>'?</p>
+
+<p>218. And, how is it <i>now</i>? How is it when the <i>sixty-fourth year</i> has
+come? And how should I have been without this wife and these children? I
+<i>might</i> have amassed a tolerable heap of <i>money</i>; but what would that
+have done for me? It might have <i>bought</i> me plenty of <i>professions</i> of
+attachment; plenty of persons impatient for my exit from the world; but
+not one single grain of sorrow, for any anguish that <a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>might have
+attended my approaching end. To me, no being in this world appears so
+wretched as an <i>Old Bachelor</i>. Those circumstances, those changes in his
+person and in his mind, which, in the husband, increase rather than
+diminish the attentions to him, produce all the want of feeling
+attendant on disgust; and he beholds, in the conduct of the mercenary
+crew that generally surround him, little besides an eager desire to
+profit from that event, the approach of which, nature makes a subject of
+sorrow with him.</p>
+
+<p>219. Before I quit this part of my work, I cannot refrain from offering
+my opinion with regard to what is due from husband to wife, when the
+<i>disposal of his property</i> comes to be thought of. When marriage is an
+affair settled by deeds, contracts, and lawyers, the husband, being
+bound beforehand, has really no <i>will</i> to make. But where he has <i>a
+will</i> to make, and a faithful wife to leave behind him, it is his first
+duty to provide for her future well-being, to the utmost of his power.
+If she brought him <i>no money</i>, she brought him <i>her person</i>; and by
+delivering that up to him, she established a claim to his careful
+protection of her to the end of her life. Some men think, or act as if
+they thought, that, if a wife bring no money, and if the husband gain
+money by his business or profession, that money is <i>his</i>, and not hers,
+because she has not been doing any of those things for which the money
+has been received. But is this way of thinking <i>just</i>? By the marriage
+vow, the husband endows the wife <i>with all his worldly goods</i>; and
+not a bit too much is this, when she is giving him the command and
+possession of her person. But does she <i>not help to acquire the money</i>?
+Speaking, for instance, of the farmer or the merchant, the wife does
+not, indeed, go to plough, or to look after the ploughing and sowing;
+<a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>she does not purchase or sell the stock; she does not go to the fair or
+the market; but she enables him to do all these without injury to his
+affairs at home; she is the guardian of his property; she preserves what
+would otherwise be lost to him. The barn and the granary, though they
+<i>create</i> nothing, have, in the bringing of food to our mouths, as much
+merit as the fields themselves. The wife does not, indeed, assist in the
+merchant's counting-house; she does not go upon the exchange; she does
+not even know what he is doing; but she keeps his house in order; she
+rears up his children; she provides a scene of suitable resort for his
+friends; she insures him a constant retreat from the fatigues of his
+affairs; she makes his home pleasant, and she is the guardian of his
+income.</p>
+
+<p>220. In both these cases, the wife <i>helps to gain the money</i>; and in
+cases where there is no gain, where the income is by descent, or is
+fixed, she helps to prevent it from being squandered away. It is,
+therefore, as much <i>hers</i> as it is the husband's; and though <i>the law</i>
+gives him, in many cases, the power of keeping her share from her, no
+just man will ever avail himself of that power. With regard to the
+<i>tying up</i> of widows from marrying again, I will relate what took place
+in a case of this kind, in America. A merchant, who had, during his
+married state, risen from poverty to very great riches, and who had,
+nevertheless, died at about forty years of age, left the whole of his
+property to his wife for her life, and at her disposal at her death,
+<i>provided that she did not marry</i>. The consequence was, that she took a
+husband <i>without marrying</i>, and, at her death (she having no children),
+gave the whole of the property to the second husband! So much for
+<i>posthumous jealousy</i>!</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>221. Where there are <i>children</i>, indeed, it is the duty of the husband
+to provide, in certain cases, against <i>step-fathers</i>, who are very prone
+not to be the most just and affectionate parents. It is an unhappy
+circumstance, when a dying father is compelled to have fears of this
+sort. There is seldom <i>an apology</i> to be offered for a mother that will
+hazard the happiness of her children by a second marriage. The <i>law</i>
+allows it, to be sure; but there is, as Prior says, 'something beyond
+the letter of the law.' I know what ticklish ground I am treading on
+here; but, though it is <i>as lawful</i> for a woman to take a second husband
+as for a man to take a second wife, the cases are different, and widely
+different, in the eye of morality and of reason; for, as adultery in the
+wife is a greater offence than adultery in the husband; as it is more
+gross, as it includes <i>prostitution</i>; so a second marriage in the woman
+is more gross than in the man, argues great deficiency in that
+<i>delicacy</i>, that <i>innate</i> modesty, which, after all, is the <i>great
+charm</i>, the charm of charms, in the female sex. I do not <i>like</i> to hear
+a man <i>talk</i> of his <i>first wife</i>, especially in the presence of a
+second; but to hear a woman thus <i>talk</i> of her <i>first husband</i>, has
+never, however beautiful and good she might be, failed to sink her in my
+estimation. I have, in such cases, never been able to keep out of my
+mind that <i>concatenation of ideas</i>, which, in spite of custom, in spite
+of the frequency of the occurrence, leave an impression deeply
+disadvantageous to the party; for, after the greatest of ingenuity has
+exhausted itself in the way of apology, it comes to this at last, that
+the person has <i>a second time</i> undergone that surrender, to which
+nothing but the most ardent affection, could ever reconcile a chaste and
+delicate woman.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>222. The usual apologies, that 'a <i>lone woman</i> wants a <i>protector</i>;
+that she cannot <i>manage her estate</i>; that she cannot <i>carry on her
+business</i>; that she wants a <i>home for her children</i>'; all these
+apologies are not worth a straw; for what is the amount of them? Why,
+that she <i>surrenders her person</i> to secure these ends! And if we admit
+the validity of such apologies, are we far from apologising for the
+kept-mistress, and even the prostitute? Nay, the former of these <i>may</i>
+(if she confine herself to <i>one man</i>) plead more boldly in her defence;
+and even the latter may plead that hunger, which knows no law, and no
+decorum, and no delicacy. These unhappy, but justly-reprobated and
+despised parties, are allowed no apology at all: though reduced to the
+begging of their bread, the world grants them no excuse. The sentence on
+them is: 'You shall suffer every hardship; you shall submit to hunger
+and nakedness; you shall perish by the way-side, rather than you shall
+<i>surrender your person</i> to the <i>dishonour of the female sex</i>.' But can
+we, without crying injustice, pass this sentence upon them, and, at the
+same time hold it to be proper, decorous, and delicate, that widows
+shall <i>surrender their persons</i> for <i>worldly gain</i>, for the sake of
+<i>ease</i>, or for any consideration whatsoever?</p>
+
+<p>223. It is disagreeable to contemplate the possibility of cases of
+<i>separation</i>; but amongst the evils of life, such have occurred, and
+will occur; and the injured parties, while they are sure to meet with
+the pity of all just persons, must console themselves that they have not
+merited their fate. In the making one's choice, no human foresight or
+prudence can, in all cases, guard against an unhappy result. There is
+one species of husbands to be occasionally met with in all countries,
+meriting particular reprobation, and causing us to lament, that there is
+no law to <a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>punish offenders so enormous. There was a man in
+Pennsylvania, apparently a very amiable young man, having a good estate
+of his own, and marrying a most beautiful woman of his own age, of rich
+parents, and of virtue perfectly spotless. He very soon took to both
+<i>gaming</i> and <i>drinking</i> (the last being the most fashionable vice of the
+country); he neglected his affairs and his family; in about four years
+spent his estate, and became a dependent on his wife's father, together
+with his wife and three children. Even this would have been of little
+consequence, as far as related to expense; but he led the most
+scandalous life, and was incessant in his demands of money for the
+purposes of that infamous life. All sorts of means were resorted to to
+reclaim him, and all in vain; and the wretch, availing himself of the
+pleading of his wife's affection, and of his <i>power over the children</i>
+more especially, continued for ten or twelve years to plunder the
+parents, and to disgrace those whom it was his bounden duty to assist in
+making happy. At last, going out in the dark, in a boat, and being
+partly drunk, he went to the bottom of the Delaware, and became food for
+otters or fishes, to the great joy of all who knew him, excepting only
+his amiable wife. I can form an idea of no baseness equal to this. There
+is more of <i>baseness</i> in this character than in that of the robber. The
+man who obtains the means of indulging in vice, by robbery, exposes
+himself to the inflictions of the law; but though he merits punishment,
+he merits it less than the base miscreant who obtains his means by his
+<i>threats to disgrace his own wife, children</i>, and <i>the wife's parents</i>.
+The short way in such a case, is the best; set the wretch at <i>defiance</i>;
+resort to the strong arm of the law wherever it will avail you; drive
+him from your house like a mad dog; for, be <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>assured, that a being so
+base and cruel is never to be reclaimed: all your efforts at persuasion
+are useless; his promises and vows are made but to be broken; all your
+endeavours to keep the thing from the knowledge of the world, only
+prolong his plundering of you; and many a tender father and mother have
+been ruined by such endeavours; the whole story <i>must come out at last</i>,
+and it is better to come out before you be ruined, than after your ruin
+is completed.</p>
+
+<p>224. However, let me hope, that those who read this work will always be
+secure against evils like these; let me hope, that the young men who
+read it will abstain from those vices which lead to such fatal results;
+that they will, before they utter the marriage vow, duly reflect on the
+great duties that that vow imposes on them; that they will repel, from
+the outset, every temptation to any thing tending to give pain to the
+defenceless persons whose love for them have placed them at their mercy;
+and that they will imprint on their own minds this truth, that a <i>bad
+husband</i> was never yet <i>a happy man</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_V" id="LETTER_V"></a><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195" ></a>LETTER V</h2>
+
+<h2>TO A FATHER</h2>
+
+<p>225. 'Little children,' says the Scripture, 'are like arrows in the
+hands of the giant, and blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of
+them'; a beautiful figure to describe, in forcible terms, the support,
+the power, which a father derives from being surrounded by a family. And
+what father, thus blessed, is there who does not feel, in this sort of
+support, a <i>reliance</i> which he feels in no other? In regard to this sort
+of support there is no uncertainty, no doubts, no misgivings; it is
+<i>yourself</i> that you see in your children: their bosoms are the safe
+repository of even the whispers of your mind: they are the great and
+unspeakable delight of your youth, the pride of your prime of life, and
+the props of your old age. They proceed from that love, the pleasures of
+which no tongue or pen can adequately describe, and the various
+blessings which they bring are equally incapable of description.</p>
+
+<p>226. But, to make them blessings, you must act your part well; for they
+may, by your neglect, your ill-treatment, your evil example, be made to
+be the <i>contrary of blessings</i>; instead of pleasure, they may bring you
+pain; instead of making your heart glad, the sight of them may make it
+sorrowful; instead of being the staff of your old age, they may bring
+your gray hairs in grief to the grave.</p>
+
+<p>227. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance, that you here act
+well your part, omitting nothing, <a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>even from the very beginning, tending
+to give you great and unceasing influence over their minds; and, above
+all things, to ensure, if possible, <i>an ardent love of their mother</i>.
+Your first duty towards them is resolutely to prevent their drawing the
+means of life <i>from any breast but hers</i>. That is their <i>own</i>; it is
+their <i>birthright</i>; and if that fail from any natural cause, the place
+of it ought to be supplied by those means which are frequently resorted
+to without employing a <i>hireling breast</i>. I am aware of the too frequent
+practice of the contrary; I am well aware of the offence which I shall
+here give to many; but it is for me to do my duty, and to set, with
+regard to myself, consequences at defiance.</p>
+
+<p>228. In the first place, no food is so congenial to the child as the
+milk of its own mother; its quality is made by nature to suit the age of
+the child; it comes with the child, and is calculated precisely for its
+stomach. And, then, what sort of a mother must that be who can endure
+the thought of seeing her child at another breast! The suckling may be
+attended with great pain, and it is so attended in many cases; but this
+pain is a necessary consequence of pleasures foregone; and, besides, it
+has its accompanying pleasures too. No mother ever suffered more than my
+wife did from suckling her children. How many times have I seen her,
+when the child was beginning to draw, bite her lips while the tears ran
+down her cheeks! Yet, having endured this, the smiles came and dried up
+the tears; and the little thing that had caused the pain received
+abundant kisses as its punishment.</p>
+
+<p>229. Why, now, did I not love her <i>the more</i> for this? Did not this tend
+to rivet her to my heart? She was enduring this <i>for me</i>; and would not
+this endearing thought have been wanting, if I had seen <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>the baby at a
+breast that I had hired and <i>paid for</i>; if I had had <i>two women</i>, one to
+bear the child and another to give it milk? Of all the sights that this
+world affords, the most delightful in my eyes, even to an unconcerned
+spectator, is, a mother with her clean and fat baby lugging at her
+breast, leaving off now-and-then and smiling, and she, occasionally,
+half smothering it with kisses. What must that sight be, then, to the
+<i>father</i> of the child?</p>
+
+<p>230. Besides, are we to overlook the great and wonderful effect that
+this has on the minds of children? As they succeed each other, they see
+with their own eyes, the pain, the care, the caresses, which their
+mother has endured for, or bestowed, on them; and nature bids them love
+her accordingly. To love her ardently becomes part of their very nature;
+and when the time comes that her advice to them is necessary as a guide
+for their conduct, this deep and early impression has all its natural
+weight, which must be wholly wanting if the child be banished to a
+hireling breast, and only brought at times into the presence of the
+mother, who is, in fact, no mother, or, at least, but half a one. The
+children who are thus banished, love (as is natural and just) the
+foster-mother better than the real mother as long as they are at the
+breast. When this ceases, they are <i>taught</i> to love their own mother
+most; but this <i>teaching</i> is of a cold and formal kind. They may, and
+generally do, in a short time, care little about the foster-mother; the
+<i>teaching</i> weans all their affection from her, but it does not
+<i>transfer</i> it to the other.</p>
+
+<p>231. I had the pleasure to know, in Hampshire, a lady who had brought up
+a family of ten children <i>by hand</i>, as they call it. Owing to some
+defect, she could not suckle her children; but she wisely and heroically
+resolved, that her children should hang <a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>upon no <i>other breast</i>, and
+that she would not participate in the crime of robbing another child of
+its birthright, and, as is mostly the case, of <i>its life</i>. Who has not
+seen these banished children, when brought and put into the arms of
+their mothers, screaming to get from them, and stretch out their little
+hands to get back into the arms of the nurse, and when safely got there,
+hugging the hireling as if her bosom were a place of <i>refuge</i>? Why, such
+a sight is, one would think, enough to strike a mother dead. And what
+sort of a husband and father, I want to know, must that be, who can
+endure the thought of his child loving another woman more than its own
+mother and his wife?</p>
+
+<p>232. And besides all these considerations, is there no crime in robbing
+the child of the nurse, and in exposing it to perish? It will not do to
+say that the child of the nurse may be dead, and thereby leave her
+breast for the use of some other. Such cases must happen too seldom to
+be at all relied on; and, indeed, every one must see, that, generally
+speaking, there must be a child <i>cast off</i> for every one that is put to
+a hireling breast. Now, without supposing it possible, that the hireling
+will, in any case, contrive to <i>get rid</i> of her own child, every man who
+employs such hireling, must know, that he is exposing such child to
+destruction; that he is assisting to rob it of the means of life; and,
+of course, assisting to procure its death, as completely as a man can,
+in any case, assist in causing death by starvation; a consideration
+which will make every just man in the world recoil at the thought of
+employing a hireling breast. For he is not to think of pacifying his
+conscience by saying, that <i>he</i> knows nothing about the hireling's
+child. He does know; for he must know, that she <i>has</i> a child, and that
+he is a principal in robbing it <a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>of the means of life. He does not cast
+it off and leave it to perish himself, but he causes the thing to be
+done; and to all intents and purposes, he is a principal in the cruel
+and cowardly crime.</p>
+
+<p>233. And if an argument could possibly be yet wanting to the husband; if
+his feelings were so stiff as still to remain unmoved, must not the wife
+be aware that whatever <i>face</i> the world may put upon it, however custom
+may seem to bear her out; must she not be aware that every one must see
+the main <i>motive</i> which induces her to banish from her arms that which
+has formed part of her own body? All the pretences about her sore
+breasts and her want of strength are vain: nature says that she is to
+endure the pains as well as the pleasures: whoever has heard the
+bleating of the ewe for her lamb, and has seen her <i>reconciled</i>, or at
+least pacified, by having presented to her the skin or some of the blood
+of her <i>dead</i> lamb: whoever has witnessed the difficulty of inducing
+either ewe or cow to give her milk to an alien young one: whoever has
+seen the valour of the timid hen in defending her brood, and has
+observed that she never swallows a morsel that is fit for her young,
+until they be amply satisfied: whoever has seen the wild birds, though,
+at other times, shunning even the distant approach of man, flying and
+screaming round his head, and exposing themselves to almost certain
+death in defence of their nests: whoever has seen these things, or any
+one of them, must question the <i>motive</i> that can induce a mother to
+banish a child from her own breast to that of one who has already been
+so unnatural as to banish hers. And, in seeking for a motive
+<i>sufficiently powerful</i> to lead to such an act, women must excuse men,
+if they be not satisfied with the ordinary pretences; they must excuse
+<i>me</i>, at any rate, if I do not stop even at love of ease and <a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>want of
+maternal affection, and if I express my fear, that, superadded to the
+unjustifiable motives, there is one which is calculated to excite
+disgust; namely, a desire to be quickly freed from that restraint which
+the child imposes, and to <i>hasten back</i>, unbridled and undisfigured, to
+those enjoyments, to have an eagerness for which, or to wish to excite a
+desire for which, a really delicate woman will shudder at the thought of
+being suspected.</p>
+
+<p>234. I am well aware of the hostility that I have here been exciting;
+but there is another, and still more furious, bull to take by the horns,
+and which would have been encountered some pages back (that being the
+proper place), had I not hesitated between my duty and my desire to
+avoid giving offence; I mean the employing of <i>male-operators</i>, on those
+occasions where females used to be employed. And here I have <i>every
+thing</i> against me; the now general custom, even amongst the most chaste
+and delicate women; the ridicule continually cast on old midwives; the
+interest of a profession, for the members of which I entertain more
+respect and regard than for those of any other; and, above all the rest,
+<i>my own example to the contrary</i>, and my knowledge that every husband
+has the same apology that I had. But because I acted wrong myself, it is
+not less, but rather more, my duty to endeavour to dissuade others from
+doing the same. My wife had suffered very severely with her second
+child, which, at last, was still-born. The next time I pleaded for <i>the
+doctor</i>; and, after every argument that I could think of, obtained a
+reluctant consent. Her <i>life</i> was so dear to me, that every thing else
+appeared as nothing. Every husband has the same apology to make; and
+thus, from the good, and not from the bad, feelings of men, the practice
+has become far too general, for <a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>me to hope even to narrow it; but,
+nevertheless, I cannot refrain from giving my opinion on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>235. We are apt to talk in a very unceremonious style of our <i>rude</i>
+ancestors, of their <i>gross</i> habits, their <i>want of delicacy</i> in their
+language. No man shall ever make me believe, that those, who reared the
+cathedral of ELY (which I saw the other day), were <i>rude</i>, either in
+their manners or in their minds and words. No man shall make me believe,
+that our ancestors were a rude and beggarly race, when I read in an act
+of parliament, passed in the reign of Edward the Fourth, regulating the
+dresses of the different ranks of the people, and forbidding the
+LABOURERS to wear coats of cloth that cost <i>more</i> than <i>two shillings a
+yard</i> (equal to <i>forty shillings</i> of our present money), and forbidding
+their wives and daughters to wear sashes, or girdles, <i>trimmed with gold
+or silver</i>. No man shall make me believe that this was a <i>rude</i> and
+beggarly race, compared with those who now shirk and shiver about in
+canvass frocks and rotten cottons. Nor shall any man persuade me that
+that was a <i>rude</i> and beggarly state of things, in which (reign of
+Edward the Third) an act was passed regulating the wages of labour, and
+ordering that a woman, for <i>weeding in the corn</i>, should receive a penny
+a day, while a <i>quart of red wine</i> was sold for <i>a penny</i>, and a pair of
+men's shoes for <i>two-pence</i>. No man shall make me believe that
+<i>agriculture</i> was in a <i>rude</i> state, when an act like this was passed,
+or that our ancestors of that day were <i>rude</i> in their minds, or in
+their thoughts. Indeed, there are a thousand proofs, that, whether in
+regard to domestic or foreign affairs, whether in regard to internal
+freedom and happiness, or to weight in the world, England was at her
+zenith about the reign of Edward the Third. The <i>Refor<a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>mation</i>, as
+it is called, gave her a complete pull down. She revived again in the
+reigns of the Stuarts, as far as related to internal affairs; but the
+'<i>Glorious Revolution</i>' and its debt and its taxes, have, amidst the
+false glare of new palaces, roads, and canals, brought her down until
+she is become the land of domestic misery and of foreign impotence and
+contempt; and, until she, amidst all her boasted improvements and
+refinements, tremblingly awaits her fall.</p>
+
+<p>236. However, to return from this digression, <i>rude</i> and <i>unrefined</i> as
+our mothers might be, plain and unvarnished as they might be in their
+language, accustomed as they might be to call things by their names,
+though they were not so <i>very delicate</i> as to use the word
+<i>small-clothes</i>; and to be quite unable, in speaking of horn-cattle,
+horses, sheep, the canine race, and poultry, to designate them by their
+sexual appellations; though they might not absolutely faint at hearing
+these appellations used by others; <i>rude</i> and <i>unrefined</i> and
+<i>indelicate</i> as they might be, they did not suffer, in the cases alluded
+to, the approaches of <i>men</i>, which approaches are unceremoniously
+suffered, and even sought, by their polished and refined and delicate
+daughters; and of unmarried men too, in many cases; and of very young
+men.</p>
+
+<p>237. From all antiquity this office was allotted to <i>woman</i>. Moses's
+life was saved by the humanity of the Egyptian <i>midwife</i>; and to the
+employment of females in this memorable case, the world is probably
+indebted for that which has been left it by that greatest of all
+law-givers, whose institutes, <i>rude</i> as they were, have been the
+foundation of all the wisest and most just laws in all the countries of
+Europe and America. It was the <i>fellow feeling</i> of the midwife for the
+poor mother that saved Moses. And none but a <i>mother</i> <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>can, in such
+cases, feel to the full and effectual extent that which the operator
+ought to feel. She has been in the same state <i>herself</i>; she knows more
+about the matter, except in cases of very rare occurrence, than any
+<i>man</i>, however great his learning and experience, can ever know. She
+knows all the previous symptoms; she can judge more correctly than man
+can judge in such a case; she can put questions to the party, which a
+man cannot put; the communication between the two is wholly without
+reserve; the <i>person</i> of the one is given up to the other, as completely
+as her own is under her command. This never can be the case with a
+man-operator; for, after all that can be said or done, the native
+feeling of women, in whatever rank of life, will, in these cases,
+restrain them from saying and doing, before a man, even before a
+<i>husband</i>, many things which they ought to say and do. So that, perhaps,
+even with regard to the bare question of comparative safety to life, the
+midwife is the preferable person.</p>
+
+<p>238. But safety to life is not ALL. The preservation of life is not to
+be preferred to EVERY THING. Ought not a man to prefer death to the
+commission of treason against his country? Ought not a man to die,
+rather than save his life by the prostitution of his wife to a tyrant,
+who insists upon the one or the other? Every man and every woman will
+answer in the affirmative to both these questions. There are, then,
+cases where people ought to submit to <i>certain death</i>. Surely, then, the
+mere <i>chance</i>, the mere <i>possibility</i> of it, ought not to outweigh the
+mighty considerations on the other side; ought not to overcome that
+inborn modesty, that sacred reserve as to their <i>persons</i>, which, as I
+said before, is the charm of charms of the female sex, and which our
+mothers, <i>rude</i> as they are called by us, took, we may <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>be satisfied,
+the best and most effectual means of preserving.</p>
+
+<p>239. But is there, after all, any thing <i>real</i> in this <i>greater
+security</i> for the life of either mother or child? If, then, risk were so
+great as to call upon women to overcome this natural repugnance to
+suffer the approaches of a man, that risk must be <i>general</i>; it must
+apply to <i>all</i> women; and, further, it must, ever since the creation of
+man, <i>always</i> have so applied. Now, resorting to the employment of
+<i>men</i>-operators has not been in vogue in Europe more than about seventy
+years, and has not been <i>general</i> in England more than about thirty or
+forty years. So that the <i>risk</i> in employing midwives must, of late
+years, have become vastly greater than it was even when <b>I</b> was a boy,
+or the whole race must have been extinguished long ago. And, then, how
+puzzled we should be to account for the building of all the cathedrals,
+and all the churches, and the draining of all the marshes, and all the
+fens, more than a thousand years before the word '<i>accoucheur</i>' ever
+came from the lips of woman, and before the thought came into her mind?
+And here, even in the use of this <i>word</i>, we have a specimen of the
+<i>refined delicacy</i> of the present age; here we have, varnish the matter
+over how we may, modesty in the <i>word</i> and grossness in the <i>thought</i>.
+Farmers' wives, daughters, and maids, cannot now allude to, or hear
+named, without <i>blushing</i>, those affairs of the homestead, which they,
+within my memory, used to talk about as freely as of milking or
+spinning; but, have they become more <i>really modest</i> than their mothers
+were? Has this <i>refinement</i> made them more <i>continent</i> than those <i>rude</i>
+mothers? A jury at Westminster gave, about six years ago, <i>damages</i> to a
+man, calling himself a gentleman, against a farmer, because the latter,
+for the purpose <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>for which such animals are kept, had a <i>bull</i> in his
+yard, on which the windows of the gentleman looked! The plaintiff
+alleged, that this was <i>so offensive</i> to his <i>wife</i> and <i>daughters</i>,
+that, if the defendant were not compelled to desist, he should be
+obliged to <i>brick up his windows, or to quit the house</i>! If I had been
+the father of these, at once, <i>delicate</i> and <i>curious</i> daughters, I
+would not have been the herald of their purity of mind; and if I had
+been the suitor of one of them, I would have taken care to give up the
+suit with all convenient speed; for how could I reasonably have hoped
+ever to be able to prevail on delicacy, <i>so exquisite</i>, to commit itself
+to a pair of bridal sheets? In spite, however, of all this '<i>refinement</i>
+in the human mind,' which is everlastingly dinned in our ears; in spite
+of the '<i>small-clothes</i>,' and of all the other affected stuff, we have
+this conclusion, this indubitable <i>proof</i>, of the falling off in <i>real</i>
+delicacy; namely, that common prostitutes, formerly unknown, now swarm
+in our towns, and are seldom wanting even in our villages; and where
+there was <i>one</i> illegitimate child (including those coming before the
+time) only fifty years ago, there are now <i>twenty</i>.</p>
+
+<p>240. And who can say how far the employment of <i>men</i>, in the cases
+alluded to, may have <i>assisted</i> in producing this change, so disgraceful
+to the present age, and so injurious to the female sex? The prostitution
+and the swarms of illegitimate children have a natural and inevitable
+tendency to lessen that respect, and that kind and indulgent feeling,
+which is due from all men to virtuous women. It is well known that the
+unworthy members of any profession, calling, or rank in life, cause, by
+their acts, the whole body to sink in the general esteem; it is well
+known, that the habitual dishonesty of merchants trading abroad, the
+habitual profligate behaviour of travellers <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>from home, the frequent
+proofs of abject submission to tyrants; it is well known, that these may
+give the character of dishonesty, profligacy, or cowardice, to a whole
+nation. There are, doubtless, many men in Switzerland, who abhor the
+infamous practices of men <i>selling themselves</i>, by whole regiments, to
+fight for any foreign state that will pay them, no matter in what cause,
+and no matter whether against their own parents or brethren; but the
+censure falls upon the <i>whole nation</i>: and '<i>no money, no Swiss</i>,' is a
+proverb throughout the world. It is, amidst those scenes of prostitution
+and bastardy, impossible for men in general to respect the female sex to
+the degree that they formerly did; while numbers will be apt to adopt
+the unjust sentiment of the old bachelor, POPE, that '<i>every woman is,
+at heart, a rake</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>241. Who knows, I say, in what degree the employment of <i>men</i>-operators
+may have tended to produce this change, so injurious to the female sex?
+Aye, and to encourage unfeeling and brutal men to propose that the dead
+bodies of females, if <i>poor</i>, should be <i>sold</i> for the purpose of
+exhibition and dissection before an audience of men; a proposition that
+our '<i>rude</i> ancestors' would have answered, not by words, but by blows!
+Alas! our women may talk of 'small-clothes' as long as they please; they
+may blush to scarlet at hearing animals designated by their sexual
+appellations; it may, to give the world a proof of our excessive modesty
+and delicacy, even pass a law (indeed we have done it) to punish 'an
+<i>exposure of the person</i>'; but as long as our streets swarm with
+prostitutes, our asylums and private houses with bastards; as long as we
+have <i>man</i>-operators in the delicate cases alluded to, and as long as
+the exhibiting of the dead body of a virtuous female before an audience
+of men shall not be punished <a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>by the law, and even with death; as long
+as we shall appear to be satisfied in this state of things, it becomes
+us, at any rate, to be silent about purity of mind, improvement of
+manners, and an increase of refinement and <i>delicacy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>242. This practice has brought the '<i>doctor</i>' into <i>every family</i> in the
+kingdom, which is of itself no small evil. I am not thinking of the
+<i>expense</i>; for, in cases like these, nothing in that way ought to be
+spared. If necessary to the safety of his wife, a man ought not only to
+part with his last shilling, but to pledge his future labour. But we all
+know that there are <i>imaginary ailments</i>, many of which are absolutely
+created by the habit of talking with or about the '<i>doctor</i>.' Read the
+'DOMESTIC MEDICINE,' and by the time that you have done, you will
+imagine that you have, at times, all the diseases of which it treats.
+This practice has added to, has doubled, aye, has augmented, I verily
+believe, ten-fold the number of the gentlemen who are, in common
+parlance, called '<i>doctors</i>'; at which, indeed, I, on my own private
+account, ought to rejoice; for, <i>invariably</i> I have, even in the worst
+of times, found them every where amongst my staunchest and kindest
+friends. But though these gentlemen are not to blame for this, any more
+than attorneys are for their increase in number; and amongst these
+gentlemen, too, I have, with very few exceptions, always found sensible
+men and zealous friends; though the parties pursuing these professions
+are not to blame; though the increase of attorneys has arisen from the
+endless number and the complexity of the laws, and from the ten-fold mass
+of crimes caused by poverty arising from oppressive taxation; and though
+the increase of 'doctors' has arisen from the diseases and the imaginary
+ailments arising from that effeminate luxury which has <a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>been created by
+the drawing of wealth from the many, and giving it to the few; and, as
+the lower classes will always endeavour to imitate the higher, so the
+'<i>accoucheur</i>' has, along with the '<i>small-clothes</i>,' descended from the
+loan-monger's palace down to the hovel of the pauper, there to take his
+fee out of the poor-rates; though these parties are not to blame, the
+thing is not less an evil. Both professions have lost in character, in
+proportion to the increase in the number of its members; peaches, if
+they grew on hedges, would rank but little above the berries of the
+bramble.</p>
+
+<p>243. But to return once more to the matter of <i>risk</i> of life; can it be
+that <i>nature</i> has so ordered it, that, as a <i>general thing</i>, the life of
+either mother or child shall be in <i>danger</i>, even if there were no
+attendant at all? <i>Can this be?</i> Certainly it cannot: <i>safety</i> must be
+the rule, and <i>danger</i> the exception; this <i>must</i> be the case, or the
+world never could have been peopled; and, perhaps, in ninety-nine cases
+out of every hundred, if nature were left <i>wholly to herself</i>, all would
+be right. The great doctor in these cases, is, comforting, consoling,
+cheering up. And who can perform this office like <i>women</i>? who have for
+these occasions a language and sentiments which seem to have been
+invented for the purpose; and be they what they may as to general
+demeanour and character, they have all, upon these occasions, one common
+feeling, and that so amiable, so excellent, as to admit of no adequate
+description. They completely forget, for the time, all rivalships, all
+squabbles, all animosities, all <i>hatred</i> even; every one feels as if it
+were her own particular concern.</p>
+
+<p>244. These, we may be well assured, are the proper attendants on these
+occasions; the mother, the aunt, the sister, the cousin, and female
+neighbour; these <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>are the suitable attendants, having some experienced
+woman to afford extraordinary aid, if such be necessary; and in the few
+cases where the preservation of life demands the surgeon's skill, he is
+always at hand. The contrary practice, which we got from the French, is
+not, however, <i>so general</i> in France as in England. We have outstripped
+all the world in this, as we have in every thing which proceeds from
+luxury and effeminacy on the one hand, and from poverty on the other;
+the millions have been stripped of their means to heap wealth on the
+thousands, and have been corrupted in manners, as well as in morals, by
+vicious examples set them by the possessors of that wealth. As reason
+says that the practice of which I complain cannot be cured without a
+total change in society, it would be presumption in me to expect such
+cure from any efforts of mine. I therefore must content myself with
+hoping that such change will come, and with declaring, that if I had to
+live my life over again, I would act upon the opinions which I have
+thought it my bounden duty here to state and endeavour to maintain.</p>
+
+<p>245. Having gotten over these thorny places as quickly as possible, I
+gladly come back to the BABIES; with regard to whom I shall have no
+prejudices, no affectation, no false pride, no sham fears to encounter;
+every heart (except there be one made of flint) being with me here.
+'Then were there brought unto him <i>little children</i>, that he should put
+his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus
+said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me; for
+of such is the kingdom of heaven.' A figure most forcibly expressive of
+the character and beauty of innocence, and, at the same time, most aptly
+illustrative of the doctrine of regeneration. And where is the man; <a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>the
+<i>woman</i> who is not fond of babies is not worthy the name; but where is
+the <i>man</i> who does not feel his heart softened; who does not feel
+himself become gentler; who does not lose all the hardness of his
+temper; when, in any way, for any purpose, or by any body, an appeal is
+made to him in behalf of these so helpless and so perfectly innocent
+little creatures?</p>
+
+<p>246. SHAKSPEARE, who is cried up as the great interpreter of the human
+heart, has said, that the man in whose soul there is no <i>music</i>, or love
+of music, is 'fit for murders, treasons, stratagems, and spoils.' 'Our
+<i>immortal</i> bard,' as the profligate SHERIDAN used to call him in public,
+while he laughed at him in private; our '<i>immortal</i> bard' seems to have
+forgotten that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were flung into the
+fiery furnace (made seven times hotter than usual) amidst the sound of
+the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music;
+he seems to have forgotten that it was a music and a dance-loving damsel
+that chose, as a recompense for her elegant performance, the bloody head
+of John the Baptist, brought to her in a charger; he seems to have
+forgotten that, while Rome burned, Nero fiddled: he did not know,
+perhaps, that cannibals always dance and sing while their victims are
+roasting; but he might have known, and he must have known, that
+England's greatest tyrant, Henry VIII., had, as his agent in blood,
+Thomas Cromwell, expressed it, 'his <i>sweet soul</i> enwrapped in the
+<i>celestial</i> sounds of music;' and this was just at the time when the
+ferocious tyrant was ordering Catholics and Protestants to be tied back
+to back on the same hurdle, dragged to Smithfield on that hurdle, and
+there tied to, and burnt from, the same stake. Shakspeare must have
+known these things, for he <a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>lived immediately after their date; and if
+he had lived in our day, he would have seen instances enough of 'sweet
+souls' enwrapped in the same manner, and capable, if not of deeds
+equally bloody, of others, discovering a total want of feeling for
+sufferings not unfrequently occasioned by their own wanton waste, and
+waste arising, too, in part, from their taste for these 'celestial
+sounds.'</p>
+
+<p>247. O no! the heart of man is not to be known by this test: a <i>great</i>
+fondness for music is a mark of great weakness, great vacuity of mind:
+not of hardness of heart; not of vice; not of downright folly; but of a
+want of capacity, or inclination, for sober thought. This is not always
+the case: accidental circumstances almost force the taste upon people:
+but, generally speaking, it is a preference of sound to sense. But the
+man, and especially the <i>father</i>, who is not fond of <i>babies</i>; who does
+not feel his heart softened when he touches their almost boneless limbs;
+when he sees their little eyes first begin to discern; when he hears
+their tender accents; the man whose heart does not beat truly to this
+test, is, to say the best of him, an object of compassion.</p>
+
+<p>248. But the mother's feelings are here to be thought of too; for, of
+all gratifications, the very greatest that a mother can receive, is
+notice taken of, and praise bestowed on, her baby. The moment <i>that</i>
+gets into her arms, every thing else diminishes in value, the father
+only excepted. <i>Her own personal charms</i>, notwithstanding all that men
+say and have written on the subject, become, at most, a secondary object
+as soon as the baby arrives. A saying of the old, profligate King of
+Prussia is frequently quoted in proof of the truth of the maxim, that a
+woman will forgive any thing but <i>calling her ugly</i>; a very true maxim,
+perhaps, as applied to prostitutes, <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>whether in high or low life; but a
+pretty long life of observation has told me, that a <i>mother</i>, worthy of
+the name, will care little about what you say of <i>her</i> person, so that
+you will but extol the beauty of her baby. Her baby is always the very
+prettiest that ever was born! It is always an eighth wonder of the
+world! And thus it ought to be, or there would be a want of that
+wondrous attachment to it which is necessary to bear her up through all
+those cares and pains and toils inseparable from the preservation of its
+life and health.</p>
+
+<p>249. It is, however, of the part which the <i>husband</i> has to act, in
+participating in these cares and toils, that I am now to speak. Let no
+man imagine that the world will despise him for helping to take care of
+his own child: thoughtless fools may attempt to ridicule; the unfeeling
+few may join in the attempt; but all, whose good opinion is worth
+having, will applaud his conduct, and will, in many cases, be disposed
+to repose confidence in him on that very account. To say of a man, that
+he is fond of his family, is, of itself, to say that, in private life at
+least, he is a good and trust-worthy man; aye, and in public life too,
+pretty much; for it is no easy matter to separate the two characters;
+and it is naturally concluded, that he who has been flagrantly wanting
+in feeling for his own flesh and blood, will not be very sensitive
+towards the rest of mankind. There is nothing more amiable, nothing more
+delightful to behold, than a <i>young</i> man especially taking part in the
+work of nursing the children; and how often have I admired this in the
+labouring men in Hampshire! It is, indeed, <i>generally</i> the same all over
+England; and as to America, it would be deemed brutal for a man not to
+take his full share of these cares and labours.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>250. The man who is to gain a living by his labour, must be drawn away
+from home, or, at least, from the cradle-side, in order to perform that
+labour; but this will not, if he be made of good stuff, prevent him from
+doing his share of the duty due to his children. There are still many
+hours in the twenty-four, that he will have to spare for this duty; and
+there ought to be no toils, no watchings, no breaking of rest, imposed
+by this duty, of which he ought not to perform his full share, and that,
+too, without grudging. This is strictly due from him in payment for the
+pleasures of the marriage state. What <i>right</i> has he to the sole
+possession of a <i>woman's</i> person; what right to a <i>husband's</i> vast
+authority; what right to the honourable title and the boundless power of
+<i>father</i>: what <i>right</i> has he to all, or any of these, unless he can
+found his claim on the faithful performance of all the duties which
+these titles imply?</p>
+
+<p>251. One great source of the unhappiness amongst mankind arises,
+however, from a neglect of these duties; but, as if by way of
+compensation for their privations, they are much more duly performed by
+the poor than by the rich. The fashion of the labouring people is this:
+the husband, when free from his toil in the fields, takes his share in
+the nursing, which he manifestly looks upon as a sort of reward for his
+labour. However distant from his cottage, his heart is always at that
+home towards which he is carried, at night, by limbs that feel not their
+weariness, being urged on by a heart anticipating the welcome of those
+who attend him there. Those who have, as I so many hundreds of times
+have, seen the labourers in the woodland parts of Hampshire and Sussex,
+coming, at night-fall, towards their cottage-wickets, laden with fuel
+for a day or <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>two; whoever has seen three or four little creatures
+looking out for the father's approach, running in to announce the glad
+tidings, and then scampering out to meet him, clinging round his knees,
+or hanging on his skirts; whoever has witnessed scenes like this, to
+witness which has formed one of the greatest delights of my life, will
+hesitate long before he prefer a life of ease to a life of labour;
+before he prefer a communication with children intercepted by servants
+and teachers to that communication which is here direct, and which
+admits not of any division of affection.</p>
+
+<p>252. Then comes <i>the Sunday</i>; and, amongst all those who keep no
+servants, a great deal depends on the manner in which the father employs
+<i>that day</i>. When there are two or three children, or even one child, the
+first thing, after the breakfast (which is late on this day of rest), is
+to wash and dress the child or children. Then, while the mother is
+dressing the dinner, the father, being in his Sunday-clothes himself,
+takes care of the child or children. When dinner is over, the mother
+puts on her best; and then, all go to church, or, if that cannot be,
+whether from distance or other cause, <i>all pass the afternoon together</i>.
+This used to be the way of life amongst the labouring people; and from
+this way of life arose the most able and most moral people that the
+world ever saw, until grinding taxation took from them the means of
+obtaining a sufficiency of food and of raiment; plunged the whole, good
+and bad, into one indiscriminate mass, under the degrading and hateful
+name of paupers.</p>
+
+<p>253. The working man, in whatever line, and whether in town or country,
+who spends his <i>day of rest</i>, or any part of it, except in case of
+absolute necessity, away from his wife and children, is not <a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>worthy of
+the name of <i>father</i>, and is seldom worthy of the trust of any employer.
+Such absence argues a want of fatherly and of conjugal affection, which
+want is generally duly repaid by a similar want in the neglected
+parties; and, though stern authority may command and enforce obedience
+for a while, the time soon comes when it will be set at defiance; and
+when such a father, having no example, no proofs of love, to plead,
+complains of <i>filial ingratitude</i>, the silent indifference of his
+neighbours, and which is more poignant, his own heart, will tell him
+that his complaint is unjust.</p>
+
+<p>254. Thus far with regard to <i>working</i> people; but much more necessary
+is it to inculcate these principles in the minds of young men in the
+middle rank of life, and to be more particular, in their case, with
+regard to the care due to very young children, for here <i>servants</i> come
+in; and many are but too prone to think, that when they have handed
+their children over to well-paid and able servants, they have <i>done
+their duty by them</i>, than which there can hardly be a more mischievous
+error. The children of the poorer people are, in general, much fonder of
+their parents than those of the rich are of theirs: this fondness is
+reciprocal; and the cause is, that the children of the former have, from
+their very birth, had a greater share than those of the latter&mdash;of the
+<i>personal</i> attention, and of the never-ceasing endearments of their
+parents.</p>
+
+<p>255. I have before urged upon young married men, in the middle walks of
+life, to <i>keep the servants out of the house as long as possible</i>; and
+when they must come at last, when they must be had even to assist in
+taking care of children, let them be <i>assistants</i> in the most strict
+sense of the word; let them not be <i>confided in</i>; let children never be
+<i>left to them alone</i>; <a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>and the younger the child, the more necessary a
+rigid adherence to this rule. I shall be told, perhaps, by some careless
+father, or some play-haunting mother, that female servants are <i>women</i>,
+and have the tender feelings of women. Very true; and, in general, as
+good and kind in their <i>nature</i> as the mother herself. But they are not
+the <i>mothers</i> of your children, and it is not in nature that they should
+have the care and anxiety adequate to the necessity of the case. Out of
+the immediate care and personal superintendence of one or the other of
+the parents, or of some trusty <i>relation</i>, no young child ought to be
+suffered to be, if there be, at whatever sacrifice of ease or of
+property, any possibility of preventing it: because, to insure, if
+possible, the perfect form, the straight limbs, the sound body, and the
+sane mind of your children, is the very first of all your duties. To
+provide fortunes for them; to make provision for their future fame; to
+give them the learning necessary to the calling for which you destine
+them: all these may be duties, and the last is a duty; but a duty far
+greater than, and prior to, all these, is the duty of neglecting nothing
+within your power to insure them a <i>sane mind in a sound and undeformed
+body</i>. And, good God! how many are the instances of deformed bodies, of
+crooked limbs, of idiocy, or of deplorable imbecility, proceeding solely
+from young children being left to the care of servants! One would
+imagine, that one single sight of this kind to be seen, or heard of, in
+a whole nation, would be sufficient to deter parents from the practice.
+And what, then, must those parents feel, who have brought this life-long
+sorrowing on themselves! When once the thing is <i>done</i>, to repent is
+unavailing. And what is now the worth of all the ease and all the
+pleasures, to enjoy which the poor sufferer was abandoned to the care of
+servants!</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>256. What! can I plead <i>example</i>, then, in support of this rigid
+precept? Did we, who have bred up a family of children, and have had
+servants during the greater part of the time, <i>never</i> leave a young
+child to the care of servants? Never; no, not for <i>one single hour</i>.
+Were we, then, tied constantly to the house with them? No; for we
+sometimes took them out; but one or the other of us <i>was always with
+them</i>, until, in succession, they were able to take good care of
+themselves; or until the elder ones were able to take care of the
+younger, and then <i>they</i> sometimes stood sentinel in our stead. How
+could we <i>visit</i> then? Why, if both went, we bargained beforehand to
+take the children with us; and if this were a thing not to be proposed,
+one of us went, and the other stayed at home, the latter being very
+frequently my lot. From this we <i>never</i> once deviated. We cast aside all
+consideration of convenience; all calculations of expense; all thoughts
+of pleasure of every sort. And, what could have equalled the reward that
+we have received for our care and for our unshaken resolution in this
+respect?</p>
+
+<p>257. In the rearing of children, there is <i>resolution</i> wanting as well
+as <i>tenderness</i>. That parent is not <i>truly</i> affectionate who wants the
+<i>courage</i> to do that which is sure to give the child temporary pain. A
+great deal, in providing for the <i>health</i> and <i>strength</i> of children,
+depends upon their being duly and daily washed, when well, in cold water
+from head to foot. Their cries testify to what a degree they <i>dislike</i>
+this. They squall and kick and twist about at a fine rate; and many
+mothers, too many, neglect this, partly from reluctance to encounter the
+squalling, and partly, and <i>much too often</i>, from what I will not call
+<i>idleness</i>, but to which I cannot apply a milder term than <i>neglect</i>.
+Well and duly performed, it is an hour's <a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>good tight work; for, besides
+the bodily labour, which is not very slight when the child gets to be
+five or six months old, there is the <i>singing</i> to <i>overpower the voice
+of the child</i>. The moment the stripping of the child used to begin, the
+singing used to begin, and the latter never ceased till the former had
+ceased. After having heard this go on with all my children, ROUSSEAU
+taught me the <i>philosophy</i> of it. I happened, by accident, to look into
+his EMILE, and there I found him saying, that the nurse subdued the
+voice of the child and made it quiet, <i>by drowning its voice in hers</i>,
+and thereby making it perceive that it could <i>not be heard</i>, and that to
+continue to cry <i>was of no avail</i>. 'Here, Nancy,' said I (going to her
+with the book in my hand), 'you have been a great philosopher all your
+life, without either of us knowing it.' A <i>silent</i> nurse is a poor soul.
+It is a great disadvantage to the child, if the mother be of a very
+silent, placid, quiet turn. The singing, the talking to, the tossing and
+rolling about, that mothers in general practise, are very beneficial to
+the children: they give them exercise, awaken their attention, animate
+them, and rouse them to action. It is very bad to have a child even
+carried about by a dull, inanimate, silent servant, who will never talk,
+sing or chirrup to it; who will but just carry it about, always kept in
+the same attitude, and seeing and hearing nothing to give it life and
+spirit. It requires nothing but a dull creature like this, and the
+washing and dressing left to her, to give a child the rickets, and make
+it, instead of being a strong straight person, tup-shinned, bow-kneed,
+or hump-backed; besides other ailments not visible to the eye.
+By-and-by, when the deformity begins to appear, the doctor is called in,
+but it is too late: the mischief is done; and a few months <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>of neglect
+are punished by a life of mortification and sorrow, not wholly
+unaccompanied with shame.</p>
+
+<p>258. It is, therefore, a very spurious kind of <i>tenderness</i> that
+prevents a mother from doing the things which, though disagreeable to
+the child, are so necessary to its lasting well-being. The washing daily
+in the morning is a great thing; cold water winter or summer, and <i>this
+never left to a servant</i>, who has not, in such a case, either the
+patience or the courage that is necessary for the task. When the washing
+is over, and the child dressed in its day-clothes, how gay and cheerful
+it looks! The exercise gives it appetite, and then disposes it to rest;
+and it sucks and sleeps and grows, the delight of all eyes, and
+particularly those of the parents. 'I can't bear <i>that squalling</i>!' I
+have heard men say; and to which I answer, that 'I can't bear <i>such
+men</i>!' There are, I thank God, very few of them; for, if they do not
+always <i>reason</i> about the matter, honest nature teaches them to be
+considerate and indulgent towards little creatures so innocent and so
+helpless and so unconscious of what they do. And the <i>noise</i>: after all,
+why should it <i>disturb</i> a man? He knows the exact cause of it: he knows
+that it is the unavoidable consequence of a great good to his child, and
+of course to him: it lasts but an hour, and the recompense instantly
+comes in the looks of the rosy child, and in the new hopes which every
+look excites. It never disturbed <i>me</i>, and my occupation was one of
+those most liable to disturbance by noise. Many a score papers have I
+written amidst the noise of children, and in my whole life never bade
+them be still. When they grew up to be big enough to gallop about the
+house, I have, in wet weather, when they could not go out, written the
+whole day amidst noise that would have made some authors half mad. It
+never annoyed me at all. <a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>But a Scotch piper, whom an old lady, who
+lived beside us at Brompton, used to pay to come and play <i>a long</i> tune
+every day, I was obliged to bribe into a breach of contract. That which
+you are <i>pleased with</i>, however noisy, does not disturb you. That which
+is indifferent to you has not more effect. The rattle of coaches, the
+clapper of a mill, the fall of water, leave your mind undisturbed. But
+the sound of the <i>pipe</i>, awakening the idea of the lazy life of the
+piper, better paid than the labouring man, drew the mind aside from its
+pursuit; and, as it really was a <i>nuisance</i>, occasioned by the money of
+my neighbour, I thought myself justified in abating it by the same sort
+of means.</p>
+
+<p>259. The <i>cradle</i> is in poor families necessary; because necessity
+compels the mother to get as much time as she can for her work, and a
+child can rock the cradle. At first we had a cradle; and I rocked the
+cradle, in great part, during the time that I was writing my first work,
+that famous MA&Icirc;TRE D'ANGLAIS, which has long been the first book in
+Europe, as well as in America, for teaching of French people the English
+language. But we left off the use of the cradle as soon as possible. It
+causes sleep more, and oftener, than necessary: it saves trouble; but to
+take trouble was our duty. After the second child, we had no cradle,
+however difficult at first to do without it. When I was not at my
+business, it was generally my affair to put the child to sleep:
+sometimes by sitting with it in my arms, and sometimes by lying down on
+a bed with it, till it fell asleep. We soon found the good of this
+method. The children did not sleep so much, but they slept more soundly.
+The cradle produces a sort of <i>dosing</i>, or dreaming sleep. This is a
+matter of great importance, as every thing must be that has any
+influence <a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>on the health of children. The poor must use the cradle, at
+least until they have other children big enough to hold the baby, and to
+put it to sleep; and it is truly wonderful at how early an age they,
+either girls or boys, will do this business faithfully and well. You see
+them in the lanes, and on the skirts of woods and commons, lugging a
+baby about, when it sometimes weighs half as much as the nurse. The poor
+mother is frequently compelled, in order to help to get bread for her
+children, to go to a distance from home, and leave the group, baby and
+all, to take care of the house and of themselves, the eldest of four or
+five, not, perhaps, above six or seven years old; and it is quite
+surprising, that, considering the millions of instances in which this is
+done in England, in the course of a year, so very, very few accidents or
+injuries arise from the practice; and not a hundredth part so many as
+arise in the comparatively few instances in which children are left to
+the care of servants. In summer time you see these little groups rolling
+about up the green, or amongst the heath, not far from the cottage, and
+at a mile, perhaps, from any other dwelling, the dog their only
+protector. And what fine and straight and healthy and fearless and acute
+persons they become! It used to be remarked in Philadelphia, when I
+lived there, that there was not a single man of any eminence, whether
+doctor, lawyer, merchant, trader, or any thing else, that had not been
+born and bred in the country, and of parents in a low state of life.
+Examine London, and you will find it much about the same. From this very
+childhood they are from necessity <i>entrusted with the care of something
+valuable</i>. They practically learn to think, and to calculate as to
+consequences. They are thus taught to remember things; and it is quite
+surprising what memories they have, and how <a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>scrupulously a little
+carter-boy will deliver half-a-dozen messages, each of a different
+purport from the rest, to as many persons, all the messages committed to
+him at one and the same time, and he not knowing one letter of the
+alphabet from another. When I want to <i>remember</i> something, and am out
+in the field, and cannot write it down, I say to one of the men, or
+boys, come to me at such a time, and tell me so and so. He is <i>sure</i> to
+do it; and I therefore look upon the <i>memorandum</i> as written down. One
+of these children, boy or girl, is much more worthy of being entrusted
+with the care of a baby, any body's baby, than a servant-maid with
+curled locks and with eyes rolling about for admirers. The locks and the
+rolling eyes, very nice, and, for aught I know, very proper things in
+themselves; but incompatible with the care of <i>your</i> baby, Ma'am; her
+mind being absorbed in contemplating the interesting circumstances which
+are to precede her having a sweet baby of her own; and a <i>sweeter</i> than
+yours, if you please, Ma'am; or, at least, such will be her
+anticipations. And this is all right enough; it is natural that she
+should think and feel thus; and knowing this, you are admonished that it
+is your bounden duty not to delegate this sacred trust to any body.</p>
+
+<p>260. The <i>courage</i>, of which I have spoken, so necessary in the case of
+washing the children in spite of their screaming remonstrances, is, if
+possible, more necessary in cases of illness, requiring the application
+of <i>medicine</i>, or of <i>surgical</i> means of cure. Here the heart is put to
+the test indeed! Here is anguish to be endured by a mother, who has to
+force down the nauseous physic, or to apply the tormenting plaster! Yet
+it is the mother, or the father, and more properly the former, who is to
+perform this duty of exquisite pain. To no nurse, to no hireling, to no
+alien hand, <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>ought, if possible to avoid it, this task to be committed.
+I do not admire those mothers who are <i>too tender-hearted</i> to inflict
+this pain on their children, and who, therefore, leave it to be
+inflicted by others. Give me the mother who, while the tears stream down
+her face, has the resolution scrupulously to execute, with her own
+hands, the doctor's commands. Will a servant, will any hireling, do
+this? Committed to such hands, the <i>least trouble</i> will be preferred to
+the greater: the thing will, in general, not be half done; and if done,
+the suffering from such hands is far greater in the mind of the child
+than if it came from the hands of the mother. In this case, above all
+others, there ought to be no delegation of the parental office. Here
+life or limb is at stake; and the parent, man or woman, who, in any one
+point, can neglect his or her duty here, is unworthy of the name of
+parent. And here, as in all the other instances, where goodness in the
+parents towards the children gives such weight to their advice when the
+children grow up, what a motive to filial gratitude! The children who
+are old enough to deserve and remember, will witness this proof of love
+and self-devotion in their mother. Each of them feels that she has done
+the same towards them all; and they love her and admire and revere her
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>261. This is the place to state my opinions, and the result of my
+experience, with regard to that fearful disease the SMALL-POX; a
+subject, too, to which I have paid great attention. I was always, from
+the very first mention of the thing, opposed to the Cow-Pox scheme. If
+efficacious in preventing the Small-Pox, I objected to it merely on the
+score of its <i>beastliness</i>. There are some things, surely, more hideous
+than death, and more resolutely to be avoided; at any rate, more to be
+avoided than the <a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>mere <i>risk</i> of suffering death. And, amongst other
+things, I always reckoned that of a parent causing the blood, and the
+diseased blood too, of a beast to be put into the veins of human beings,
+and those beings the children of that parent. I, therefore, as will be
+seen in the pages of the Register of that day, most strenuously opposed
+the giving <i>of twenty thousand pounds</i> to JENNER <i>out of the taxes</i>,
+paid in great part by the working people, which I deemed and asserted to
+be a scandalous waste of the public money.</p>
+
+<p>262. I contended, that this beastly application <i>could not, in nature,
+be efficacious in preventing the Small-Pox</i>; and that, even if
+efficacious for that purpose, <i>it was wholly unnecessary</i>. The truth of
+the former of these assertions has now been proved <i>in thousands upon
+thousands of instances</i>. For a long time, for <i>ten years</i>, the contrary
+was boldly and brazenly asserted. This nation is fond of quackery of all
+sorts; and this particular quackery having been sanctioned by King,
+Lords and Commons, it spread over the country like a pestilence borne by
+the winds. Speedily sprang up the 'ROYAL <i>Jennerian Institution</i>,' and
+Branch Institutions, issuing from the parent trunk, set instantly to
+work, impregnating the veins of the rising and enlightened generation
+with the beastly matter. 'Gentlemen and Ladies' made the commodity a
+pocket-companion; and if a cottager's child (in Hampshire at least),
+even seen by them, on a common, were not pretty quick in taking to its
+heels, it had to carry off more or less of the disease of the cow. One
+would have thought, that one-half of the cows in England must have been
+<i>tapped</i> to get at such a quantity of the stuff.</p>
+
+<p>263. In the midst of all this mad work, to which the doctors, after
+having found it in vain to resist, <a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>had yielded, the <i>real small-pox</i>,
+in its worst form, broke out in the town of RINGWOOD, in HAMPSHIRE, and
+carried off, I believe (I have not the account at hand), <i>more than a
+hundred persons</i>, young and old, <i>every one of whom had had the cow-pox
+'so nicely</i>!' And what was now said? Was the quackery exploded, and were
+the granters of the twenty thousand pounds ashamed of what they had
+done? Not at all: the failure was imputed to <i>unskilful operators</i>; to
+the <i>staleness of the matter</i>; to its not being of the <i>genuine
+quality</i>. Admitting all this, the scheme stood condemned; for the great
+advantages held forth were, that <i>any body</i> might perform the operation,
+and that the <i>matter</i> was <i>every where abundant</i> and cost-free. But
+these were paltry excuses; the mere shuffles of quackery; for what do we
+know now? Why, that in <i>hundreds</i> of instances, persons cow-poxed by
+JENNER HIMSELF, have taken the real small-pox afterwards, and have
+either died from the disorder, or narrowly escaped with their lives! I
+will mention two instances, the parties concerned being living and
+well-known, one of them to the whole nation, and the other to a very
+numerous circle in the higher walks of life. The first is Sir RICHARD
+PHILLIPS, so well known by his able writings, and equally well known by
+his exemplary conduct as Sheriff of London, and by his life-long labours
+in the cause of real charity and humanity. Sir Richard had, I think, two
+sons, whose veins were impregnated by the <i>grantee himself</i>. At any rate
+he had one, who had, several years after Jenner had given him the
+insuring matter, a very hard struggle for his life, under the hands of
+the good, old-fashioned, seam-giving, and dimple-dipping small-pox. The
+second is PHILIP CODD, Esq., formerly of Kensington, and now of Rumsted
+Court, near Maidstone, in <a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>Kent, who has a son that had a very narrow
+escape under the real small-pox, about four years ago, and who also had
+been cow-poxed <i>by Jenner himself</i>. This last-mentioned gentleman I have
+known, and most sincerely respected, from the time of our both being
+about eighteen years of age. When the young gentleman, of whom I am now
+speaking, was very young, I having him upon my knee one day, asked his
+kind and excellent mother, whether he had been <i>inoculated</i>. 'Oh, no!'
+said she, 'we are going to have him <i>vaccinated</i>.' Whereupon I, going
+into the garden to the father, said, 'I do hope, Codd, that you are not
+going to have that beastly cow-stuff put into that fine boy.' 'Why,'
+said he, 'you see, Cobbett, it is to be done by <i>Jenner himself</i>.' What
+answer I gave, what names and epithets I bestowed upon Jenner and his
+quackery, I will leave the reader to imagine.</p>
+
+<p>264. Now, here are instances enough; but, every reader has heard of, if
+not seen, scores of others. Young Mr. Codd caught the small-pox at a
+<i>school</i>; and if I recollect rightly, there were several other
+'vaccinated' youths who did the same, at the same time. Quackery,
+however, has always a shuffle left. Now that the cow-pox has been
+<i>proved</i> to be no <i>guarantee</i> against the small-pox, it makes it'
+<i>milder</i>' when it comes! A pretty shuffle, indeed, this! You are to be
+<i>all your life in fear of it</i>, having as your sole consolation, that
+when it comes (and it may overtake you in a <i>camp</i>, or on the <i>seas</i>),
+it will be '<i>milder</i>!' It was not too mild to <i>kill</i> at RINGWOOD; and
+its <i>mildness</i>, in case of young Mr. Codd, did not restrain it from
+<i>blinding him</i> for a suitable number of days. I shall not easily forget
+the alarm and anxiety of the father and mother upon this occasion; both
+of them the best of parents, and both of them <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>now punished for having
+yielded to this fashionable quackery. I will not say, <i>justly</i> punished;
+for affection for their children, in which respect they were never
+surpassed by any parents on earth, was the cause of their listening to
+the danger-obviating quackery. This, too, is the case with other
+parents; but parents should be under the influence of <i>reason</i> and
+<i>experience</i>, as well as under that of affection; and <i>now</i>, at any
+rate, they ought to set this really dangerous quackery at nought.</p>
+
+<p>265. And, what does <i>my own experience</i> say on the other side? There are
+my seven children, the sons as tall, or nearly so, as their father, and
+the daughters as tall as their mother; all, in due succession,
+inoculated with the good old-fashioned face-tearing small-pox; neither
+of them with a single mark of that disease on their skins; neither of
+them having been, that we could perceive, <i>ill for a single hour</i>, in
+consequence of the inoculation. When we were in the United States, we
+observed that the Americans were <i>never marked</i> with the small-pox; or,
+if such a thing were seen, it was very rarely. The cause we found to be,
+the universal practice of having the children inoculated <i>at the
+breast</i>, and, generally, at <i>a month</i> or <i>six weeks old</i>. When we came
+to have children, we did the same. I believe that some of ours have been
+a few months old when the operation has been performed, but always while
+<i>at the breast</i>, and as early as possible after the expiration of six
+weeks from the birth; sometimes put off a little while by some slight
+disorder in the child, or on account of some circumstance or other; but,
+with these exceptions, done at, or before, the end of six weeks from the
+birth, and <i>always at the breast</i>. All is then <i>pure</i>: there is nothing
+in either body or mind to favour the natural fury of <a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>the disease. We
+always took particular care about the <i>source</i> from which the infectious
+matter came. We employed medical men, in whom we could place perfect
+confidence: we had their <i>solemn word</i> for the matter coming from some
+<i>healthy child</i>; and, at last, we had sometimes to <i>wait</i> for this, the
+cow-affair having rendered patients of this sort rather rare.</p>
+
+<p>266. While the child has the small-pox, the mother should abstain from
+food and drink, which she may require at other times, but which might be
+too gross just now. To suckle a hearty child requires good living; for,
+besides that this is necessary to the mother, it is also necessary to
+the child. A little forbearance, just at this time, is prudent; making
+the diet as simple as possible, and avoiding all violent agitation
+either of the body or the spirits; avoiding too, if you can, <i>very hot</i>
+or <i>very cold</i> weather.</p>
+
+<p>267. There is now, however, this inconvenience, that the far greater
+part of the present young women have been <i>be-Jennered</i>; so that they
+may <i>catch the beauty-killing disease from their babies</i>! To hearten
+them up, however, and more especially, I confess, to record a trait of
+maternal affection and of female heroism, which I have never heard of
+any thing to surpass, I have the pride to say, that my wife had eight
+children inoculated at her breast, and <i>never had the small-pox in her
+life</i>. I, at first, objected to the inoculating of the child, but she
+insisted upon it, and with so much pertinacity that I gave way, on
+condition that she would be inoculated too. This was done with three or
+four of the children, I think, she always being reluctant to have it
+done, saying that it looked like distrusting the goodness of God. There
+was, to be sure, very little in this argument; but the long experience
+wore away the alarm; and there she is now, having had <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>eight children
+hanging at her breast with that desolating disease in them, and she
+never having been affected by it from first to last. All her children
+knew, of course, the risk that she voluntarily incurred for them. They
+all have this indubitable proof, that she valued their lives above her
+own; and is it in nature, that they should ever wilfully do any thing to
+wound the heart of that mother; and must not her bright example have
+great effect on their character and conduct! Now, my opinion is, that
+the far greater part of English or American women, if placed in the
+above circumstances, would do just the same thing; and I do hope, that
+those, who have yet to be mothers, will seriously think of putting an
+end, as they have the power to do, to the disgraceful and dangerous
+quackery, the evils of which I have so fully proved.</p>
+
+<p>268. But there is, in the management of babies, something besides life,
+health, strength and beauty; and something too, without which all these
+put together are nothing worth; and that is <i>sanity of mind</i>. There are,
+owing to various causes, some who are <i>born</i> ideots; but a great many
+more become insane from the misconduct, or neglect, of parents; and,
+generally, from the children being committed to the care of <i>servants</i>.
+I knew, in Pennsylvania, a child, as fine, and as sprightly, and as
+intelligent a child as ever was born, made an ideot for life by being,
+when about three years old, shut into a dark closet, by a maid servant,
+in order to terrify it into silence. The thoughtless creature first
+menaced it with sending it to '<i>the bad place</i>,' as the phrase is there;
+and, at last, to reduce it to silence, put it into the closet, shut the
+door, and went out of the room. She went back, in a few minutes, and
+found the child in <i>a fit</i>. It recovered <a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>from that, but was for life an
+ideot. When the parents, who had been out two days and two nights on a
+visit of pleasure, came home, they were told that the child had had <i>a
+fit</i>; but, they were not told the cause. The girl, however, who was a
+neighbour's daughter, being on her death-bed about ten years afterwards,
+could not die in peace without sending for the mother of the child (now
+become a young man) and asking forgiveness of her. The mother herself
+was, however, the greatest offender of the two: a whole lifetime of
+sorrow and of mortification was a punishment too light for her and her
+husband. Thousands upon thousands of human beings have been deprived of
+their senses by these and similar means.</p>
+
+<p>269. It is not long since that we read, in the newspapers, of a child
+being absolutely <i>killed</i>, at Birmingham, I think it was, by being thus
+frightened. The parents had gone out into what is called an evening
+party. The servants, naturally enough, had their party at home; and the
+mistress, who, by some unexpected accident, had been brought home at an
+early hour, finding the parlour full of company, ran up stairs to see
+about her child, about two or three years old. She found it with its
+eyes open, but <i>fixed</i>; touching it, she found it inanimate. The doctor
+was sent for in vain: it was quite dead. The maid affected to know
+nothing of the cause; but some one of the parties assembled discovered,
+pinned up to the curtains of the bed, <i>a horrid figure</i>, made up partly
+of a frightful mask! This, as the wretched girl confessed, had been done
+to keep the child <i>quiet</i>, while she was with her company below. When
+one reflects on the anguish that the poor little thing must have
+endured, before the life was quite frightened out of it, one can find no
+terms sufficiently <a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>strong to express the abhorrence due to the
+perpetrator of this crime, which was, in fact, a cruel murder; and, if
+it was beyond the reach of the law, it was so and is so, because, as in
+the cases of parricide, the law, in making no provision for punishment
+peculiarly severe, has, out of respect to human nature, supposed such
+crimes to be <i>impossible</i>. But if the girl was criminal; if death, or a
+life of remorse, was her due, what was the due of her parents, and
+especially of the mother! And what was the due of the <i>father</i>, who
+suffered that mother, and who, perhaps, tempted her to neglect her most
+sacred duty!</p>
+
+<p>270. If this poor child had been deprived of its mental faculties,
+instead of being deprived of its life, the cause would, in all
+likelihood, never have been discovered. The insanity would have been
+ascribed to '<i>brain-fever</i>,' or to some other of the usual causes of
+insanity; or, as in thousands upon thousands of instances, to some
+unaccountable cause. When I was, in No. IX., paragraphs from 227 to 233,
+both inclusive, maintaining with all my might, the unalienable right of
+the child to the milk of its mother, I omitted, amongst the evils
+arising from banishing the child from the mother's breast, to mention,
+or, rather, it had never occurred to me to mention, the <i>loss of reason</i>
+to the poor, innocent creatures, thus banished. And now, as connected
+with this measure, I have an argument of <i>experience</i>, enough to terrify
+every young man and woman upon earth from the thought of committing this
+offence against nature. I wrote No. IX. at CAMBRIDGE, on Sunday, the 28th
+of March; and before I quitted SHREWSBURY, on the 14th of May, the
+following facts reached my ears. A very respectable tradesman, who, with
+his wife, have led a most industrious life, in a town that it is not
+necessary to name, said to a gentleman that <a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>told it to me: 'I wish to
+God I had read No. IX. of Mr. Cobbett's ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN fifteen
+years ago!' He then related, that he had had ten children, <i>all put out
+to be suckled</i>, in consequence of the necessity of his having the
+mother's assistance to carry on his business; and that <i>two out of the
+ten</i> had come home <i>ideots</i>; though the rest were all sane, and though
+insanity had never been known in the family of either father or mother!
+These parents, whom I myself saw, are very clever people, and the wife
+singularly industrious and expert in her affairs.</p>
+
+<p>271. Now the <i>motive</i>, in this case, unquestionably was good; it was
+that the mother's valuable time might, as much as possible, be devoted
+to the earning of a competence for her children. But, alas! what is this
+competence to these two unfortunate beings! And what is the competence
+to the rest, when put in the scale against the mortification that they
+must, all their lives, suffer on account of the insanity of their
+brother and sister, exciting, as it must, in all their circle, and even
+in <i>themselves</i>, suspicions of their own perfect soundness of mind! When
+weighed against this consideration, what is all the wealth in the world!
+And as to the parents, where are they to find compensation for such a
+calamity, embittered additionally, too, by the reflection, that it was
+in their power to prevent it, and that nature, with loud voice, cried
+out to them to prevent it! MONEY! Wealth acquired in consequence of this
+banishment of these poor children; these victims of this, I will not
+call it avarice, but over-eager love of gain! wealth, thus acquired!
+What wealth can console these parents for the loss of reason in these
+children! Where is the father and the mother, who would not rather see
+their children ploughing in other men's fields, and sweeping other men's
+houses, than led <a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>about parks or houses of their own, objects of pity
+even of the menials procured by their wealth?</p>
+
+<p>272. If what I have now said be not sufficient to deter a man from
+suffering <i>any</i> consideration, <i>no matter what</i>, to induce him to
+<i>delegate</i> the care of his children, when very young, to <i>any body
+whomsoever</i>, nothing that I can say can possibly have that effect; and I
+will, therefore, now proceed to offer my advice with regard to the
+management of children when they get beyond the danger of being crazed
+or killed by nurses or servants.</p>
+
+<p>273. We here come to the subject of <i>education</i> in the <i>true sense</i> of
+that word, which is <i>rearing up</i>, seeing that the word comes from the
+Latin <i>educo</i>, which means to <i>breed up</i>, or to <i>rear up</i>. I shall,
+afterwards, have to speak of <i>education</i> in the now common acceptation
+of the word, which makes it mean, <i>book-learning</i>. At present, I am to
+speak of <i>education</i> in its true sense, as the French (who, as well as
+we, take the word from the Latin) always use it. They, in their
+agricultural works, talk of the '&eacute;ducation du Cochon, de l'Alouette,
+&amp;c.,' that is of the <i>hog</i>, the <i>lark</i>, and so of other animals; that is
+to say, of the manner of breeding them, or rearing them up, from their
+being little things till they be of full size.</p>
+
+<p>274. The first thing, in the rearing of children, who have passed from
+the baby-state, is, as to the <i>body</i>, plenty of <i>good food</i>; and, as to
+the <i>mind</i>, constant <i>good example in the parents</i>. Of the latter I
+shall speak more by-and-by. With regard to the former, it is of the
+greatest importance, that children be well fed; and there never was a
+greater error than to believe that they do not need good food. Every one
+knows, that to have fine horses, the <i>colts</i> must be kept well, and that
+it is the same with regard to all animals of every sort and kind. <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>The
+fine horses and cattle and sheep all come from the <i>rich pastures</i>. To
+have them fine, it is not sufficient that they have <i>plenty of food</i>
+when young, but that they have <i>rich food</i>. Were there no land, no
+pasture, in England, but such as is found in Middlesex, Essex, and
+Surrey, we should see none of those coach-horses and dray-horses, whose
+height and size make us stare. It is the <i>keep when young</i> that makes
+the fine animal.</p>
+
+<p>275. There is no other reason for the people in the American States
+being generally so much taller and stronger than the people in England
+are. Their forefathers went, for the greater part, from England. In the
+four Northern States they went wholly from England, and then, on their
+landing, they founded a new London, a new Falmouth, a new Plymouth, a
+new Portsmouth, a new Dover, a new Yarmouth, a new Lynn, a new Boston,
+and a new Hull, and the country itself they called, and their
+descendants still call, NEW ENGLAND. This country of the best and
+boldest seamen, and of the most moral and happy people in the world, is
+also the country of the tallest and ablest-bodied men in the world. And
+why? Because, from their very birth, they have an <i>abundance</i> of <i>good</i>
+food; not only of <i>food</i>, but of <i>rich</i> food. Even when the child is at
+the breast, a strip of <i>beef-stake</i>, or something of that description,
+as big and as long as one's finger, is put into its hand. When a baby
+gets a thing in its hand, the first thing it does is to poke some part
+of it into its mouth. It cannot <i>bite</i> the meat, but its gums squeeze
+out the juice. When it has done with the breast, it eats meat constantly
+twice, if not thrice, a day. And this abundance of <i>good</i> food is the
+cause, to be sure, of the superior size and strength of the people of
+that country.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>276. Nor is this, in any point of view, an unimportant matter. A tall
+man is, whether as labourer, carpenter, bricklayer, soldier or sailor,
+or almost anything else, <i>worth more</i> than a short man: he can look over
+a higher thing; he can reach higher and wider; he can move on from place
+to place faster; in mowing grass or corn he takes a wider swarth, in
+pitching he wants a shorter prong; in making buildings he does not so
+soon want a ladder or a scaffold; in fighting he keeps his body farther
+from the point of his sword. To be sure, a man <i>may</i> be tall and <i>weak</i>;
+but, this is the exception and not the rule: <i>height</i> and <i>weight</i> and
+<i>strength</i>, in men as in speechless animals, generally go together. Aye,
+and in enterprise and courage too, the powers of the body have a great
+deal to do. Doubtless there are, have been, and always will be, great
+numbers of small and enterprizing and brave men; but it is <i>not in
+nature</i>, that, <i>generally speaking</i>, those who are conscious of their
+inferiority in point of bodily strength, should possess the boldness of
+those who have a contrary description.</p>
+
+<p>277. To what but this difference in the <i>size</i> and <i>strength</i> of the
+opposing combatants are we to ascribe the ever-to-be-blushed-at events
+of our last war against the United States! The <i>hearts</i> of our seamen
+and soldiers were as good as those of the Yankees: on both sides they
+had sprung from the same stock: on both sides equally well supplied with
+all the materials of war: if on either side, the superior skill was on
+ours: French, Dutch, Spaniards, all had confessed our superior prowess:
+yet, when, with our whole undivided strength, and to that strength
+adding the flush and pride of victory and conquest, crowned even in the
+capital of France; when, with all these tremendous advantages, and <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>with
+all the nations of the earth looking on, we came foot to foot and
+yard-arm to yard-arm with the Americans, the result was such as an
+English pen refuses to describe. What, then, was the <i>great cause</i> of
+this result, which filled us with shame and the world with astonishment?
+Not the want of <i>courage</i> in our men. There were, indeed, <i>some moral
+causes at work</i>; but the main cause was, the great superiority of size
+and of bodily strength on the part of the enemy's soldiers and sailors.
+It was <i>so many men</i> on each side; but it was men of a different size
+and strength; and, on the side of the foe, men accustomed to daring
+enterprise from a consciousness of that strength.</p>
+
+<p>278. Why are abstinence and fasting enjoined by the Catholic Church?
+Why, to make men <i>humble</i>, <i>meek</i>, and <i>tame</i>; and they have this effect
+too: this is visible in whole nations as well as in individuals. So that
+good food, and plenty of it, is not more necessary to the forming of a
+stout and able body than to the forming of an active and enterprizing
+spirit. Poor food, short allowance, while they check the growth of the
+child's body, check also the daring of the mind; and, therefore, the
+starving or pinching system ought to be avoided by all means. Children
+should eat <i>often</i>, and as much as they like at a time. They will, if at
+full heap, never take, of <i>plain food</i>, more than it is good for them to
+take. They may, indeed, be stuffed with <i>cakes</i> and <i>sweet things</i> till
+they be ill, and, indeed, until they bring on dangerous disorders: but,
+of <i>meat plainly</i> and <i>well cooked</i>, and of <i>bread</i>, they will never
+swallow the tenth part of an ounce more than it is necessary for them to
+swallow. Ripe fruit, or cooked fruit, if no <i>sweetening</i> take place,
+will never hurt them; but, when they once get a taste for sugary stuff,
+and to <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>cram down loads of garden vegetables; when ices, creams, tarts,
+raisins, almonds, all the endless pamperings come, the <i>doctor</i> must
+soon follow with his drugs. The blowing out of the bodies of children
+with tea, coffee, soup, or warm liquids of any kind, is very bad: these
+have an effect precisely like that which is produced by feeding young
+rabbits, or pigs, or other young animals upon watery vegetables: it
+makes them big-bellied and bare-boned at the same time; and it
+effectually prevents the frame from becoming strong. Children in health
+want no drink other than skim milk, or butter-milk, or whey; and, if
+none of those be at hand, water will do very well, provided they have
+plenty of <i>good meat</i>. Cheese and butter do very well for part of the
+day. Puddings and pies; but always <i>without sugar</i>, which, say what
+people will about the <i>wholesomeness</i> of it, is not only of <i>no use</i> in
+the rearing of children, but injurious: it forces an appetite: like
+strong drink, it makes daily encroachments on the taste: it wheedles
+down that which the stomach does not want: it finally produces illness:
+it is one of the curses of the country; for it, by taking off the bitter
+of the tea and coffee, is the great cause of sending down into the
+stomach those quantities of warm water by which the body is debilitated
+and deformed and the mind enfeebled. I am addressing myself to persons
+in the middle walk of life; but no parent can be <i>sure</i> that his child
+will not be compelled to labour hard for its daily bread: and then, how
+vast is the difference between one who has been pampered with sweets and
+one who has been reared on plain food and simple drink!</p>
+
+<p>279. The next thing after good and plentiful and plain food is <i>good
+air</i>. This is not within the reach of every one; but, to obtain it is
+worth great sacrifices <a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>in other respects. We know that there are
+<i>smells</i> which will cause <i>instant death</i>; we know, that there are
+others which will cause death <i>in a few years</i>; and, therefore, we know
+that it is the duty of parents to provide, if possible, against this
+danger to the health of their offspring. To be sure, when a man is so
+situated that he cannot give his children sweet air without putting
+himself into a jail for debt: when, in short, he has the dire choice of
+sickly children, children with big heads, small limbs, and ricketty
+joints: or children sent to the poor-house: when this is his hard lot,
+he must decide for the former sad alternative: but before he will
+convince me that this <i>is</i> his lot, he must prove to me, that he and his
+wife expend not a penny in the <i>decoration</i> of their persons; that on
+his table, morning, noon, or night, <i>nothing</i> ever comes that is not the
+produce of <i>English soil</i>; that of his time not one hour is wasted in
+what is called pleasure; that down his throat not one drop or morsel
+ever goes, unless necessary to sustain life and health. How many scores
+and how many hundreds of men have I seen; how many thousands could I go
+and point out, to-morrow, in London, the money expended on whose
+guzzlings in porter, grog and wine, would keep, and keep well, in the
+country, a considerable part of the year, a wife surrounded by healthy
+children, instead of being stewed up in some alley, or back room, with a
+parcel of poor creatures about her, whom she, though their fond mother,
+is almost ashamed to call hers! Compared with the life of such a woman,
+that of the labourer, however poor, is paradise. Tell me not of the
+necessity of <i>providing money for them</i>, even if you waste not a
+farthing: you can provide them with no money equal in value to health
+and straight limbs and good looks: these it is, if within <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>your power,
+your <i>bounden duty</i> to provide for them: as to providing them with
+money, you deceive yourself; it is your own avarice, or vanity, that you
+are seeking to gratify, and not to ensure the good of your children.
+Their most precious possession is <i>health</i> and <i>strength</i>; and you have
+<i>no right</i> to run the risk of depriving them of these for the sake of
+heaping together money to bestow on them: you have the desire to see
+them rich: it is to gratify <i>yourself</i> that you act in such a case; and
+you, however you may deceive yourself, are guilty of <i>injustice</i> towards
+them. You would be ashamed to see them <i>without fortune</i>; but not at all
+ashamed to see them without straight limbs, without colour in their
+cheeks, without strength, without activity, and with only half their due
+portion of reason.</p>
+
+<p>280. Besides <i>sweet air</i>, children want <i>exercise</i>. Even when they are
+babies in arms, they want tossing and pulling about, and want talking
+and singing to. They should be put upon their feet by slow degrees,
+according to the strength of their legs; and this is a matter which a
+good mother will attend to with incessant care. If they appear to be
+likely to <i>squint</i>, she will, always when they wake up, and frequently
+in the day, take care to present some pleasing object <i>right before</i>,
+and <i>never on the side</i> of their face. If they appear, when they begin
+to talk, to indicate a propensity to <i>stammer</i>, she will stop them,
+repeat the word or words slowly herself, and get them to do the same.
+These precautions are amongst the most sacred of the duties of parents;
+for, remember, the deformity is <i>for life</i>; a thought which will fill
+every good parent's heart with solicitude. All <i>swaddling</i> and <i>tight
+covering</i> are mischievous. They produce distortions of some sort or
+other. To let children creep and roll about till they get upon their
+legs of <a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>themselves is a very good way. I never saw a <i>native American</i>
+with crooked limbs or hump-back, and never heard any man say that he had
+seen one. And the reason is, doubtless, the loose dress in which
+children, from the moment of their birth, are kept, the good food that
+they always have, and the sweet air that they breathe in consequence of
+the absence of all dread of poverty on the part of the parents.</p>
+
+<p>281. As to bodily exercise, they will, when they begin to get about,
+take, if you let them alone, just as much of it as nature bids them, and
+no more. That is a pretty deal, indeed, if they be in health; and, it is
+your duty, now, to provide for their taking of that exercise, when they
+begin to be what are called <i>boys</i> and <i>girls</i>, in a way that shall tend
+to give them the greatest degree of pleasure, accompanied with the
+smallest risk of pain: in other words, to <i>make their lives as pleasant
+as you possibly can</i>. I have always admired the sentiment of ROUSSEAU
+upon this subject. 'The boy dies, perhaps, at the age of ten or twelve.
+Of what <i>use</i>, then, all the restraints, all the privations, all the
+pain, that you have inflicted upon him? He falls, and leaves your mind
+to brood over the possibility of your having abridged a life so dear to
+you.' I do not recollect the very words; but the passage made a deep
+impression upon my mind, just at the time, too, when I was about to
+become a father; and I was resolved never to bring upon myself remorse
+from such a cause; a resolution from which no importunities, coming from
+what quarter they might, ever induced me, in one single instance, or for
+one single moment, to depart. I was resolved to forego all the means of
+making money, all the means of living in any thing like fashion, all the
+means of obtaining fame or distinction, to give up every thing, to
+become a common labourer, rather <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>than make my children lead a life of
+restraint and rebuke; I could not be <i>sure</i> that my children would love
+me as they loved their own lives; but I was, at any rate, resolved to
+deserve such love at their hands; and, in possession of that, I felt
+that I could set calamity, of whatever description, at defiance.</p>
+
+<p>282. Now, proceeding to relate what was, in this respect, my line of
+conduct, I am not pretending that <i>every</i> man, and particularly every
+man living in <i>a town</i>, can, in all respects, do as I did in the rearing
+up of children. But, in many respects, any man may, whatever may be his
+state of life. For I did not lead an idle life; I had to work constantly
+for the means of living; my occupation required unremitted attention; I
+had nothing but my labour to rely on; and I had no friend, to whom, in
+case of need, I could fly for assistance: I always saw the possibility,
+and even the probability, of being totally ruined by the hand of power;
+but, happen what would, I was resolved, that, as long as I could cause
+them to do it, my children should lead happy lives; and happy lives they
+did lead, if ever children did in this whole world.</p>
+
+<p>283. The first thing that I did, when the fourth child had come, was to
+<i>get into the country</i>, and so far as to render a going backward and
+forward to London, at short intervals, quite out of the question. Thus
+was <i>health</i>, the greatest of all things, provided for, as far as I was
+able to make the provision. Next, my being <i>always at home</i> was secured
+as far as possible; always with them to set an example of early rising,
+sobriety, and application to something or other. Children, and
+especially boys, will have some out-of-door pursuits; and it was my duty
+to lead them to choose such pursuits as combined future utility with
+present innocence. Each his flower-bed, <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>little garden, plantation of
+trees; rabbits, dogs, asses, horses, pheasants and hares; hoes, spades,
+whips, guns; always some object of lively interest, and as much
+<i>earnestness</i> and <i>bustle</i> about the various objects as if our living
+had solely depended upon them. I made everything give way to the great
+object of making their lives happy and innocent. I did not know what
+they might be in time, or what might be my lot; but I was resolved not
+to be the cause of their being unhappy <i>then</i>, let what might become of
+us afterwards. I was, as I am, of opinion, that it is injurious to the
+mind to press <i>book-learning</i> upon it at an <i>early age</i>: I always felt
+pain for poor little things, set up, before 'company,' to repeat verses,
+or bits of plays, at six or eight years old. I have sometimes not known
+which way to look, when a mother (and, too often, a father), whom I
+could not but respect on account of her fondness for her child, has
+forced the feeble-voiced eighth wonder of the world, to stand with its
+little hand stretched out, spouting the <i>soliloquy of Hamlet</i>, or some
+such thing. I remember, on one occasion, a little pale-faced creature,
+only five years old, was brought in, after the <i>feeding</i> part of the
+dinner was over, first to take his regular half-glass of vintner's
+brewings, commonly called wine, and then to treat us to a display of his
+wonderful genius. The subject was a speech of a robust and bold youth,
+in a Scotch play, the title of which I have forgotten, but the speech
+began with, 'My name is Norval: on the Grampian Hills my father fed his
+flocks...' And this in a voice so weak and distressing as to put me in
+mind of the plaintive squeaking of little pigs when the sow is lying on
+them. As we were going home (one of my boys and I) he, after a silence
+of half a mile perhaps, rode up close to the side of my horse, and said,
+<a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>'Papa, where <i>be</i> the <i>Grampian Hills</i>?' 'Oh,' said I, 'they are in
+Scotland; poor, barren, beggarly places, covered with heath and rushes,
+ten times as barren as Sherril Heath.' 'But,' said he, 'how could that
+little boy's father feed <i>his flocks</i> there, then?' I was ready to
+tumble off the horse with laughing.</p>
+
+<p>284. I do not know any thing much more distressing to the spectators
+than exhibitions of this sort. Every one feels, not for the child, for
+it is insensible to the uneasiness it excites, but for the parents,
+whose amiable fondness displays itself in this ridiculous manner. Upon
+these occasions, no one knows what to say, or whither to direct his
+looks. The parents, and especially the fond mother, looks sharply round
+for the so-evidently merited applause, as an actor of the name of
+MUNDEN, whom I recollect thirty years ago, used, when he had treated us
+to a witty shrug of his shoulders, or twist of his chin, to turn his
+face up to the gallery for the clap. If I had to declare on my oath
+which have been the most disagreeable moments of my life, I verily
+believe, that, after due consideration, I should fix upon those, in
+which parents, whom I have respected, have made me endure exhibitions
+like these; for, this is your choice, to be <i>insincere</i>, or to <i>give
+offence</i>.</p>
+
+<p>285. And, as towards the child, it is to be <i>unjust</i>, thus to teach it
+to set a high value on trifling, not to say mischievous, attainments; to
+make it, whether it be in its natural disposition or not, vain and
+conceited. The plaudits which it receives, in such cases, puffs it up in
+its own thoughts, sends it out into the world stuffed with pride and
+insolence, which must and will be extracted out of it by one means or
+another; and none but those who have had to endure the drawing of
+firmly-fixed teeth, can, I take it, have an adequate idea of the
+painfulness of this operation. <a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>Now, parents have <i>no right</i> thus to
+indulge their own feelings at the risk of the happiness of their
+children.</p>
+
+<p>286. The great matter is, however, the <i>spoiling of the mind</i> by forcing
+on it thoughts which it is not fit to receive. We know well, we daily
+see, that in men, as well as in other animals, the body is rendered
+comparatively small and feeble by being heavily loaded, or hard worked,
+before it arrive at size and strength proportioned to such load and such
+work. It is just so with the mind: the attempt to put old heads upon
+young shoulders is just as unreasonable as it would be to expect a colt
+six months old to be able to carry a man. The mind, as well as the body,
+requires time to come to its strength; and the way to have it possess,
+at last, its natural strength, is not to attempt to load it too soon;
+and to favour it in its progress by giving to the body good and
+plentiful food, sweet air, and abundant exercise, accompanied with as
+little discontent or uneasiness as possible. It is universally known,
+that ailments of the body are, in many cases, sufficient to <i>destroy</i>
+the mind, and to debilitate it in innumerable instances. It is equally
+well known, that the torments of the mind are, in many cases, sufficient
+to <i>destroy</i> the body. This, then, being so well known, is it not the
+first duty of a father to secure to his children, if possible, sound and
+strong bodies? LORD BACON says, that 'a sound mind in a sound body is
+the greatest of God's blessings.' To see his children possess these,
+therefore, ought to be the first object with every father; an object
+which I cannot too often endeavour to fix in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>287. I am to speak presently of that sort of <i>learning</i> which is derived
+from <i>books</i>, and which is a matter by no means to be neglected, or to
+be thought little <a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>of, seeing that it is the road, not only to fame, but
+to the means of doing great good to one's neighbours and to one's
+country, and, thereby, of adding to those pleasant feelings which are,
+in other words, our happiness. But, notwithstanding this, I must here
+insist, and endeavour to impress my opinion upon the mind of every
+father, that his children's <i>happiness</i> ought to be <i>first</i> object; that
+<i>book-learning</i>, if it tend to militate against this, ought to be
+disregarded; and that, as to money, as to fortune, as to rank and title,
+that father who can, in the destination of his children, think of them
+more than of the <i>happiness</i> of those children, is, if he be of sane
+mind, a great criminal. Who is there, having lived to the age of thirty,
+or even twenty, years, and having the ordinary capacity for observation;
+who is there, being of this description, who must not be convinced of
+the inadequacy of <i>riches</i> and what are called <i>honours</i> to insure
+<i>happiness</i>? Who, amongst all the classes of men, experience, on an
+average, so little of <i>real</i> pleasure, and so much of <i>real</i> pain as the
+rich and the lofty? Pope gives us, as the materials for happiness,
+'<i>health</i>, <i>peace</i>, and <i>competence</i>.' Aye, but what <i>is</i> peace, and
+what <i>is</i> competence? If, by <i>peace</i>, he mean that tranquillity of mind
+which innocence and good deeds produce, he is right and clear so far;
+for we all know that, without <i>health</i>, which has a well-known positive
+meaning, there can be no happiness. But <i>competence</i> is a word of
+unfixed meaning. It may, with some, mean enough to eat, drink, wear and
+be lodged and warmed with; but, with others, it may include horses,
+carriages, and footmen laced over from top to toe. So that, here, we
+have no guide; no standard; and, indeed, there can be none. But as every
+sensible father must know that the possession of riches do not, never
+did, and never can, afford even <a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>a chance of additional happiness, it is
+his duty to inculcate in the minds of his children to make no sacrifice
+of principle, of moral obligation of any sort, in order to obtain
+riches, or distinction; and it is a duty still more imperative on him,
+not to expose them to the risk of loss of health, or diminution of
+strength, for purposes which have, either directly or indirectly, the
+acquiring of riches in view, whether for himself or for them.</p>
+
+<p>288. With these principles immoveably implanted in my mind, I became the
+father of a family, and on these principles I have reared that family.
+Being myself fond of <i>book-learning</i>, and knowing well its powers, I
+naturally wished them to possess it too; but never did I <i>impose it</i>
+upon any one of them. My first duty was to make them <i>healthy</i> and
+<i>strong</i> if I could, and to give them as much enjoyment of life as
+possible. Born and bred up in the sweet air myself, I was resolved that
+they should be bred up in it too. Enjoying rural scenes and sports, as I
+had done, when a boy, as much as any one that ever was born, I was
+resolved, that they should have the same enjoyments tendered to them.
+When I was a very little boy, I was, in the barley-sowing season, going
+along by the side of a field, near WAVERLY ABBEY; the primroses and
+blue-bells bespangling the banks on both sides of me; a thousand linnets
+singing in a spreading oak over my head; while the jingle of the traces
+and the whistling of the ploughboys saluted my ear from over the hedge;
+and, as it were to snatch me from the enchantment, the hounds, at that
+instant, having started a hare in the hanger on the other side of the
+field, came up scampering over it in full cry, taking me after them many
+a mile. I was not more than eight years old; but this particular scene
+has presented itself to my mind many <a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>times every year from that day to
+this. I always enjoy it over again; and I was resolved to give, if
+possible, the same enjoyments to my children.</p>
+
+<p>289. Men's circumstances are so various; there is such a great variety
+in their situations in life, their business, the extent of their
+pecuniary means, the local state in which they are placed, their
+internal resources; the variety in all these respects is so great, that,
+as applicable to <i>every</i> family, it would be impossible to lay down any
+set of rules, or maxims, touching <i>every</i> matter relating to the
+management and rearing up of children. In giving an account, therefore,
+of <i>my own</i> conduct, in this respect, I am not to be understood as
+supposing, that <i>every</i> father <i>can</i>, or ought, to attempt to do <i>the
+same</i>; but while it will be seen, that there are <i>many</i>, and these the
+most important parts of that conduct, that <i>all</i> fathers may imitate, if
+they choose, there is no part of it which thousands and thousands of
+fathers might not adopt and pursue, and adhere to, to the very letter.</p>
+
+<p>290. I effected every thing without scolding, and even without
+<i>command</i>. My children are a family of <i>scholars</i>, each sex its
+appropriate species of learning; and, I could safely take my oath, that
+I never <i>ordered</i> a child of mine, son or daughter, <i>to look into a
+book</i>, in my life. My two eldest sons, when about eight years old, were,
+for the sake of their health, placed for a very short time, at a
+Clergyman's at MICHELDEVER, and my eldest daughter, a little older, at a
+school a few miles from Botley, to avoid taking them to London in the
+winter. But, with these exceptions, never had they, while children,
+<i>teacher</i> of any description; and I never, and nobody else ever, taught
+any one of them to read, write, or any thing else, except in
+<i>conversation</i>; and, yet, no man <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>was ever more anxious to be the father
+of a family of clever and learned persons.</p>
+
+<p>291. I accomplished my purpose <i>indirectly</i>. The first thing of all was
+<i>health</i>, which was secured by the deeply-interesting and never-ending
+<i>sports of the field</i> and <i>pleasures of the garden</i>. Luckily these
+things were treated of in <i>books</i> and <i>pictures</i> of endless variety; so
+that on <i>wet days</i>, in <i>long evenings</i>, these came into play. A large,
+strong table, in the middle of the room, their mother sitting at her
+work, used to be surrounded with them, the baby, if big enough, set up
+in a high chair. Here were ink-stands, pens, pencils, India rubber, and
+paper, all in abundance, and every one scrabbled about as he or she
+pleased. There were prints of animals of all sorts; books treating of
+them: others treating of gardening, of flowers, of husbandry, of
+hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing, planting, and, in short, of every
+thing, with regard to which <i>we had something to do</i>. One would be
+trying to imitate a bit of my writing, another <i>drawing</i> the pictures of
+some of our dogs or horses, a third poking over <i>Bewick's Quadrupeds</i>
+and picking out what he said about them; but our book of never-failing
+resource was the <i>French</i> MAISON RUSTIQUE, or FARM-HOUSE, which, it is
+said, was the book that first tempted DUQUESNOIS (I think that was the
+name), the famous physician, in the reign of Louis XIV., <i>to learn to
+read</i>. Here are all the <i>four-legged animals</i>, from the horse down to
+the mouse, <i>portraits</i> and all; all the <i>birds</i>, <i>reptiles</i>, <i>insects</i>;
+all the modes of rearing, managing, and using the tame ones; all the
+modes of taking the wild ones, and of destroying those that are
+mischievous; all the various traps, springs, nets; all the implements of
+husbandry and gardening; all the labours of the field and the garden
+<a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>exhibited, as well as the rest, in plates; and, there was I, in my
+leisure moments, to join this inquisitive group, to read the <i>French</i>,
+and tell them what it meaned in <i>English</i>, when the picture did not
+sufficiently explain itself. I never have been without a copy of this
+book for forty years, except during the time that I was fleeing from the
+dungeons of CASTLEREAGH and SIDMOUTH, in 1817; and, when I got to Long
+Island, the <i>first book I bought</i> was another MAISON RUSTIQUE.</p>
+
+<p>292. What need had we of <i>schools</i>? What need of <i>teachers</i>? What need
+of <i>scolding</i> and <i>force</i>, to induce children to read, write, and love
+books? What need of <i>cards, dice</i>, or of any <i>games</i>, to '<i>kill time</i>;'
+but, in fact, to implant in the infant heart a love of <i>gaming</i>, one of
+the most destructive of all human vices? We did not want to <i>'kill
+time</i>;' we were always <i>busy</i>, wet weather or dry weather, winter or
+summer. There was <i>no force</i> in any case; no <i>command</i>; no <i>authority</i>;
+none of these was ever wanted. To teach the children the habit of <i>early
+rising</i> was a great object; and every one knows how young people cling
+to their beds, and how loth they are to go to those beds. This was a
+capital matter; because, here were <i>industry</i> and <i>health</i> both at
+stake. Yet, I avoided <i>command</i> even here; and merely offered a
+<i>reward</i>. The child that was <i>down stairs</i> first, was called the LARK
+<i>for that day</i>; and, further, <i>sat at my right hand at dinner</i>. They
+soon discovered, that to rise early, they must <i>go to bed early</i>; and
+thus was this most important object secured, with regard to girls as
+well as boys. Nothing more inconvenient, and, indeed, more disgusting,
+than to have to do with girls, or young women, who lounge in bed: 'A
+little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the
+<a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>hands to sleep.' SOLOMON knew them well: he had, I dare say, seen the
+breakfast cooling, carriages and horses and servants waiting, the sun
+coming burning on, the day wasting, the night growing dark too early,
+appointments broken, and the objects of journeys defeated; and all this
+from the lolloping in bed of persons who ought to have risen with the
+sun. No beauty, no modesty, no accomplishments, are a compensation for
+the effects of laziness in women; and, of all the proofs of laziness,
+none is so unequivocal as that of lying late in bed. Love makes men
+overlook this vice (for it is a <i>vice</i>), for <i>a while</i>; but, this does
+not last for life. Besides, <i>health</i> demands early rising: the
+management of a house imperiously demands it; but <i>health</i>, that most
+precious possession, without which there is nothing else worth
+possessing, demands it too. The <i>morning air</i> is the most wholesome and
+strengthening: even in crowded cities, men might do pretty well with the
+aid of the morning air; but, how are they to <i>rise</i> early, if they go to
+bed <i>late</i>?</p>
+
+<p>293. But, to do the things I did, you must <i>love home</i> yourself; to rear
+up children in this manner, you must <i>live with them</i>; you must make
+them, too, <i>feel</i>, by your conduct, that you <i>prefer</i> this to any other
+mode of passing your time. All men cannot lead this sort of life, but
+many may; and all much more than many do. My occupation, to be sure, was
+chiefly carried on <i>at home</i>; but, I had always enough to do; I never
+spent an idle week, or even day, in my whole life. Yet I found time to
+talk with them, to walk, or ride, about <i>with them</i>; and when forced to
+go from home, always took one or more with me. You must be good-tempered
+too with them; they must like <i>your</i> company better than any other
+person's; they must not wish you away, <a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>not fear your coming back, not
+look upon your departure as a <i>holiday</i>. When my business kept me away
+from the <i>scrabbling</i>-table, a petition often came, that I would go and
+<i>talk</i> with the group, and the bearer generally was the youngest, being
+the most likely to succeed. When I went from home, all followed me to
+the outer-gate, and looked after me, till the carriage, or horse, was
+out of sight. At the time appointed for my return, all were prepared to
+meet me; and if it were late at night, they sat up as long as they were
+able to keep their eyes open. This love of parents, and this constant
+pleasure <i>at home</i>, made them not even think of seeking pleasure abroad;
+and they, thus, were kept from vicious playmates and early corruption.</p>
+
+<p>294. This is the age, too, to teach children to be <i>trust-worthy</i>, and
+to be <i>merciful</i> and <i>humane</i>. We lived <i>in a garden</i> of about two
+acres, partly kitchen-garden with walls, partly shrubbery and trees, and
+partly grass. There were the <i>peaches</i>, as tempting as any that ever
+grew, and yet as safe from fingers as if no child were ever in the
+garden. It was not necessary to <i>forbid</i>. The blackbirds, the thrushes,
+the whitethroats, and even that very shy bird the goldfinch, had their
+nests and bred up their young-ones, in great abundance, all about this
+little spot, constantly the play-place of six children; and one of the
+latter had its nest, and brought up its young-ones, in a
+<i>raspberry-bush</i>, within two yards of a walk, and at the time that we
+were gathering the ripe raspberries. We give <i>dogs</i>, and justly, great
+credit for sagacity and memory; but the following two most curious
+instances, which I should not venture to state, if there were not so
+many witnesses to the facts, in my neighbours at Botley, as well as in
+my <a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>own family, will show, that <i>birds</i> are not, in this respect,
+inferior to the canine race. All country people know that the <i>skylark</i>
+is a very shy bird; that its abode is the open fields: that it settles
+on the ground only; that it seeks safety in the wideness of space; that
+it avoids enclosures, and is never seen in gardens. A part of our ground
+was a grass-plat of about <i>forty rods</i>, or a quarter of an acre, which,
+one year, was left to be mowed for hay. A pair of larks, coming out of
+the fields into the middle of a pretty populous village, chose to make
+their nest in the middle of this little spot, and at not more than about
+<i>thirty-five yards</i> from one of the doors of the house, in which there
+were about twelve persons living, and six of those children, who had
+constant access to all parts of the ground. There we saw the cock rising
+up and singing, then taking his turn upon the eggs; and by-and-by, we
+observed him cease to sing, and saw them both <i>constantly engaged in
+bringing food to the young ones</i>. No unintelligible hint to fathers and
+mothers of the human race, who have, before marriage, taken delight in
+<i>music</i>. But the time came for <i>mowing the grass</i>! I waited a good many
+days for the brood to get away; but, at last, I determined on the day;
+and if the larks were there still, to leave a patch of grass standing
+round them. In order not to keep them in dread longer than necessary, I
+brought three able mowers, who would cut the whole in about an hour; and
+as the plat was nearly circular, set them to mow <i>round</i>, beginning at
+the outside. And now for sagacity indeed! The moment the men began to
+whet their scythes, the two old larks began to flutter over the nest,
+and to make a great clamour. When the men began to mow, they flew round
+and round, stooping so low, when near the men, as almost to touch their
+<a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>bodies, making a great chattering at the same time; but before the men
+had got round with the second swarth, they flew to the nest, and away
+they went, young ones and all, across the river, at the foot of the
+ground, and settled in the long grass in my neighbour's orchard.</p>
+
+<p>295. The other instance relates to a HOUSE-MARTEN. It is well known that
+these birds build their nests under the eaves of inhabited houses, and
+sometimes under those of door porches; but we had one that built its
+nest <i>in the house</i>, and upon the top of a common doorcase, the door of
+which opened into a room out of the main passage into the house.
+Perceiving the marten had begun to build its nest here, we kept the
+front-door open in the daytime; but were obliged to fasten it at night.
+It went on, had eggs, young ones, and the young ones flew. I used to
+open the door in the morning early, and then the birds carried on their
+affairs till night. The next <i>year</i> the MARTEN came again, and had
+<i>another brood in the same place</i>. It found its <i>old nest</i>; and having
+repaired it, and put it in order, went on again in the former way; and
+it would, I dare say, have continued to come to the end of its life, if
+we had remained there so long, notwithstanding there were six healthy
+children in the house, making just as much noise as they pleased.</p>
+
+<p>296. Now, what <i>sagacity</i> in these birds, to discover that those were
+places of safety! And how happy must it have made us, the parents, to be
+<i>sure</i> that our children had thus deeply imbibed habits the contrary of
+cruelty! For, be it engraven on your heart, YOUNG MAN, that, whatever
+appearances may say to the contrary, <i>cruelty</i> is always accompanied
+with <i>cowardice</i>, and also with <i>perfidy</i>, when that is called for by
+the circumstances of the case; <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>and that <i>habitual</i> acts of cruelty to
+other creatures, will, nine times out of ten, produce, when the power is
+possessed, cruelty to human beings. The ill-usage of <i>horses</i>, and
+particularly <i>asses</i>, is a grave and a just charge against this nation.
+No other nation on earth is guilty of it to the same extent. Not only by
+<i>blows</i>, but by privation, are we cruel towards these useful, docile,
+and patient creatures; and especially towards the last, which is the
+most docile and patient and laborious of the two, while the food that
+satisfies it, is of the coarsest and least costly kind, and in quantity
+so small! In the habitual ill-treatment of this animal, which, in
+addition to all its labours, has the milk taken from its young ones to
+administer a remedy for our ailments, there is something that bespeaks
+<i>ingratitude</i> hardly to be described. In a REGISTER that I wrote from
+Long Island, I said, that amongst all the things of which I had been
+bereft, I regretted no one so much as a very diminutive <i>mare</i>, on which
+my children had all, in succession, learned to ride. She was become
+useless for them, and, indeed, for any other purpose; but the
+recollection of her was so entwined with so many past circumstances,
+which, at that distance, my mind conjured up, that I really was very
+uneasy, lest she should fall into cruel hands. By good luck, she was,
+after a while, turned out on the wide world to shift for herself; and
+when we got back, and had a place for her to <i>stand</i> in, from her native
+forest we brought her to Kensington, and she is now at Barn-Elm, about
+twenty-six years old, and I dare say, as fat as a mole. Now, not only
+have I no moral <i>right</i> (considering my ability to pay for keep) to
+deprive her of life; but it would be <i>unjust</i> and <i>ungrateful</i>, in me to
+withhold from her sufficient food and lodging to make life as pleasant
+as possible while that life last.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>297. In the meanwhile the book-learning <i>crept in</i> of its own accord,
+by imperceptible degrees. Children naturally want to be <i>like</i> their
+parents, and <i>to do what they do</i>: the boys following their father, and
+the girls their mother; and as I was always <i>writing</i> or <i>reading</i>, mine
+naturally desired to do something in the same way. But, at the same
+time, they heard no talk from <i>fools</i> or <i>drinkers</i>; saw me with no
+idle, gabbling, empty companions; saw no vain and affected coxcombs, and
+no tawdry and extravagant women; saw no nasty gormandizing; and heard no
+gabble about play-houses and romances and the other nonsense that fit
+boys to be lobby-loungers, and girls to be the ruin of industrious and
+frugal young men.</p>
+
+<p>298. We wanted no stimulants of this sort to <i>keep up our spirits</i>: our
+various pleasing pursuits were quite sufficient for that; and the
+<i>book-learning</i> came amongst the rest of the pleasures, to which it was,
+in some sort, necessary. I remember that, one year, I raised a
+prodigious crop of fine <i>melons</i>, under hand-glasses; and I learned how
+to do it from a gardening <i>book</i>; or, at least, that book was necessary
+to remind me of the details. Having passed part of an evening in talking
+to the boys about getting this crop, 'Come,' said I, 'now, let us <i>read
+the book</i>.' Then the book came forth, and to work we went, following
+very strictly the precepts of the book. I read the thing but once, but
+the eldest boy read it, perhaps, twenty times over; and explained all
+about the matter to the others. Why here was a <i>motive</i>! Then he had to
+tell the garden-labourer <i>what to do</i> to the melons. Now, I will engage,
+that more was really <i>learned</i> by this single <i>lesson</i>, than would have
+been learned by spending, at this son's age, a year at school; and he
+<i>happy</i> and <i>delighted</i> all <a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>the while. When any dispute arose amongst
+them about hunting or shooting, or any other of their pursuits, they, by
+degrees, found out the way of settling it by reference to some book; and
+when any difficulty occurred, as to the meaning, they referred to me,
+who, if at home, <i>always instantly attended to them</i>, in these matters.</p>
+
+<p>299. They began writing by taking words out of <i>printed books</i>; finding
+out which letter was which, by asking me, or asking those who knew the
+letters one from another; and by imitating bits of my writing, it is
+surprising how soon they began to write a hand like mine, very small,
+very faint-stroked, and nearly plain as print. The first use that any
+one of them made of the pen, was to <i>write to me</i>, though in the same
+house with them. They began doing this in mere <i>scratches</i>, before they
+knew how to make any one letter; and as I was always folding up letters
+and directing them, so were they; and they were <i>sure</i> to receive a
+<i>prompt answer</i>, with most <i>encouraging</i> compliments. All the meddlings
+and teazings of friends, and, what was more serious, the pressing
+prayers of their anxious mother, about sending them to <i>school</i>, I
+withstood without the slightest effect on my resolution. As to friends,
+preferring my own judgment to theirs, I did not care much; but an
+expression of anxiety, implying a doubt of the soundness of my own
+judgment, coming, perhaps, twenty times a day from her whose care they
+were as well as mine, was not a matter to smile at, and very great
+trouble it did give me. My answer at last was, as to the boys, I want
+them to be <i>like me</i>; and as to the girls, In whose hands can they be so
+safe as in <i>yours</i>? Therefore my resolution is taken: <i>go to school they
+shall not</i>.</p>
+
+<p>300. Nothing is much more annoying than the <a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a><i>intermeddling of friends</i>,
+in a case like this. The wife appeals <i>to them</i>, and '<i>good breeding</i>,'
+that is to say, <i>nonsense</i>, is sure to put them on <i>her side</i>. Then,
+they, particularly the <i>women</i>, when describing the <i>surprising
+progress</i> made by their <i>own sons</i> at school, used, if one of mine were
+present, to turn to him, and ask, to what school <i>he went</i>, and what
+<i>he</i> was <i>learning</i>? I leave any one to judge of <i>his</i> opinion of her;
+and whether <i>he</i> would like her the better for that! 'Bless me, so tall,
+and <i>not learned</i> any thing <i>yet</i>!' 'Oh yes, he has,' I used to say, 'he
+has learned to ride, and hunt, and shoot, and fish, and look after
+cattle and sheep, and to work in the garden, and to feed his dogs, and
+to go from village to village in the dark.' This was the way I used to
+manage with troublesome customers of this sort. And how glad the
+children used to be, when they got clear of such criticising people! And
+how grateful they felt to me for the <i>protection</i> which they saw that I
+gave them against that state of restraint, of which other people's boys
+complained! Go whither they might, they found no place so pleasant as
+home, and no soul that came near them affording them so many means of
+gratification as they received from me.</p>
+
+<p>301. In this happy state we lived, until the year 1810, when the
+government laid its merciless fangs upon me, dragged me from these
+delights, and <i>crammed me into a jail amongst felons</i>; of which I shall
+have to speak more fully, when, in the last Number, I come to speak of
+the duties of THE CITIZEN. This added to the difficulties of my task of
+<i>teaching</i>; for now I was snatched away from the <i>only</i> scene in which
+it could, as I thought, properly be executed. But even these
+difficulties were got over. The blow was, to be sure, a terrible one;
+and, <a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>oh God! how was it felt by these poor children! It was in the
+month of July when the horrible sentence was passed upon me. My wife,
+having left her children in the care of her good and affectionate
+sister, was in London, waiting to know the doom of her husband. When the
+news arrived at Botley, the three boys, one eleven, another nine, and
+the other seven, years old, were hoeing cabbages in that garden which
+had been the source of so much delight. When the account of the savage
+sentence was brought to them, the youngest could not, for some time, be
+made to understand what a <i>jail</i> was; and, when he did, he, all in a
+tremor, exclaimed, 'Now I'm sure, William, that PAPA is not in a place
+<i>like that</i>!' The other, in order to disguise his tears and smother his
+sobs, fell to work with the hoe, and <i>chopped about like a blind
+person</i>. This account, when it reached me, affected me more, filled me
+with deeper resentment, than any other circumstance. And, oh! how I
+despise the wretches who talk of my <i>vindictiveness</i>; of my <i>exultation</i>
+at the confusion of those who inflicted those sufferings! How I despise
+the base creatures, the crawling slaves, the callous and cowardly
+hypocrites, who affect to be '<i>shocked</i>' (tender souls!) at my
+expressions of <i>joy</i>, and at the death of Gibbs, Ellenborough, Perceval,
+Liverpool, Canning, and the rest of the tribe that I have already seen
+out, and at the fatal workings of <i>that system</i>, for endeavouring to
+check which I was thus punished! How I despise these wretches, and how
+I, above all things, enjoy their ruin, and anticipate their utter
+beggary! What! I am to forgive, am I, injuries like this; and that, too,
+without any <i>atonement</i>? Oh, no! I have not so read the Holy Scriptures;
+I have not, from them, learned that I am not to rejoice at the fall of
+unjust foes; and it makes a part of my <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>happiness to be able <i>to tell
+millions of men</i> that I do thus rejoice, and that I have the means of
+calling on so many just and merciful men to rejoice along with me.</p>
+
+<p>302. Now, then, the <i>book-learning</i> was <i>forced</i> upon us. I had a <i>farm</i>
+in hand. It was necessary that I should be constantly informed of what
+was doing. I gave <i>all the orders</i>, whether as to purchases, sales,
+ploughing, sowing, breeding; in short, with regard to every thing, and
+the things were endless in number and variety, and always full of
+interest. My eldest son and daughter could now write well and fast. One
+or the other of these was always at Botley; and I had with me (having
+hired the best part of the keeper's house) one or two, besides either
+this brother or sister; the mother coming up to town about once in two
+or three months, leaving the house and children in the care of her
+sister. We had a HAMPER, with a lock and two keys, which came up once a
+week, or oftener, bringing me fruit and all sorts of country fare, for
+the carriage of which, cost free, I was indebted to as good a man as
+ever God created, the late Mr. GEORGE ROGERS, of Southampton, who, in
+the prime of life, died deeply lamented by thousands, but by none more
+deeply than by me and my family, who have to thank him, and the whole of
+his excellent family, for benefits and marks of kindness without number.</p>
+
+<p>303. This HAMPER, which was always, at both ends of the line, looked for
+with the most lively feelings, became our <i>school</i>. It brought me <i>a
+journal</i> of <i>labours</i>, <i>proceedings</i>, and <i>occurrences</i>, written on
+paper of shape and size uniform, and so contrived, as to margins, as to
+admit of binding. The journal used, when my son was the writer, to be
+interspersed with drawings of our dogs, colts, or any thing that he
+<a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>wanted me to have a correct idea of. The hamper brought me plants,
+bulbs, and the like, that I might <i>see</i> the size of them; and always
+every one sent his or her <i>most beautiful flowers</i>; the earliest
+violets, and primroses, and cowslips, and blue-bells; the earliest twigs
+of trees; and, in short, every thing that they thought calculated to
+delight me. The moment the hamper arrived, I, casting aside every thing
+else, set to work to answer <i>every question</i>, to give new directions,
+and to add anything likely to give pleasure at Botley. <i>Every</i> hamper
+brought one '<i>letter</i>,' as they called it, if not more, from every
+child; and to <i>every</i> letter I wrote <i>an answer</i>, sealed up and sent to
+the party, being sure that that was the way to produce other and better
+letters; for, though they could not read what I wrote, and though their
+own consisted at first of mere <i>scratches</i>, and afterwards, for a while,
+of a few words written down for them to imitate, I always thanked them
+for their '<i>pretty letter</i>'; and never expressed any wish to see them
+<i>write better</i>; but took care to write in a very neat and plain hand
+<i>myself</i>, and to do up my letter in a very neat manner.</p>
+
+<p>304. Thus, while the ferocious tigers thought I was doomed to incessant
+mortification, and to rage that must extinguish my mental powers, I
+found in my children, and in their spotless and courageous and most
+affectionate mother, delights to which the callous hearts of those
+tigers were strangers. 'Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's
+aid.' How often did this line of Pope occur to me when I opened the
+little <i>spuddling</i> 'letters' from Botley! This correspondence occupied a
+good part of my time: I had all the children with me, turn and turn
+about; and, in order to give the boys exercise, and to give the two
+eldest an opportunity of beginning to learn <a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>French, I used, for a part
+of the two years, to send them a few hours in the day to an ABB&Eacute;, who
+lived in Castle-street, Holborn. All this was a great relaxation to my
+mind; and, when I had to return to my literary labours, I returned
+<i>fresh</i> and cheerful, full of vigour, and <i>full of hope</i>, of finally
+seeing my unjust and merciless foes at my feet, and that, too, without
+caring a straw on whom their fall might bring calamity, so that my own
+family were safe; because, say what any one might, the <i>community, taken
+as a whole</i>, had <i>suffered this thing to be done unto us</i>.</p>
+
+<p>305. The paying of the work-people, the keeping of the accounts, the
+referring to books, the writing and reading of letters; this everlasting
+mixture of amusement with book-learning, made me, almost to my own
+surprise, find, at the end of the two years, that I had a parcel of
+<i>scholars</i> growing up about me; and, long before the end of the time, I
+had <i>dictated many Registers</i> to my two eldest children. Then, there was
+<i>copying</i> out of books, which taught <i>spelling correctly</i>. The
+calculations about the farming affairs forced arithmetic upon us: the
+<i>use</i>, the <i>necessity</i>, of the thing, led to the study. By-and-by, we
+had to look into the <i>laws</i> to know what to do about the <i>highways</i>,
+about the <i>game</i>, about the <i>poor</i>, and all rural and <i>parochial</i>
+affairs. I was, indeed, by the fangs of the government, defeated in my
+fondly-cherished project of making my sons farmers on their own land,
+and keeping them from all temptation to seek vicious and enervating
+enjoyments; but those fangs, merciless as they had been, had not been
+able to prevent me from laying in for their lives a store of useful
+information, habits of industry, care, sobriety, and a taste for
+innocent, healthful, and manly pleasures: the fangs had made me and them
+penny<a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>less; but, they had not been able to take from us our health or
+our mental possessions; and these were ready for application as
+circumstances might ordain.</p>
+
+<p>306. After the age that I have now been speaking of, <i>fourteen</i>, I
+suppose every one <i>became</i> a reader and writer according to fancy. As to
+<i>books</i>, with the exception of the <i>Poets</i>, I never bought, in my whole
+life, any one that I did not <i>want</i> for some purpose of <i>utility</i>, and
+of <i>practical utility</i> too. I have two or three times had the whole
+collection snatched away from me; and have begun again to get them
+together as they were wanted. Go and kick an ANT's nest about, and you
+will see the little laborious, courageous creatures <i>instantly</i> set to
+work to get it together again; and if you do this ten times over, ten
+times over they will do the same. Here is the sort of stuff that men
+must be made of to oppose, with success, those who, by whatever means,
+get possession of great and mischievous power.</p>
+
+<p>307. Now, I am aware, that that which <i>I did</i>, cannot be done by every
+one of hundreds of thousands of fathers, each of whom loves his children
+with all his soul: I am aware that the attorney, the surgeon, the
+physician, the trader, and even the farmer, cannot, generally speaking,
+do what I did, and that they must, in most cases, send their <i>sons</i> to
+school, if it be necessary for them to have <i>book-learning</i>. But while I
+say this, I know, that there are <i>many things</i>, which I did, which many
+fathers might do, and which, nevertheless, <i>they do not do</i>. It is in
+the power of <i>every father</i> to live <i>at home with his family</i>, when not
+<i>compelled</i> by business, or by public duty, to be absent: it is in his
+power to set an example of industry and sobriety and frugality, and to
+prevent a taste for gaming, dissipation, ex<a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>travagance, from getting
+root in the minds of his children: it is in his power to continue to
+make his children <i>hearers</i>, when he is reproving servants for idleness,
+or commending them for industry and care: it is in his power to keep all
+dissolute and idly-talking companions from his house: it is in his power
+to teach them, by his uniform example, justice and mercy towards the
+inferior animals: it is in his power to do many other things, and
+something in the way of book-learning too, however busy his life may be.
+It is completely within his power to teach them early-rising and early
+going to bed; and, if many a man, who says that he has <i>not time</i> to
+teach his children, were to sit down, in <i>sincerity</i>, with a pen and a
+bit of paper, and put down all the minutes, which he, in every
+twenty-four hours, <i>wastes</i> over the <i>bottle</i>, or over <i>cheese</i> and
+<i>oranges</i> and <i>raisins</i> and <i>biscuits</i>, <i>after</i> he has <i>dined</i>; how many
+he lounges away, either at the coffee-house or at home, over the
+<i>useless</i> part of newspapers; how many he spends in waiting for the
+coming and the managing of the tea-table; how many he passes by
+candle-light, <i>wearied of his existence</i>, when he might be in bed; how
+many he passes in the morning in bed, while the sun and dew shine and
+sparkle for him in vain: if he were to put all these together, and were
+to add those which he passes in the <i>reading of books</i> for his mere
+personal <i>amusement</i>, and without the smallest chance of acquiring from
+them any <i>useful</i> practical knowledge: if he were to sum up the whole of
+these, and add to them the time worse than wasted in the contemptible
+work of dressing off <i>his person</i>, he would be frightened at the result;
+would send for his boys from school; and if greater book-learning than
+he possessed were necessary, he would choose for the purpose some man of
+ability, and see <a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>the teaching carried on under his own roof, with
+safety as to morals, and with the best chance as to health.</p>
+
+<p>308. If after all, however, a school must be resorted to, let it, if in
+your power, be as little populous as possible. As 'evil communications
+corrupt good manners,' so the more numerous the assemblage, and the more
+extensive the communication, the greater the chance of corruption.
+<i>Jails, barracks, factories</i>, do not corrupt by their <i>walls</i>, but by
+their condensed numbers. Populous cities corrupt from the same cause;
+and it is, because <i>it must be</i>, the same with regard to schools, out of
+which children come not what they were when they went in. The master is,
+in some sort, their enemy; he is their overlooker; he is a spy upon
+them; his authority is maintained by his absolute power of punishment;
+<i>the parent commits them to that power</i>; to be taught is to be held in
+restraint; and, as the sparks fly upwards, the teaching and the
+restraint will not be divided in the estimation of the boy. Besides all
+this, there is the great disadvantage of <i>tardiness</i> in arriving at
+years of discretion. If boys live only with boys, their ideas will
+continue to be boyish; if they see and hear and converse with nobody but
+boys, how are they to have the thoughts and the character of men? It is,
+<i>at last</i>, only by hearing <i>men</i> talk and seeing men act, that they
+learn to talk and act like men; and, therefore, to confine them to the
+society of boys, is to <i>retard</i> their arrival at the years of
+discretion; and in case of adverse circumstances in the pecuniary way,
+where, in all the creation, is there so helpless a mortal as a boy who
+has always been at school! But, if, as I said before, a school there
+<i>must</i> be, let the congregation be as small as possible; and, do not
+expect too much from the master; for, if it <a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>be irksome to you to teach
+your own sons, what must that teaching be to him? If he have great
+numbers, he must delegate his authority; and, like all other delegated
+authority, it will either be abused or neglected.</p>
+
+<p>309. With regard to <i>girls</i>, one would think that <i>mothers</i> would want
+no argument to make them shudder at the thought of committing the care
+of their daughters to other hands than their own. If fortune have so
+favoured them as to make them rationally desirous that their daughters
+should have more of what are called accomplishments <i>than</i> they
+<i>themselves have</i>, it has also favoured them with the means of having
+teachers under their own eye. If it have not favoured them so highly as
+this (and it seldom has in the middle rank of life), what duty so sacred
+as that imposed on a mother to be the teacher of her daughters! And is
+she, from love of ease or of pleasure or of any thing else, to neglect
+this duty; is she to commit her daughters to the care of persons, with
+whose manners and morals it is impossible for her to be thoroughly
+acquainted; is she to send them into the promiscuous society of girls,
+who belong to nobody knows whom, and come from nobody knows whither, and
+some of whom, for aught she can know to the contrary, may have been
+corrupted before, and sent thither to be hidden from their former
+circle; is she to send her daughters to be shut up within walls, the
+bare sight of which awaken the idea of intrigue and invite to seduction
+and surrender; is she to leave the health of her daughters to chance, to
+shut them up with a motley bevy of strangers, some of whom, as is
+<i>frequently</i> the case, are proclaimed <i>bastards</i>, by the undeniable
+testimony given by the <i>colour of their skin</i>; is she to do all this,
+and still put forward pretensions to <a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>the authority and the affection
+due to a <i>mother</i>! And, are you to permit all this, and still call
+yourself <i>a father</i>!</p>
+
+<p>310. Well, then, having resolved to teach your own children, or, to have
+them taught, at home, let us now see how they ought to proceed as to
+<i>books</i> for learning. It is evident, speaking of boys, that, at last,
+they must study the art, or science, that you intend them to pursue; if
+they be to be surgeons, they must read books on surgery; and the like in
+other cases. But, there are certain <i>elementary</i> studies; certain books
+to be used by <i>all persons</i>, who are destined to acquire any
+book-learning at all. Then there are departments, or branches of
+knowledge, that every man in the middle rank of life, ought, if he can,
+to acquire, they being, in some sort, necessary to his reputation as a
+<i>well-informed</i> man, a character to which the farmer and the shopkeeper
+ought to aspire as well as the lawyer and the surgeon. Let me now, then,
+offer my advice as to the <i>course</i> of reading, and the <i>manner</i> of
+reading, for a boy, arrived at his <i>fourteenth</i> year, that being, in my
+opinion, early enough for him to begin.</p>
+
+<p>311. And, first of all, whether as to boys or girls, I deprecate
+<i>romances</i> of every description. It is impossible that they can do any
+<i>good</i>, and they may do a great deal of harm. They excite passions that
+ought to lie dormant; they give the mind a taste for <i>highly-seasoned</i>
+matter; they make matters of real life insipid; every girl, addicted to
+them, sighs to be a SOPHIA WESTERN, and every boy, a TOM JONES. What
+girl is not in love with the <i>wild</i> youth, and what boy does not find a
+justification for his wildness? What can be more pernicious than the
+teachings of this celebrated romance? Here are two young men put before
+us, both sons of the same <a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>mother; the one a <i>bastard</i> (and by a parson
+too), the other a <i>legitimate child</i>; the former wild, disobedient, and
+squandering; the latter steady, sober, obedient, and frugal; the former
+every thing that is frank and generous in his nature, the latter a
+greedy hypocrite; the former rewarded with the most beautiful and
+virtuous of women and a double estate, the latter punished by being made
+an outcast. How is it possible for young people to read such a book, and
+to look upon orderliness, sobriety, obedience, and frugality, as
+<i>virtues</i>? And this is the tenor of almost every romance, and of almost
+every play, in our language. In the 'School for Scandal,' for instance,
+we see two brothers; the one a prudent and frugal man, and, to all
+appearance, a moral man, the other a hair-brained squanderer, laughing
+at the morality of his brother; the former turns out to be a base
+hypocrite and seducer, and is brought to shame and disgrace; while the
+latter is found to be full of generous sentiment, and Heaven itself
+seems to interfere to give him fortune and fame. In short, the direct
+tendency of the far greater part of these books, is, to cause young
+people to despise all those virtues, without the practice of which they
+must be a curse to their parents, a burden to the community, and must,
+except by mere accident, lead wretched lives. I do not recollect one
+romance nor one play, in our language, which has not this tendency. How
+is it possible for young princes to read the historical plays of the
+punning and smutty Shakspeare, and not think, that to be drunkards,
+blackguards, the companions of debauchees and robbers, is the suitable
+beginning of a glorious reign?</p>
+
+<p>312. There is, too, another most abominable principle that runs through
+them all, namely, that there is in <i>high birth</i>, something of <i>superior
+nature</i>, in<a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>stinctive courage, honour, and talent. Who can look at the
+two <i>royal youths</i> in CYMBELINE, or at the <i>noble youth</i> in DOUGLAS,
+without detesting the base parasites who wrote those plays? Here are
+youths, brought up by <i>shepherds</i>, never told of their origin, believing
+themselves the sons of these humble parents, but discovering, when grown
+up, the highest notions of valour and honour, and thirsting for military
+renown, even while tending their reputed fathers' flocks and herds! And,
+why this species of falsehood? To cheat the mass of the people; to keep
+them in abject subjection; to make them quietly submit to despotic sway.
+And the infamous authors are guilty of the cheat, because they are, in
+one shape or another, paid by oppressors out of means squeezed from the
+people. A <i>true</i> picture would give us just the reverse; would show us
+that '<i>high birth</i>' is the enemy of virtue, of valour, and of talent;
+would show us, that with all their incalculable advantages, royal and
+noble families have, only by mere accident, produced a great man; that,
+in general, they have been amongst the most effeminate, unprincipled,
+cowardly, stupid, and, at the very least, amongst the most useless
+persons, considered as individuals, and not in connexion with the
+prerogatives and powers bestowed on them solely by the law.</p>
+
+<p>313. It is impossible for me, by any words that I can use, to express,
+to the extent of my thoughts, the danger of suffering young people to
+form their opinions from the writings of poets and romances. Nine times
+out of ten, the morality they teach is bad, and must have a bad
+tendency. Their wit is employed to <i>ridicule virtue</i>, as you will almost
+always find, if you examine the matter to the bottom. The world owes a
+very large part of its sufferings to <a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>tyrants; but what tyrant was there
+amongst the ancients, whom the poets did not place <i>amongst the gods</i>?
+Can you open an English poet, without, in some part or other of his
+works, finding the grossest flatteries of royal and noble persons? How
+are young people not to think that the praises bestowed on these persons
+are just? DRYDEN, PARNELL, GAY, THOMSON, in short, what poet have we
+had, or have we, POPE only excepted, who was not, or is not, a
+pensioner, or a sinecure placeman, or the wretched dependent of some
+part of the Aristocracy? Of the extent of the powers of writers in
+producing mischief to a nation, we have two most striking instances in
+the cases of Dr. JOHNSON and BURKE. The former, at a time when it was a
+question whether war should be made on America to compel her to submit
+to be taxed by the English parliament, wrote a pamphlet, entitled,
+'<i>Taxation no Tyranny</i>,' to urge the nation into that war. The latter,
+when it was a question, whether England should wage war against the
+people of France, to prevent them from reforming their government, wrote
+a pamphlet to urge the nation into <i>that</i> war. The first war lost us
+America, the last cost us six hundred millions of money, and has loaded
+us with forty millions a year of taxes. JOHNSON, however, got a <i>pension
+for his life</i>, and BURKE a pension for his life, and for <i>three lives
+after his own</i>! CUMBERLAND and MURPHY, the play-writers, were
+pensioners; and, in short, of the whole mass, where has there been one,
+whom the people were not compelled to pay for labours, having for their
+principal object the deceiving and enslaving of that same people? It is,
+therefore, the duty of every father, when he puts a book into the hands
+of his son or daughter, to give the reader a true account of <i>who</i> and
+<i>what</i> the writer of the book was, or is.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a>314. If a boy be intended for any particular calling, he ought, of
+course, to be induced to read books relating to that calling, if such
+books there be; and, therefore, I shall not be more particular on that
+head. But, there are certain things, that all men in the middle rank of
+life, ought to know something of; because the knowledge will be a source
+of pleasure; and because the want of it must, very frequently, give them
+pain, by making them appear inferior, in point of mind, to many who are,
+in fact, their inferiors in that respect. These things are <i>grammar,
+arithmetic, history</i>, accompanied with <i>geography</i> Without these, a man,
+in the middle rank of life, however able he may be in his calling, makes
+but an awkward figure. Without <i>grammar</i> he cannot, with safety to his
+character as a well-informed man, put his thoughts upon paper; nor can
+he be <i>sure</i>, that he is speaking with propriety. How many clever men
+have I known, full of natural talent, eloquent by nature, replete with
+every thing calculated to give them weight in society; and yet having
+little or no weight, merely because unable to put correctly upon paper
+that which they have in their minds! For me not to say, that I deem <i>my
+English Grammar</i> the best book for teaching this science, would be
+affectation, and neglect of duty besides; because I know, that it is the
+best; because I wrote it for the purpose; and because, hundreds and
+hundreds of men and women have told me, some verbally, and some by
+letter, that, though (many of them) at grammar schools for years, they
+really never <i>knew</i> any thing of grammar, until they studied my book. I,
+who know well all the difficulties that I experienced when I read books
+upon the subject, can easily believe this, and especially when I think
+of the numerous instances in which I have seen <i>university</i>-scholars
+unable to write <a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>English, with any tolerable degree of correctness. In
+this book, the principles are so clearly explained, that the disgust
+arising from intricacy is avoided; and it is this disgust, that is the
+great and mortal enemy of acquiring knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>315. With regard to ARITHMETIC, it is a branch of learning absolutely
+necessary to every one, who has any pecuniary transactions beyond those
+arising out of the expenditure of his week's wages. All the books on
+this subject that I had ever seen, were so bad, so destitute of every
+thing calculated to lead the mind into a knowledge of the matter, so
+void of principles, and so evidently tending to puzzle and disgust the
+learner, by their sententious, and crabbed, and quaint, and almost
+hieroglyphical definitions, that I, at one time, had the intention of
+writing a little work on the subject myself. It was put off, from one
+cause or another; but a little work on the subject has been, partly at
+my suggestion, written and published by Mr. THOMAS SMITH of Liverpool,
+and is sold by Mr. SHERWOOD, in London. The author has great ability,
+and a perfect knowledge of his subject. It is a book of principles; and
+any young person of common capacity, will learn more from it in a week,
+than from all the other books, that I ever saw on the subject, in a
+twelve-month.</p>
+
+<p>316. While the foregoing studies are proceeding, though they very well
+afford a relief to each other, HISTORY may serve as a relaxation,
+particularly during the study of grammar, which is an undertaking
+requiring patience and time. Of all history, that of our own country is
+of the most importance; because, for want of a thorough knowledge of
+what <i>has been</i>, we are, in many cases, at a loss to account for <i>what
+is</i>, and still more at a loss, to be able to <a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>show what <i>ought to be</i>.
+The difference between history and romance is this; that that which is
+narrated in the latter, leaves in the mind nothing which it can apply to
+present or future circumstances and events; while the former, when it is
+what it ought to be, leaves the mind stored with arguments for
+experience, applicable, at all times, to the actual affairs of life. The
+history of a country ought to show the origin and progress of its
+institutions, political, civil, and ecclesiastical; it ought to show the
+effects of those institutions upon the state of the people; it ought to
+delineate the measures of the government at the several epochs; and,
+having clearly described the state of the people at the several periods,
+it ought to show the cause of their freedom, good morals, and happiness;
+or of their misery, immorality, and slavery; and this, too, by the
+production of indubitable facts, and of inferences so manifestly fair,
+as to leave not the smallest doubt upon the mind.</p>
+
+<p>317. Do the histories of England which we have, answer this description?
+They are very little better than romances. Their contents are generally
+confined to narrations relating to battles, negociations, intrigues,
+contests between rival sovereignties, rival nobles, and to the character
+of kings, queens, mistresses, bishops, ministers, and the like; from
+scarcely any of which can the reader draw any knowledge which is at all
+applicable to the circumstances of the present day.</p>
+
+<p>318. Besides this, there is the <i>falsehood</i>; and the falsehoods
+contained in these histories, where shall we find any thing to surpass?
+Let us take one instance. They all tell us, that William the Conqueror
+knocked down twenty-six parish churches, and laid waste the parishes in
+order to make the <a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a>New Forest; and this in a tract of the very poorest
+land in England, where the churches must then have stood at about one
+mile and two hundred yards from each other. The truth is, that all the
+churches are still standing that were there when William landed, and the
+whole story is a sheer falsehood from the beginning to the end.</p>
+
+<p>319. But, this is a mere specimen of these romances; and that too, with
+regard to a matter comparatively unimportant to us. The important
+falsehoods are, those which misguide us by statement or by inference,
+with regard to the state of the people at the several epochs, as
+produced by the institutions of the country, or the measures of the
+Government. It is always the object of those who have power in their
+hands, to persuade the people that they are better off than their
+forefathers were: it is the great business of history to show how this
+matter stands; and, with respect to this great matter, what are we to
+learn from any thing that has hitherto been called a history of England!
+I remember, that, about a dozen years ago, I was talking with a very
+clever young man, who had read twice or thrice over the History of
+England, by different authors; and that I gave the conversation a turn
+that drew from him, unperceived by himself, that he did not know how
+tithes, parishes, poor-rates, church-rates, and the abolition of trial
+by jury in hundreds of cases, came to be in England; and, that he had
+not the smallest idea of the manner in which the Duke of Bedford came to
+possess the power of taxing our cabbages in Covent-Garden. Yet, this is
+history. I have done a great deal, with regard to matters of this sort,
+in my famous History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION; for I may truly call
+that famous, which has <a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a>been translated and published in all the modern
+languages.</p>
+
+<p>320. But, it is reserved for me to write a complete history of the
+country from the earliest times to the present day; and this, God giving
+me life and health, I shall begin to do in monthly numbers, beginning on
+the first of September, and in which I shall endeavour to combine
+brevity with clearness. We do not want to consume our time over a dozen
+pages about Edward the Third dancing at a ball, picking up a lady's
+garter, and making that garter the foundation of an order of knighthood,
+bearing the motto of '<i>Honi soit qui mal y pense</i>? It is not stuff like
+this; but we want to know what was the state of the people; what were a
+labourer's wages; what were the prices of the food, and how the
+labourers were dressed in the reign of that great king. What is a young
+person to imbibe from a history of England, as it is called, like that
+of Goldsmith? It is a little romance to amuse children; and the other
+historians have given us larger romances to amuse lazy persons who are
+grown up. To destroy the effects of these, and to make the people know
+what their country has been, will be my object; and this, I trust, I
+shall effect. We are, it is said, to have a History of England from SIR
+JAMES MACKINTOSH; a History of Scotland from SIR WALTER SCOTT; and a
+HISTORY OF IRELAND from Tommy Moore, the luscious poet. A Scotch lawyer,
+who is a pensioner, and a member for Knaresborough, which is well known
+to the Duke of Devonshire, who has the great tithes of twenty parishes
+in Ireland, will, doubtless, write a most impartial <i>History of
+England</i>, and particularly as far as relates to <i>boroughs</i> and <i>tithes</i>.
+A Scotch romance-writer, who, under the name of <i>Malagrowther</i>, wrote a
+pamphlet <a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>to prove, that one-pound-notes were the cause of riches to
+Scotland, will write, to be sure, a most instructive <i>History of
+Scotland</i>. And, from the pen of a Irish poet, who is a sinecure
+placeman, and a prot&eacute;g&eacute; of an English peer that has immense parcels of
+Irish confiscated estates, what a beautiful history shall we not then
+have of <i>unfortunate Ireland</i>! Oh, no! We are not going to be content
+with stuff such as these men will bring out. Hume and Smollett and
+Robertson have cheated us long enough. We are not in a humour to be
+cheated any longer.</p>
+
+<p>321. GEOGRAPHY is taught at schools, if we believe the school-cards. The
+scholars can tell you all about the divisions of the earth, and this is
+very well for persons who have leisure to indulge their curiosity; but
+it does seem to me monstrous that a young person's time should be spent
+in ascertaining the boundaries of Persia or China, knowing nothing all
+the while about the boundaries, the rivers, the soil, or the products,
+or of the any thing else of Yorkshire or Devonshire. The first thing in
+geography is to know that of the country in which we live, especially
+that in which we were born: I have now seen almost every hill and valley
+in it with my own eyes; nearly every city and every town, and no small
+part of the whole of the villages. I am therefore qualified to give an
+account of the country; and that account, under the title of
+Geographical Dictionary of England and Wales, I am now having printed as
+a companion to my history.</p>
+
+<p>322. When a young man well understands the geography of his own country;
+when he has referred to maps on this smaller scale; when, in short, he
+knows all about his own country, and is able to apply his knowledge to
+useful purposes, he may look at other countries, and particularly at
+those, the powers <a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>or measures of which are likely to affect his own
+country. It is of great importance to us to be well acquainted with the
+extent of France, the United States, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Turkey,
+and Russia; but what need we care about the tribes of Asia and Africa,
+the condition of which can affect us no more than we would be affected
+by any thing that is passing in the moon?</p>
+
+<p>323. When people have nothing useful to do, they may indulge their
+curiosity; but, merely to <i>read books</i>, is not to be industrious, is not
+to study, and is not the way to become learned. Perhaps there are none
+more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers. A book
+is an admirable excuse for sitting still; and, a man who has constantly
+a newspaper, a magazine, a review, or some book or other in his hand,
+gets, at last, his head stuffed with such a jumble, that he knows not
+what to think about any thing. An empty coxcomb, that wastes his time in
+dressing, strutting, or strolling about, and picking his teeth, is
+certainly a most despicable creature, but scarcely less so than a mere
+reader of books, who is, generally, conceited, thinks himself wiser than
+other men, in proportion to the number of leaves that he has turned
+over. In short, a young man should bestow his time upon no book, the
+contents of which he cannot apply to some useful purpose.</p>
+
+<p>324. Books of travels, of biography, natural history, and particularly
+such as relate to agriculture and horticulture, are all proper, when
+leisure is afforded for them; and the two last are useful to a very
+great part of mankind; but, unless the subjects treated of are of some
+interest to us in our affairs, no time should be wasted upon them, when
+there are so many duties demanded at our hands by <a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a>our families and our
+country. A man may read books for ever, and be an ignorant creature at
+last, and even the more ignorant for his reading.</p>
+
+<p>325. And, with regard to young women, everlasting book-reading is
+absolutely <i>a vice</i>. When they once get into the habit, they neglect all
+other matters, and, in some cases, even their very dress. Attending to
+the affairs of the house: to the washing, the baking, the brewing, the
+preservation and cooking of victuals, the management of the poultry and
+the garden; these are their proper occupations. It is said (with what
+truth I know not) of the <i>present Queen</i> (wife of William IV), that she
+was an active, excellent manager of her house. Impossible to bestow on
+her greater praise; and I trust that her example will have its due
+effect on the young women of the present day, who stand, but too
+generally, in need of that example.</p>
+
+<p>326. The great fault of the present generation, is, that, in <i>all</i>
+ranks, the <i>notions of self-importance are too high</i>. This has arisen
+from causes not visible to many, out the consequences are felt by all,
+and that, too, with great severity. There has been a general
+<i>sublimating</i> going on for many years. Not to put the word <i>Esquire</i>
+before the name of almost any man who is not a mere labourer or artisan,
+is almost <i>an affront</i>. Every merchant, every master-manufacturer, every
+dealer, if at all rich, is an <i>Esquire</i>; squires' sons must be
+<i>gentlemen</i>, and squires' wives and daughters <i>ladies</i>. If this were
+<i>all</i>; if it were merely a ridiculous misapplication of words, the evil
+would not be great; but, unhappily, words lead to acts and produce
+things; and the '<i>young gentleman</i>' is not easily to be moulded into a
+<i>tradesman</i> or a <i>working farmer</i>. And yet the world is too small to
+hold so many <i>gentlemen</i> and <i>ladies</i>. How many <a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a>thousands of young men
+have, at this moment, cause to lament that they are not carpenters, or
+masons, or tailors, or shoemakers; and how many thousands of those, that
+they have been bred up to wish to disguise their honest and useful, and
+therefore honourable, calling! ROUSSEAU observes, that men are happy,
+first, in proportion to their virtue, and next, in proportion to their
+<i>independence</i>; and that, of all mankind, the artisan, or craftsman, is
+the most independent; because he carries about, <i>in his own hands</i> and
+person, the means of gaining his livelihood; and that the more common
+the use of the articles on which he works, the more perfect his
+independence. 'Where,' says he, 'there is one man that stands in need of
+the talents of the dentist, there are a hundred thousand that want those
+of the people who supply the matter for the teeth to work on; and for
+one who wants a sonnet to regale his fancy, there are a million
+clamouring for men to make or mend their shoes.' Aye, and this is the
+reason, why shoemakers are proverbially the most independent part of the
+people, and why they, in general, show more public spirit than any other
+men. He who lives by a pursuit, be it what it may, which does not
+require a considerable degree of <i>bodily labour</i>, must, from the nature
+of things, be, more or less, a <i>dependent</i>; and this is, indeed, the
+price which he pays for his exemption from that bodily labour. He <i>may</i>
+arrive at riches, or fame, or both; and this chance he sets against the
+certainty of independence in humbler life. There always have been, there
+always will be, and there always ought to be, <i>some</i> men to take this
+chance: but to do this has become the <i>fashion</i>, and a fashion it is the
+most fatal that ever seized upon a community.</p>
+
+<p>327. With regard to young women, too, to sing, <a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a>to play on instruments
+of music, to draw, to speak French, and the like, are very agreeable
+qualifications; but why should they <i>all</i> be musicians, and painters,
+and linguists? Why <i>all</i> of them? Who, then, is there left to <i>take care
+of the houses</i> of farmers and traders? But there is something in these
+'accomplishments' worse than this; namely, that they think themselves
+<i>too high</i> for farmers and traders: and this, in fact, they are; much
+<i>too high</i>; and, therefore, the servant-girls step in and supply their
+place. If they could see their own interest, surely they would drop this
+lofty tone, and these lofty airs. It is, however, the fault of the
+parents, and particularly of the father, whose duty it is to prevent
+them from imbibing such notions, and to show them, that the greatest
+honour they ought to aspire to is, thorough skill and care in the
+economy of a house. We are all apt to set too high a value on what we
+ourselves have done; and I may do this; but I do firmly believe, that to
+cure any young woman of this fatal sublimation, she has only patiently
+to read my COTTAGE ECONOMY, written with an anxious desire to promote
+domestic skill and ability in that sex, on whom so much of the happiness
+of man must always depend. A lady in Worcestershire told me, that until
+she read COTTAGE ECONOMY she had never <i>baked in the house</i>, and had
+seldom had <i>good beer</i>; that, ever since, she had looked after both
+herself; that the pleasure she had derived from it, was equal to the
+profit, and that the latter was very great. She said, that the article
+'<i>on baking bread</i>,' was the part that roused her to the undertaking;
+and, indeed, if the facts and arguments, <i>there</i> made use of, failed to
+stir her up to action, she must have been stone dead to the power of
+words.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>328. After the age that we have now been supposing, boys and girls
+become <i>men</i> and <i>women</i>; and, there now only remains for the <i>father</i>
+to act towards them with <i>impartiality</i>. If they be numerous, or,
+indeed, if they be only two in number, to expect <i>perfect harmony</i> to
+reign amongst, or between, them, is to be unreasonable; because
+experience shows us, that, even amongst the most sober, most virtuous,
+and most sensible, harmony so complete is very rare. By nature they are
+rivals for the affection and applause of the parents; in personal and
+mental endowments they become rivals; and, when <i>pecuniary interests</i>
+come to be well understood and to have their weight, here is a
+rivalship, to prevent which from ending in hostility, require more
+affection and greater disinterestedness than fall to the lot of one out
+of one hundred families. So many instances have I witnessed of good and
+amiable families living in harmony, till the hour arrived for dividing
+property amongst them, and then, all at once, becoming hostile to each
+other, that I have often thought that property, coming in such a way,
+was a curse, and that the parties would have been far better off, had
+the parent had merely a blessing to bequeath them from his or her lips,
+instead of a will for them to dispute and wrangle over.</p>
+
+<p>329. With regard to this matter, all that the father can do, is to be
+<i>impartial</i>; but, impartiality does not mean positive <i>equality</i> in the
+distribution, but equality <i>in proportion</i> to the different deserts of
+the parties, their different wants, their different pecuniary
+circumstances, and different prospects in life; and these vary so much,
+in different families, that it is impossible to lay down any general
+rule upon the subject. But there is one fatal error, against which every
+father ought to guard his heart; <a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a>and the kinder that heart is, the more
+necessary such guardianship. I mean the fatal error of heaping upon one
+child, to the prejudice of the rest; or, upon a part of them. This
+partiality sometimes arises from mere caprice; sometimes from the
+circumstance of the favourite being more favoured by nature than the
+rest; sometimes from the nearer resemblance to himself, that the father
+sees in the favourite; and, sometimes, from the hope of preventing the
+favoured party from doing that which would disgrace the parent. All
+these motives are highly censurable, but the last is the most general,
+and by far the most mischievous in its effects. How many fathers have
+been ruined, how many mothers and families brought to beggary, how many
+industrious and virtuous groups have been pulled down from competence to
+penury, from the desire to prevent one from bringing shame on the
+parent! So that, contrary to every principle of justice, the bad is
+rewarded for the badness; and the good punished for the goodness.
+Natural affection, remembrance of infantine endearments, reluctance to
+abandon long-cherished hopes, compassion for the sufferings of your own
+flesh and blood, the dread of fatal consequences from your adhering to
+justice; all these beat at your heart, and call on you to give way: but,
+you must resist them all; or, your ruin, and that of the rest of your
+family, are decreed. Suffering is the natural and just punishment of
+idleness, drunkenness, squandering, and an indulgence in the society of
+prostitutes; and, never did the world behold an instance of an offender,
+in this way, reclaimed but by the infliction of this punishment;
+particularly, if the society of prostitutes made part of the offence;
+for, here is something that takes the <i>heart from you</i>. Nobody ever yet
+<a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a>saw, and nobody ever will see, a young man, linked to a prostitute, and
+retain, at the same time, any, even the smallest degree of affection,
+for parents or brethren. You may supplicate, you may implore, you may
+leave yourself pennyless, and your virtuous children without bread; the
+invisible cormorant will still call for more; and, as we saw, only the
+other day, a wretch was convicted of having, at the instigation of his
+prostitute, <i>beaten his aged mother</i>, to get from her the small remains
+of the means necessary to provide her with food. In HERON'S collection
+of God's judgments on wicked acts, it is related of an unnatural son,
+who fed his aged father upon orts and offal, lodged him in a filthy and
+crazy garret, and clothed him in sackcloth, while he and his wife and
+children lived in luxury; that, having bought sackcloth enough for two
+dresses for his father, the children took away the part not made up, and
+<i>hid it</i>, and that, upon asking them what they could <i>do this for</i>, they
+told him that they meant to keep it <i>for him</i>, when he should become old
+and walk with a stick! This, the author relates, pierced his heart; and,
+indeed, if <i>this</i> failed, he must have had the heart of a tiger; but,
+even <i>this</i> would not succeed with the associate of a prostitute. When
+<i>this vice</i>, this love of the society of prostitutes; when this vice has
+once got fast hold, vain are all your sacrifices, vain your prayers,
+vain your hopes, vain your anxious desire to disguise the shame from the
+world; and, if you have acted well your part, no part of that shame
+falls on you, unless you <i>have administered to the cause of it</i>. Your
+authority has ceased; the voice of the prostitute, or the charms of the
+bottle, or the rattle of the dice, has been more powerful than your
+advice and example: you must lament this: but, it is not to bow you
+down; and, <a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>above all things, it is weak, and even criminally selfish,
+to sacrifice the rest of your family, in order to keep from the world
+the knowledge of that, which, if known, would, in your view of the
+matter, bring shame on yourself.</p>
+
+<p>330. Let me hope, however, that this is a calamity which will befall
+very few good fathers; and that, of all such, the sober, industrious,
+and frugal habits of their children, their dutiful demeanor, their truth
+and their integrity, will come to smooth the path of their downward
+days, and be the objects on which their eyes will close. Those children
+must, in their turn, travel the same path; and they may be assured,
+that, 'Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in
+the land,' is a precept, a disregard of which never yet failed, either
+first or last, to bring its punishment. And, what can be more just than
+that signal punishment should follow such a crime; a crime directly
+against the voice of nature itself? Youth has its passions, and due
+allowance justice will make for these; but, are the delusions of the
+boozer, the gamester, or the harlot, to be pleaded in excuse for a
+disregard of the source of your existence? Are those to be pleaded in
+apology for giving pain to the father who has toiled half a lifetime in
+order to feed and clothe you, and to the mother whose breast has been to
+you the fountain of life? Go, you, and shake the hand of the
+boon-companion; take the greedy harlot to your arms; mock at the tears
+of your tender and anxious parents; and, when your purse is empty and
+your complexion faded, receive the poverty and the scorn due to your
+base ingratitude!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_VI" id="LETTER_VI"></a><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284" ></a>LETTER VI</h2>
+
+<h2>TO THE CITIZEN</h2>
+
+<p>331. Having now given my Advice to the YOUTH, the grown-up MAN, the LOVER,
+the HUSBAND and the FATHER, I shall, in this concluding Number, tender
+my Advice to the CITIZEN, in which capacity every man has rights to
+enjoy and duties to perform, and these too of importance not inferior to
+those which belong to him, or are imposed upon him, as son, parent,
+husband or father. The word <i>citizen</i> is not, in its application,
+confined to the mere inhabitants of cities: it means, a <i>member of a
+civil society, or community</i>; and, in order to have a clear
+comprehension of man's rights and duties in this capacity, we must take
+a look at the <i>origin of civil communities</i>.</p>
+
+<p>332. Time was when the inhabitants of this island, for instance, laid
+claim to all things in it, without the words <i>owner</i> or <i>property</i> being
+known. God had given to <i>all</i> the people all the land and all the trees,
+and every thing else, just as he has given the burrows and the grass to
+the rabbits, and the bushes and the berries to the birds; and each man
+had the good things of this world in a greater or less degree in
+proportion to his skill, his strength and his valour. This is what is
+called living under the LAW OF NATURE; that is to say, the law of
+self-preservation and self-enjoyment, without any restraint imposed by a
+regard for the good of our neighbours.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></a>333. In process of time, no matter from what cause, men made amongst
+themselves a compact, or an agreement, to divide the land and its
+products in such manner that each should have a share to his own
+exclusive use, and that each man should be protected in the exclusive
+enjoyment of his share by the <i>united power of the rest</i>; and, in order
+to ensure the due and certain application of this united power, the
+whole of the people agreed to be bound by regulations, called LAWS. Thus
+arose civil society; thus arose <i>property</i>; thus arose the words <i>mine</i>
+and <i>thine</i>. One man became possessed of more good things than another,
+because he was more industrious, more skilful, more careful, or more
+frugal: so that LABOUR, of one sort or another, was the BASIS of all
+property.</p>
+
+<p>334. In what manner civil societies proceeded in providing for the
+making of laws and for the enforcing of them; the various ways in which
+they took measures to protect the weak against the strong; how they have
+gone to work to secure wealth against the attacks of poverty; these are
+subjects that it would require volumes to detail; but these truths are
+written on the heart of man: that all men are, by nature, <i>equal</i>; that
+civil society can never have arisen from any motive other than that of
+the <i>benefit of the whole</i>; that, whenever civil society makes the
+greater part of the people <i>worse off</i> than they were under the Law of
+Nature, the civil compact is, in conscience, dissolved, and all the
+rights of nature return; that, in civil society, the <i>rights and the
+duties go hand in hand</i>, and that, when the former are taken away, the
+latter cease to exist.</p>
+
+<p>335. Now, then, in order to act well our part, as citizens, or members
+of the community, we ought clearly to understand <i>what our rights are</i>;
+for, on our enjoyment of these depend our duties, rights <a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></a>going before
+duties, as value received goes before payment. I know well, that just
+the contrary of this is taught in our political schools, where we are
+told, that our <i>first duty</i> is to <i>obey the laws</i>; and it is not many
+years ago, that HORSLEY, Bishop of Rochester, told us, that the <i>people</i>
+had <i>nothing</i> to do with the laws but to <i>obey</i> them. The truth is,
+however, that the citizen's <i>first duty</i> is to maintain his rights, as
+it is the purchaser's first duty to receive the thing for which he has
+contracted.</p>
+
+<p>336. Our rights in society are numerous; the right of enjoying life and
+property; the right of exerting our physical and mental powers in an
+innocent manner; but, the great right of all, and without which there
+is, in fact, <i>no right</i>, is, the right of <i>taking a part in the making
+of the laws by which we are governed</i>. This right is founded in that law
+of Nature spoken of above; it springs out of the very principle of civil
+society; for what <i>compact</i>, what <i>agreement</i>, what <i>common assent</i>, can
+possibly be imagined by which men would give up all the rights of
+nature, all the free enjoyment of their bodies and their minds, in order
+to subject themselves to rules and laws, in the making of which they
+should have nothing to say, and which should be enforced upon them
+without their assent? The great right, therefore, of <i>every man</i>, the
+right of rights, is the right of having a share in the making of the
+laws, to which the good of the whole makes it his duty to submit.</p>
+
+<p>337. With regard to the means of enabling every man to enjoy this share,
+they have been different, in different countries, and, in the same
+countries, at different times. Generally it has been, and in great
+communities it must be, by the choosing of a few to speak and act <i>in
+behalf of the many</i>: and, as there will hardly ever be <i>perfect
+unanimity</i> amongst men <a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></a>assembled for any purpose whatever, where fact
+and argument are to decide the question, the decision is left to the
+<i>majority</i>, the compact being that the decision of the majority shall be
+that of the whole. <i>Minors</i> are excluded from this right, because the
+law considers them as infants, because it makes the parent answerable
+for civil damages committed by them, and because of their legal
+incapacity to make any compact. <i>Women</i> are excluded because husbands
+are answerable in law for their wives, as to their civil damages, and
+because the very nature of their sex makes the exercise of this right
+incompatible with the harmony and happiness of society. Men stained with
+<i>indelible crimes</i> are excluded, because they have forfeited their right
+by violating the laws, to which their assent has been given. <i>Insane
+persons</i> are excluded, because they are dead in the eye of the law,
+because the law demands no duty at their hands, because they cannot
+violate the law, because the law cannot affect them; and, therefore,
+they ought to have no hand in making it.</p>
+
+<p>338. But, with these exceptions, where is the ground whereon to maintain
+that <i>any man</i> ought to be deprived of this right, which he derives
+directly from the law of Nature, and which springs, as I said before,
+out of the same source with civil society itself? Am I told, that
+<i>property</i> ought to confer this right? Property sprang from <i>labour</i>,
+and not labour from property; so that if there were to be a distinction
+here, it ought to give the preference to labour. All men are equal by
+nature; nobody denies that they all ought to be <i>equal in the eye of the
+law</i>; but, how are they to be thus equal, if the law begin by suffering
+<i>some</i> to enjoy this right and refusing the enjoyment to <i>others</i>? It is
+the duty of every man to defend his country against an enemy, a duty
+imposed by the <a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a>law of Nature as well as by that of civil society, and
+without the recognition of this duty, there could exist no independent
+nation and no civil society. Yet, how are you to maintain that this is
+the duty of <i>every man</i>, if you deny to <i>some</i> men the enjoyment of a
+share in making the laws? Upon what principle are you to contend for
+<i>equality</i> here, while you deny its existence as to the right of sharing
+in the making of the laws? The poor man has a body and a soul as well as
+the rich man; like the latter, he has parents, wife and children; a
+bullet or a sword is as deadly to him as to the rich man; there are
+hearts to ache and tears to flow for him as well as for the squire or
+the lord or the loan-monger: yet, notwithstanding this equality, he is
+to risk all, and, if he escape, he is still to be denied an equality of
+rights! If, in such a state of things, the artisan or labourer, when
+called out to fight in defence of his country, were to answer: 'Why
+should I risk my life? I have no possession but my <i>labour</i>; no enemy
+will take that from me; you, the rich, possess all the land and all its
+products; you make what laws you please without my participation or
+assent; you punish me at your pleasure; you say that my want of property
+excludes me from the right of having a share in the making of the laws;
+you say that the property that I have in my labour <i>is nothing worth</i>;
+on what ground, then, do you call on me to risk my life?' If, in such a
+case, such questions were put, the answer is very difficult to be
+imagined.</p>
+
+<p>339. In cases of <i>civil commotion</i> the matter comes still more home to
+us. On what ground is the rich man to call the artisan from his shop or
+the labourer from the field to join the sheriff's poss&eacute; or the militia,
+if he refuse to the labourer and artisan the right of sharing in the
+making of the laws? Why are they <a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></a>to risk their lives here? To <i>uphold
+the laws</i>, and to protect <i>property</i>. What! <i>laws</i>, in the making of, or
+assenting to, which they have been allowed to have no share? <i>Property</i>,
+of which they are said to possess none? What! compel men to come forth
+and risk their lives for the <i>protection of property</i>; and then, in the
+same breath, tell them, that they are not allowed to share in the making
+of the laws, because, and <b>ONLY BECAUSE</b>, <i>they have no property</i>! Not
+because they have committed any crime; not because they are idle or
+profligate; not because they are vicious in any way; out solely because
+they have <i>no property</i>; and yet, at the same time, compel them to come
+forth and <i>risk their lives</i> for the <i>protection of property</i>!</p>
+
+<p>340. But, the PAUPERS? Ought <i>they</i> to share in the making of the laws?
+And why not? What is a <i>pauper</i>; what is one of the men to whom this
+degrading appellation is applied? A <i>very poor</i> man; a man who is, from
+some cause or other, unable to supply himself with food and raiment
+without aid from the parish-rates. And, is that circumstance alone to
+deprive him of his right, a right of which he stands more in need than
+any other man? Perhaps he has, for many years of his life, contributed
+directly to those rates; and ten thousand to one he has, by his labour,
+contributed to them indirectly. The aid which, under such circumstances,
+he receives, <i>is his right</i>; he receives it not as <i>an alms</i>: he is no
+mendicant; he begs not; he comes to receive that which <i>the law of the
+country awards him</i> in lieu of the <i>larger portion</i> assigned him by the
+<i>law of Nature</i>. Pray mark that, and let it be deeply engraven on your
+memory. The audacious and merciless MALTHUS (a parson of the church
+establishment) recommended, some years ago, the passing of a law to <i>put
+an end to <a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></a>the giving of parish relief</i>, though he recommended no law to
+put an end to the enormous taxes paid by poor people. In his book he
+said, that the poor should be left to the <i>law of Nature</i>, which, in
+case of their having nothing to buy food with, <i>doomed them to starve</i>.
+They would ask nothing better than to be left to the <i>law of Nature</i>;
+that law which knows nothing about <i>buying</i> food or any thing else; that
+law which bids the hungry and the naked <i>take</i> food and raiment wherever
+they find it best and nearest at hand; that law which awards all
+possessions to the <i>strongest</i>; that law the operations of which would
+clear out the London meat-markets and the drapers' and jewellers' shops
+in about half an hour: to this law the parson wished the parliament to
+leave the poorest of the working people; but, if the parliament had done
+it, it would have been quickly seen, that this law was far from 'dooming
+them to be starved.'</p>
+
+<p>341. Trusting that it is unnecessary for me to express a hope, that
+barbarous thoughts like those of Malthus and his tribe will never be
+entertained by any young man who has read the previous Numbers of this
+work, let me return to my <i>very, very poor man</i>, and ask, whether it be
+consistent with justice, with humanity, with reason, to deprive a man of
+the most precious of his political rights, because, and <i>only because</i>,
+he has been, in a pecuniary way, <i>singularly unfortunate</i>? The Scripture
+says, 'Despise not the poor, <i>because</i> he is poor;' that is to say,
+despise him not <i>on account of his poverty</i>. Why, then, deprive him of
+his right; why put him out of the pale of the law, on account of his
+poverty? There are <i>some</i> men, to be sure, who are reduced to poverty by
+their vices, by idleness, by gaming, by drinking, by squandering; but,
+the far greater part by bodily <a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></a>ailments, by misfortunes to the effects
+of which all men may, without any fault, and even without any folly, be
+exposed: and, is there a man on earth so cruelly unjust as to wish to
+add to the sufferings of such persons by stripping them of their
+political rights? How many thousands of industrious and virtuous men
+have, within these few years, been brought down from a state of
+competence to that of pauperism! And, is it just to strip such men of
+their rights, merely because they are thus brought down? When I was at
+ELY, last spring, there were in that neighbourhood, <i>three paupers</i>
+cracking stones on the roads, who had all three been, not only
+rate-payers, but <i>overseers of the poor</i>, within seven years of the day
+when I was there. Is there any man so barbarous as to say, that these
+men ought, merely on account of their misfortunes, to be deprived of
+their political rights? Their right to receive relief is as perfect as
+any right of property; and, would you, merely because they claim <i>this
+right</i>, strip them of <i>another right</i>? To say no more of the injustice
+and the cruelty, is there reason, is there common sense in this? What!
+if a farmer or tradesman be, by flood or by fire, so totally ruined as
+to be compelled, surrounded by his family, to resort to the parish-book,
+would you break the last heart-string of such a man by making him feel
+the degrading loss of his political rights?</p>
+
+<p>342. Here, young man of sense and of spirit; <i>here is the point</i> on
+which you are to take your stand. There are always men enough to plead
+the cause of the rich; enough and enough to echo the woes of the fallen
+great; but, be it your part to show compassion for those who labour, and
+to maintain <i>their rights</i>. Poverty is not <i>a crime</i>, and, though it
+sometimes arises from faults, it is not, even in that case, <a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></a>to be
+visited by punishment beyond that which it brings with itself. Remember,
+that poverty is decreed by the very nature of man. The Scripture says,
+that 'the poor shall never cease from out of the land;' that is to say,
+that there shall always be some very poor people. This is inevitable
+from the very nature of things. It is necessary to the existence of
+mankind, that a very large portion of every people should live by manual
+labour; and, as such labour is <i>pain</i>, more or less, and as no living
+creature likes pain, it must be, that the far greater part of labouring
+people will endure only just as much of this pain as is absolutely
+necessary to the supply of their <i>daily wants</i>. Experience says that
+this has always been, and reason and nature tell us, that this must
+always be. Therefore, when ailments, when losses, when untoward
+circumstances of any sort, stop or diminish the daily supply, <i>want
+comes</i>; and every just government will provide, from the general stock,
+the means to satisfy this want.</p>
+
+<p>343. Nor is the deepest poverty without its <i>useful effects</i> in society.
+To the practice of the virtues of abstinence, sobriety, care, frugality,
+industry, and even honesty and amiable manners and acquirement of
+talent, the two great motives are, to get upwards in riches or fame, and
+<i>to avoid going downwards to poverty</i>, the last of which is the most
+powerful of the two. It is, therefore, not with contempt, but with
+compassion, that we should look on those, whose state is one of the
+decrees of nature, from whose sad example we profit, and to whom, in
+return, we ought to make compensation by every indulgent and kind act in
+our power, and particularly by a defence of their rights. To those who
+labour, we, who labour not with our hands, owe all that we eat, drink
+and wear; all that shades us by day and that shelters us <a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></a>by night; all
+the means of enjoying health and pleasure; and, therefore, if we possess
+talent for the task, we are ungrateful or cowardly, or both, if we omit
+any effort within our power to prevent them from being <i>slaves</i>; and,
+disguise the matter how we may, <i>a slave</i>, a <i>real slave</i>, every man is,
+who has no share in making the laws which he is compelled to obey.</p>
+
+<p>344. <i>What is a slave</i>? For, let us not be amused by <i>a name</i>; but look
+well into the matter. A slave is, in the first place, a man who has <i>no
+property</i>; and property means something that he <i>has</i>, and that nobody
+can take from him without his leave, or consent. Whatever man, no matter
+what he may call himself or any body else may call him, can have his
+money or his goods taken from him <i>by force</i>, by virtue of an order, or
+ordinance, or law, which he has had no hand in making, and to which he
+has not given his assent, has <i>no property</i>, and is merely a depositary
+of the goods of his master. A slave has <i>no property in his labour</i>; and
+any man who is compelled to give up the fruit of his labour to another,
+at the arbitrary will of that other, has no property in his labour, and
+is, therefore, a slave, whether the fruit of his labour be taken from
+him directly or indirectly. If it be said, that he gives up this fruit
+of his labour by his own will, and that it is <i>not forced from him</i>. I
+answer, To be sure he <i>may</i> avoid eating and drinking and may go naked;
+but, then he must <i>die</i>; and on this condition, and this condition only,
+can he refuse to give up the fruit of his labour; 'Die, wretch, or
+surrender as much of your income, or the fruit of your labour as your
+masters choose to take.' This is, in fact, the language of the rulers to
+every man who is refused to have a share in the making of the laws to
+which he is <i>forced</i> to submit.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a>345. But, some one may say, slaves are <i>private property</i>, and may <i>be
+bought and sold</i>, out and out, like cattle. And, what is it to the
+slave, whether he be property of <i>one</i> or of <i>many</i>; or, what matters it
+to him, whether he pass from master to master by a sale for an
+indefinite term, or be let to hire by the year, month, or week? It is,
+in no case, the flesh and blood and bones that are sold, but the
+<i>labour</i>; and, if you actually sell the labour of man, is not that man
+<i>a slave</i>, though you sell it for only a short time at once? And, as to
+the principle, so ostentatiously displayed in the case of the <i>black</i>
+slave-trade, that '<i>man</i> ought not to have <i>a property in man</i>,' it is
+even an advantage to the slave to be private property, because the owner
+has then a clear and powerful <i>interest</i> in the preservation of his
+life, health and strength, and will, therefore, furnish him amply with
+the food and raiment necessary for these ends. Every one knows, that
+public property is never so well taken care of as private property; and
+this, too, on the maxim, that 'that which is every body's business is
+nobody's business.' Every one knows that a <i>rented</i> farm is not so well
+kept in heart, as a farm in the hands of the <i>owner</i>. And as to
+<i>punishments</i> and <i>restraints</i>, what difference is there, whether these
+be inflicted and imposed by a private owner, or his overseer, or by the
+agents and overseers of a body of proprietors? In short, if you can
+cause a man to be imprisoned or whipped if he do not work enough to
+please you; if you can sell him by auction for a time limited; if you
+can forcibly separate him from his wife to prevent their having
+children; if you can shut him up in his dwelling place when you please,
+and for as long a time as you please; if you can force him to draw a
+cart or wagon like a beast of draught; if you can, <a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></a>when the humour
+seizes you, and at the suggestion of your mere fears, or whim, cause him
+to be shut up in a dungeon during your pleasure: if you can, at your
+pleasure, do these things to him, is it not to be impudently
+hypocritical to affect to call him <i>a free-man</i>? But, after all, these
+may all be wanting, and yet the man be <i>a slave</i>, if he be allowed to
+have <i>no property</i>; and, as I have shown, no property he can have, not
+even in that <i>labour</i>, which is not only property, but the <i>basis</i> of
+all other property, unless he have a <i>share in making the laws</i> to which
+he is compelled to submit.</p>
+
+<p>346. It is said, that he may have this share <i>virtually</i> though not in
+form and <i>name</i>; for that his <i>employers</i> may have such share, and they
+will, as a matter of course, <i>act for him</i>. This doctrine, pushed home,
+would make the <i>chief</i> of the nation the sole maker of the laws; for, if
+the rich can thus <i>act for</i> the poor, why should not the chief act for
+the rich? This matter is very completely explained by the practice in
+the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. There the maxim is, that <i>every free man</i>,
+with the exception of men stained with crime and men insane, has a right
+to have a voice in choosing those who make the laws. The number of
+Representatives sent to the Congress is, in each State, proportioned to
+the number of <i>free people</i>. But, as there are <i>slaves</i> in <i>some</i> of the
+States, these States <i>have a certain portion of additional numbers on
+account of those slaves</i>! Thus the slaves are <i>represented by their
+owners</i>, and this is real, practical, open and undisguised <i>virtual
+representation</i>! No doubt that white men may be represented in the same
+way; for the colour of the skin is nothing; but let them be called
+slaves, then; let it not be pretended that they are <i>free men</i>; let not
+the word <i>liberty</i> be polluted by <a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></a>being applied to their state; let it
+be openly and honestly avowed, as in America, that they <i>are slaves</i>;
+and then will come the question whether men ought to exist in such a
+state, or whether they ought to do every thing in their power to rescue
+themselves from it.</p>
+
+<p>347. If the right to have a share in making the laws were merely a
+feather; if it were a fanciful thing; if it were only a speculative
+theory; if it were but an <i>abstract principle</i>; on any of these
+suppositions, it might be considered as of little importance. But it is
+none of these; it is a practical matter; the want of it not only <i>is</i>,
+but must of necessity be, felt by every man who lives under that want.
+If it were proposed to the shopkeepers in a town, that a rich man or
+two, living in the neighbourhood, should have power to send, <i>whenever
+they pleased</i>, and take away as much as they pleased of the money of the
+shopkeepers, and apply it to what uses they please; what an outcry the
+shopkeepers would make! And yet, what would this be <i>more</i> than taxes
+imposed on those who have no voice in choosing the persons who impose
+them? Who lets another man put his hand into his purse when he pleases?
+Who, that has the power to help himself, surrenders his goods or his
+money to the will of another? Has it not always been, and must it not
+always be, true, that, if your property be at the absolute disposal of
+others, your ruin is certain? And if this be, of necessity, the case
+amongst individuals and parts of the community, it must be the case with
+regard to the whole community.</p>
+
+<p>348. Aye, and experience shows us that it always has been the case. The
+natural and inevitable consequences of a want of this right in the
+people <a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a>have, in all countries, been <i>taxes</i> pressing the industrious
+and laborious to the earth; <i>severe laws</i> and <i>standing armies</i> to
+compel the people to submit to those taxes; wealth, luxury, and
+splendour, amongst those who make the laws and receive the taxes;
+poverty, misery, immorality and crime, amongst those who bear the
+burdens; and at last commotion, revolt, revenge, and rivers of blood.
+Such have always been, and such must always be, the consequences of a
+want of this right of all men to share in the making of the laws, a
+right, as I have before shown, derived immediately from the law of
+Nature, springing up out of the same source with civil society, and
+cherished in the heart of man by reason and by experience.</p>
+
+<p>349. Well, then, this right being that, without the enjoyment of which
+there is, in reality, no right at all, how manifestly is it <i>the first
+duty</i> of every man to do all in his power to <i>maintain</i> this right where
+it exists, and to <i>restore</i> it where it has been lost? For observe, it
+must, at one time, have existed in every <i>civil</i> community, it being
+impossible that it could ever be excluded by any <i>social compact</i>;
+absolutely impossible, because it is contrary to the law of
+self-preservation to believe, that men would agree to give up the rights
+of nature without stipulating for some <i>benefit</i>. Before we can affect
+to believe that this right was not reserved, in such compact, as
+completely as the right to <i>live</i> was reserved, we must affect to
+believe, that millions of men, under no control but that of their own
+passions and desires, and having all the earth and its products at the
+command of their strength and skill, consented to be for ever, they and
+their posterity, the <i>slaves of a few</i>.</p>
+
+<p>350. We cannot believe this, and therefore, <a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a>without going back into
+<i>history</i> and <i>precedents</i>, we must believe, that, in whatever civil
+community this right does not exist, it has been lost, or rather,
+<i>unjustly taken away</i>. And then, having seen the terrible evils which
+always have arisen, and always must arise, from the want of it; being
+convinced that, where lost or taken away by force or fraud, it is our
+very first duty to do all in our power to <i>restore</i> it, the next
+consideration is, <i>how</i> one ought to act in the discharge of this most
+sacred duty; for sacred it is even as the duties of husband and father.
+For, besides the baseness of the thought of quietly submitting to be a
+slave <i>oneself</i>, we have here, besides our duty to the community, a duty
+to perform towards our children and our children's children. We all
+acknowledge that it is our bounden duty to provide, as far as our power
+will go, for the competence, the health, and the good character of our
+children; but, is this duty superior to that of which I am now speaking?
+What is competence, what is health, if the possessor be <i>a slave</i>, and
+hold his possessions at the will of another, or others; as he must do if
+destitute of the right to a share in the making of the laws? What is
+competence, what is health, if both can, at any moment, be snatched away
+by the grasp or the dungeon of a master; and his master he is who makes
+the laws without his participation or assent? And, as to <i>character</i>, as
+to <i>fair fame</i>, when the white slave puts forward pretensions to those,
+let him no longer affect to commiserate the state of his sleek and fat
+brethren in Barbadoes and Jamaica; let him hasten to mix the hair with
+the wool, to blend the white with the black, and to lose the memory of
+his origin amidst a dingy generation.</p>
+
+<p>351. Such, then, being the nature of the duty, <a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></a><i>how</i> are we to go to
+work in the performance of it, and what are our <i>means</i>? With regard to
+these, so various are the circumstances, so endless the differences in
+the states of society, and so many are the cases when it would be
+madness to attempt that which it would be prudence to attempt in others,
+that no <i>general</i> rule can be given beyond this; that, the right and the
+duty being clear to our minds, the <i>means</i> that are <i>surest</i> and
+<i>swiftest</i> are the <i>best</i>. In every such case, however, the great and
+predominant desire ought to be not to employ any means beyond those of
+reason and persuasion, as long as the employment of these afford a
+ground for rational expectation of success. Men are, in such a case,
+labouring, not for the present day only, but for ages to come; and
+therefore they should not slacken in their exertions, because the grave
+may close upon them before the day of final triumph arrive. Amongst the
+virtues of the good Citizen are those of fortitude and patience; and,
+when he has to carry on his struggle against corruptions deep and
+widely-rooted, he is not to expect the baleful tree to come down at a
+single blow; he must patiently remove the earth that props and feeds it,
+and sever the accursed roots one by one.</p>
+
+<p>352. <i>Impatience</i> here is a very bad sign. I do not like your
+<i>patriots</i>, who, because the tree does not give way at once, fall to
+<i>blaming</i> all about them, accuse their fellow-sufferers of cowardice,
+because they do not do that which they themselves dare not think of
+doing. Such conduct argues <i>chagrin</i> and <i>disappointment</i>; and these
+argue a <i>selfish</i> feeling: they argue, that there has been more of
+private ambition and gain at work than of <i>public good</i>. Such blamers,
+such general accusers, are always to be suspected. What does the <i>real</i>
+patriot want <a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a>more than to feel conscious that he has done his duty
+towards his country; and that, if life should not allow him time to see
+his endeavours crowned with success, his children will see it? The
+impatient patriots are like the young men (mentioned in the beautiful
+fable of LA FONTAINE) who ridiculed the man of fourscore, who was
+planting an avenue of very small trees, which, they told him, that he
+never could expect to see as high as his head. 'Well,' said he, 'and
+what of that? If their shade afford me no pleasure, it may afford
+pleasure to my children, and even to you; and, therefore, the planting
+of them gives me pleasure.'</p>
+
+<p>353. It is the want of the noble disinterestedness, so beautifully
+expressed in this fable, that produces the <i>impatient</i> patriots. They
+wish very well to their country, because they want <i>some of the good for
+themselves</i>. Very natural that all men should wish to see the good
+arrive, and wish to share in it too; but, we must look on the dark side
+of nature to find the disposition to cast blame on the whole community
+because our wishes are not instantly accomplished, and especially to
+cast blame on others for not doing that which we ourselves dare not
+attempt. There is, however, a sort of <i>patriot</i> a great deal worse than
+this; he, who having failed himself, would see his country enslaved for
+ever, rather than see its deliverance achieved by others. His failure
+has, perhaps, arisen solely from his want of talent, or discretion; yet
+his selfish heart would wish his country sunk in everlasting
+degradation, lest his inefficiency for the task should be established by
+the success of others. A very hateful character, certainly, but, I am
+sorry to say, by no means rare. <i>Envy</i>, always associated with meanness
+of soul, always detestable, is never so detestable as when it shows
+itself here.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></a>354. Be it your care, my young friend (and I tender you this as my
+parting advice), if you find this base and baleful passion, which the
+poet calls 'the eldest born of hell;' if you find it creeping into your
+heart, be it your care to banish it at once and for ever; for, if once
+it nestle there, farewell to all the good which nature has enabled you
+to do, and to your peace into the bargain. It has pleased God to make an
+unequal distribution of talent, of industry, of perseverance, of a
+capacity to labour, of all the qualities that give men distinction. We
+have not been our own makers: it is no fault in you that nature has
+placed him above you, and, surely, it is no fault in him; and would you
+<i>punish</i> him on account, and only on account, of his pre-eminence! If
+you have read this book you will startle with horror at the thought: you
+will, as to public matters, act with zeal and with good humour, though
+the place you occupy be far removed from the first; you will support
+with the best of your abilities others, who, from whatever circumstance,
+may happen to take the lead; you will not suffer even the consciousness
+and the certainty of your own superior talents to urge you to do any
+thing which might by possibility be injurious to your country's cause;
+you will be forbearing under the aggressions of ignorance, conceit,
+arrogance, and even the blackest of ingratitude superadded, if by
+resenting these you endanger the general good; and, above all things,
+you will have the justice to bear in mind, that that country which gave
+you birth, is, to the last hour of your capability, entitled to your
+exertions in her behalf, and that you ought not, by acts of commission
+or of omission, to visit upon her the wrongs which may have been
+inflicted on you by the envy and malice of individuals. Love of one's
+native <a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"></a>soil is a feeling which nature has implanted in the human
+breast, and that has always been peculiarly strong in the breasts of
+Englishmen. God has given us a country of which to be proud, and that
+freedom, greatness and renown, which were handed down to us by our wise
+and brave forefathers, bid us perish to the last man, rather than suffer
+the land of their graves to become a land of slavery, impotence and
+dishonour.</p>
+
+<p>355. In the words with which I concluded my English Grammar, which I
+addressed to my son James, I conclude my advice to you. 'With English
+and French on your tongue and in your pen, you have a resource, not only
+greatly valuable in itself, but a resource that you can be deprived of
+by none of those changes and chances which deprive men of pecuniary
+possessions, and which, in some cases, make the purse-proud man of
+yesterday a crawling sycophant to-day. Health, without which life is not
+worth having, you will hardly fail to secure by early rising, exercise,
+sobriety, and abstemiousness as to food. Happiness, or misery, is in the
+<i>mind</i>. It is the mind that lives; and the length of life ought to be
+measured by the number and importance of our ideas, and not by the
+number of our days. Never, therefore, esteem men merely on account of
+their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.
+Honour talent wherever you behold it unassociated with vice; but, honour
+it most when accompanied with exertion, and especially when exerted in
+the cause of truth and justice; and, above all things, hold it in
+honour, when it steps forward to protect defenceless innocence against
+the attacks of powerful guilt.' These words, addressed to my own son, I
+now, in taking my leave, address to you. Be just, be <a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"></a>industrious, be
+sober, and be happy; and the hope that these effects will, in some
+degree, have been caused by this little work, will add to the happiness
+of</p>
+
+<div>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Your friend and humble servant,</span> <br /> <br />
+
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">WM. COBBETT.</span> <br /> <br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Kensington, 25th Aug. 1830.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Advice to Young Men, by William Cobbett
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Advice to Young Men
+       And (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life. In a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Youth, a Bachelor, a Lover, a Husband, a Father, a Citizen, or a Subject.
+
+
+Author: William Cobbett
+
+Release Date: March 30, 2005  [eBook #15510]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, William Avery, and the Project
+Gutenber Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+COBBETT'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN
+
+And (Incidentally) to Young Women, in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life.
+In a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Youth, a Bachelor, a Lover,
+a Husband, a Father, a Citizen, or a Subject.
+
+by
+
+WILLIAM COBBETT
+
+(From the Edition of 1829)
+London
+Henry Frowde
+1906
+Oxford: Horace Hart
+Printer to the University
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+1. It is the duty, and ought to be the pleasure, of age and experience
+to warn and instruct youth and to come to the aid of inexperience. When
+sailors have discovered rocks or breakers, and have had the good luck to
+escape with life from amidst them, they, unless they be pirates or
+barbarians as well as sailors, point out the spots for the placing of
+buoys and of lights, in order that others may not be exposed to the
+danger which they have so narrowly escaped. What man of common humanity,
+having, by good luck, missed being engulfed in a quagmire or quicksand,
+will withhold from his neighbours a knowledge of the peril without which
+the dangerous spots are not to be approached?
+
+2. The great effect which correct opinions and sound principles, imbibed
+in early life, together with the good conduct, at that age, which must
+naturally result from such opinions and principles; the great effect
+which these have on the whole course of our lives is, and must be, well
+known to every man of common observation. How many of us, arrived at
+only forty years, have to repent; nay, which of us has not to repent, or
+has not had to repent, that he did not, at an earlier age, possess a
+great stock of knowledge of that kind which has an immediate effect on
+our personal ease and happiness; that kind of knowledge, upon which the
+cheerfulness and the harmony of our homes depend!
+
+3. It is to communicate a stock of this sort of knowledge, in
+particular, that this work is intended; knowledge, indeed, relative to
+education, to many sciences, to trade, agriculture, horticulture, law,
+government, and religion; knowledge relating, incidentally, to all
+these; but, the main object is to furnish that sort of knowledge to the
+young which but few men acquire until they be old, when it comes too
+late to be useful.
+
+4. To communicate to others the knowledge that I possess has always been
+my taste and my delight; and few, who know anything of my progress
+through life, will be disposed to question my fitness for the task. Talk
+of rocks and breakers and quagmires and quicksands, who has ever escaped
+from amidst so many as I have! Thrown (by my own will, indeed) on the
+wide world at a very early age, not more than eleven or twelve years,
+without money to support, without friends to advise, and without
+book-learning to assist me; passing a few years dependent solely on my
+own labour for my subsistence; then becoming a common soldier and
+leading a military life, chiefly in foreign parts, for eight years;
+quitting that life after really, for me, high promotion, and with, for
+me, a large sum of money; marrying at an early age, going at once to
+France to acquire the French language, thence to America; passing eight
+years there, becoming bookseller and author, and taking a prominent part
+in all the important discussions of the interesting period from 1793 to
+1799, during which there was, in that country, a continued struggle
+carried on between the English and the French parties; conducting
+myself, in the ever-active part which I took in that struggle, in such a
+way as to call forth marks of unequivocal approbation from the
+government at home; returning to England in 1800, resuming my labours
+here, suffering, during these twenty-nine years, two years of
+imprisonment, heavy fines, three years self-banishment to the other side
+of the Atlantic, and a total breaking of fortune, so as to be left
+without a bed to lie on, and, during these twenty-nine years of troubles
+and of punishments, writing and publishing, every week of my life,
+whether in exile or not, eleven weeks only excepted, a periodical paper,
+containing more or less of matter worthy of public attention; writing
+and publishing, during _the same twenty-nine years_, a grammar of the
+French and another of the English language, a work on the Economy of the
+Cottage, a work on Forest Trees and Woodlands, a work on Gardening, an
+account of America, a book of Sermons, a work on the Corn-plant, a
+History of the Protestant Reformation; all books of great and continued
+sale, and the _last_ unquestionably the book of greatest circulation in
+the whole world, the Bible only excepted; having, during _these same
+twenty-nine years_ of troubles and embarrassments without number,
+introduced into England the manufacture of Straw-plat; also several
+valuable trees; having introduced, during _the same twenty-nine years_,
+the cultivation of the Corn-plant, so manifestly valuable as a source of
+food; having, during the same period, always (whether in exile or not)
+sustained a shop of some size, in London; having, during the whole of
+the same period, never employed less, on an average, than ten persons,
+in some capacity or other, exclusive of printers, bookbinders, and
+others, connected with papers and books; and having, during these
+twenty-nine years of troubles, embarrassments, prisons, fines, and
+banishments, bred up a family of seven children to man's and woman's
+state.
+
+5. If such a man be not, after he has survived and accomplished all
+this, qualified to give Advice to Young Men, no man is qualified for
+that task. There may have been natural _genius_: but genius _alone_, not
+all the genius in the world, could, without _something more_, have
+conducted me through these perils. During these twenty-nine years, I
+have had for deadly and ever-watchful foes, a government that has the
+collecting and distributing of sixty millions of pounds in a year, and
+also every soul who shares in that distribution. Until very lately, I
+have had, for the far greater part of the time, the whole of the press
+as my deadly enemy. Yet, at this moment, it will not be pretended, that
+there is another man in the kingdom, who has so many cordial friends.
+For as to the _friends_ of _ministers_ and the _great_, the friendship
+is towards the _power_, the _influence_; it is, in fact, towards _those
+taxes_, of which so many thousands are gaping to get at a share. And, if
+we could, through so thick a veil, come at the naked fact, we should
+find the subscription, now going on in Dublin for the purpose of
+erecting a monument in that city, to commemorate the good recently done,
+or alleged to be done, to Ireland, by the DUKE of WELLINGTON; we should
+find, that the subscribers have _the taxes_ in view; and that, if the
+monument shall actually be raised, it ought to have _selfishness_, and
+not _gratitude_, engraven on its base. Nearly the same may be said with
+regard to all the praises that we hear bestowed on men in power. The
+friendship which is felt towards me is pure and disinterested: it is not
+founded in any hope that the parties can have, that they can ever
+_profit_ from professing it: it is founded on the gratitude which they
+entertain for the good that I _have done_ them; and, of this sort of
+friendship, and friendship so cordial, no man ever possessed a larger
+portion.
+
+6. Now, mere _genius_ will not acquire this for a man. There must be
+something more than _genius_: there must be industry: there must be
+perseverance: there must be, before the eyes of the nation, proofs of
+extraordinary exertion: people must say to themselves, 'What wise
+conduct must there have been in the employing of the time of this man!
+How sober, how sparing in diet, how early a riser, how little expensive
+he must have been!' These are the things, and _not genius_, which have
+caused my labours to be so incessant and so successful: and, though I do
+not affect to believe, that _every young man_, who shall read this work,
+will become able to perform labours of equal magnitude and importance, I
+do pretend, that _every_ young man, who will attend to my advice, will
+become able to perform a great deal more than men generally do perform,
+whatever may be his situation in life; and, that he will, too, perform
+it with greater ease and satisfaction than he would, without the advice,
+be able to perform the smaller portion.
+
+7. I have had, from thousands of young men, and men advanced in years
+also, letters of thanks for the great benefit which they have derived
+from my labours. Some have thanked me for my Grammars, some for my
+Cottage Economy, others for the Woodlands and the Gardener; and, in
+short, for every one of my works have I received letters of thanks from
+numerous persons, of whom I had never heard before. In many cases I have
+been told, that, if the parties had had my books to read some years
+before, the gain to them, whether in time or in other things, would have
+been very great. Many, and a great many, have told me, that, though long
+at school, and though their parents had paid for their being taught
+English Grammar, or French, they had, in a short time, learned more from
+my books, on those subjects, than they had learned, in years, from their
+teachers. How many gentlemen have thanked me, in the strongest terms,
+for my Woodlands and Gardener, observing (just as Lord Bacon had
+observed in his time) that they had before seen no books, on these
+subjects, that they could _understand_! But, I know not of anything that
+ever gave me more satisfaction than I derived from the visit of a
+gentleman of fortune, whom I had never heard of before, and who, about
+four years ago, came to thank me in person for a complete reformation,
+which had been worked in his son by the reading of my two SERMONS on
+_drinking_ and on _gaming_.
+
+8. I have, therefore, done, already, a great deal in this way: but,
+there is still wanting, in a compact form, a body of ADVICE such as that
+which I now propose to give: and in the giving of which I shall divide
+my matter as follows. 1. Advice addressed to a YOUTH; 2. Advice
+addressed to a BACHELOR; 3. Advice addressed to a LOVER; 4. To a
+HUSBAND; 5. To a FATHER; 6. To a CITIZEN or SUBJECT.
+
+9. Some persons will smile, and others laugh outright, at the idea of
+'Cobbett's giving advice for conducting the affairs of _love_.' Yes, but
+I was once young, and surely I may say with the poet, I forget which of
+them,
+
+  'Though old I am, for ladies' love unfit,
+  The power of beauty I remember yet.'
+
+I forget, indeed, the _names_ of the ladies as completely, pretty nigh,
+as I do that of the poets; but I remember their influence, and of this
+influence on the conduct and in the affairs and on the condition of men,
+I have, and must have, been a witness all my life long. And, when we
+consider in how great a degree the happiness of all the remainder of a
+man's life depends, and always must depend, on his taste and judgment in
+the character of a lover, this may well be considered as the most
+important period of the whole term of his existence.
+
+10. In my address to the HUSBAND, I shall, of course, introduce advice
+relative to the important duties of _masters_ and _servants_; duties of
+great importance, whether considered as affecting families or as
+affecting the community. In my address to the CITIZEN or SUBJECT, I
+shall consider all the reciprocal duties of the governors and the
+governed, and also the duties which man owes to his neighbour. It would
+be tedious to attempt to lay down rules for conduct exclusively
+applicable to every distinct calling, profession, and condition of life;
+but, under the above-described heads, will be conveyed every species of
+advice of which I deem the utility to be unquestionable.
+
+11. I have thus fully described the nature of my little work, and,
+before I enter on the first Letter, I venture to express a hope, that
+its good effects will be felt long after its author shall have ceased to
+exist.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I
+
+TO A YOUTH
+
+12. You are now arrived at that age which the law thinks sufficient to
+make an oath, taken by you, valid in a court of law. Let us suppose from
+fourteen to nearly twenty; and, reserving, for a future occasion, my
+remarks on your duty towards parents, let me here offer you my advice as
+to the means likely to contribute largely towards making you a happy
+man, useful to all about you, and an honour to those from whom you
+sprang.
+
+13. Start, I beseech you, with a conviction firmly fixed on your mind,
+that you have no right to live in this world; that, being of hale body
+and sound mind, you have _no right_ to any earthly existence, without
+doing _work_ of some sort or other, unless you have ample fortune
+whereon to live clear of debt; and, that even in that case, you have no
+right to breed children, to be kept by others, or to be exposed to the
+chance of being so kept. Start with this conviction thoroughly implanted
+on your mind. To wish to live on the labour of others is, besides the
+folly of it, to contemplate a _fraud_ at the least, and, under certain
+circumstances, to meditate oppression and robbery.
+
+14. I suppose you in the middle rank of life. Happiness ought to be your
+great object, and it is to be found only in _independence_. Turn your
+back on Whitehall and on Somerset-House; leave the Customs and Excise to
+the feeble and low-minded; look not for success to favour, to
+partiality, to friendship, or to what is called _interest_: write it on
+your heart, that you will depend solely on your own merit and your own
+exertions. Think not, neither, of any of those situations where gaudy
+habiliments and sounding titles poorly disguise from the eyes of good
+sense the mortifications and the heart-ache of slaves. Answer me not by
+saying, that these situations '_must be_ filled by _somebody_;' for, if
+I were to admit the truth of the proposition, which I do not, it would
+remain for you to show that they are conducive to happiness, the
+contrary of which has been proved to me by the observation of a now
+pretty long life.
+
+15. Indeed, reason tells us, that it must be thus: for that which a man
+owes to favour or to partiality, that same favour or partiality is
+constantly liable to take from him. He who lives upon anything except
+his own labour, is incessantly surrounded by rivals: his grand resource
+is that servility in which he is always liable to be surpassed. He is in
+daily danger of being out-bidden; his very bread depends upon caprice;
+and he lives in a state of uncertainty and never-ceasing fear. His is
+not, indeed, the dog's life, '_hunger_ and idleness;' but it is worse;
+for it is 'idleness with _slavery_,' the latter being the just price of
+the former. Slaves frequently are well _fed_ and well _clad_; but slaves
+dare not _speak_; they dare not be suspected to _think_ differently from
+their masters: hate his acts as much as they may; be he tyrant, be he
+drunkard, be he fool, or be he all three at once, they must be silent,
+or, nine times out of ten, affect approbation: though possessing a
+thousand times his knowledge, they must feign a conviction of his
+superior understanding; though knowing that it is they who, in fact, do
+all that he is paid for doing, it is destruction to them to _seem as if
+they thought_ any portion of the service belonged to them! Far from me
+be the thought, that any youth who shall read this page would not rather
+perish than submit to live in a state like this! Such a state is fit
+only for the refuse of nature; the halt, the half-blind, the unhappy
+creatures whom nature has marked out for degradation.
+
+16. And how comes it, then, that we see hale and even clever youths
+voluntarily bending their necks to this slavery; nay, pressing forward
+in eager rivalship to assume the yoke that ought to be insupportable?
+The cause, and the only cause, is, that the deleterious fashion of the
+day has created so many artificial wants, and has raised the minds of
+young men so much above their real rank and state of life, that they
+look scornfully on the employment, the fare, and the dress, that would
+become them; and, in order to avoid that state in which they might live
+_free_ and _happy_, they become _showy slaves_.
+
+17. The great source of independence, the French express in a precept of
+three words, '_Vivre de peu_,' which I have always very much admired.
+'_To live upon little_' is the great security against slavery; and this
+precept extends to dress and other things besides food and drink. When
+DOCTOR JOHNSON wrote his Dictionary, he put in the word pensioner thus:
+'PENSIONER--_A slave of state_.' After this he himself became a
+_pensioner_! And thus, agreeably to his own definition, he lived and
+died '_a slave of state_!' What must this man of great genius, and of
+great industry too, have felt at receiving this pension! Could he be so
+callous as not to feel a pang upon seeing his own name placed before his
+own degrading definition? And what could induce him to submit to this?
+His wants, his artificial wants, his habit of indulging in the pleasures
+of the table; his disregard of the precept '_Vivre de peu_.' This was
+the cause; and, be it observed, that indulgences of this sort, while
+they tend to make men poor and expose them to commit mean acts, tend
+also to enfeeble the body, and more especially to cloud and to weaken
+the mind.
+
+18. When this celebrated author wrote his Dictionary, he had not been
+debased by luxurious enjoyments; the rich and powerful had not caressed
+him into a slave; his writings then bore the stamp of truth and
+independence: but, having been debased by luxury, he who had, while
+content with plain fare, been the strenuous advocate of the rights of
+the people, became a strenuous advocate for _taxation without
+representation_; and, in a work under the title of '_Taxation no
+Tyranny_,' defended, and greatly assisted to produce, that unjust and
+bloody war which finally severed from England that great country the
+United states of America, now the most powerful and dangerous rival that
+this kingdom ever had. The statue of Dr. JOHNSON was the first that was
+put into St. PAUL'S CHURCH! A signal warning to us not to look upon
+monuments in honour of the dead as a proof of their virtues; for here we
+see St. PAUL'S CHURCH holding up to the veneration of posterity a man
+whose own writings, together with the records of the pension list, prove
+him to have been '_a slave of state_.'
+
+19. Endless are the instances of men of bright parts and high spirit
+having been, by degrees, rendered powerless and despicable, by their
+imaginary wants. Seldom has there been a man with a fairer prospect of
+accomplishing great things and of acquiring lasting renown, than CHARLES
+FOX: he had great talents of the most popular sort; the times were
+singularly favourable to an exertion of them with success; a large part
+of the nation admired him and were his partisans; he had, as to the
+great question between him and his rival (PITT), reason and justice
+clearly on his side: but he had against him his squandering and
+luxurious habits: these made him dependent on the rich part of his
+partisans; made his wisdom subservient to opulent folly or selfishness;
+deprived his country of all the benefit that it might have derived from
+his talents; and, finally, sent him to the grave without a single sigh
+from a people, a great part of whom would, in his earlier years, have
+wept at his death as at a national calamity.
+
+20. Extravagance in _dress_, in the haunting of _play-houses_, in
+_horses_, in everything else, is to be avoided, and, in youths and young
+men, extravagance in _dress_ particularly. This sort of extravagance,
+this waste of money on the decoration of the body, arises solely from
+vanity, and from vanity of the most contemptible sort. It arises from
+the notion, that all the people in the street, for instance, will be
+_looking at you_ as soon as you walk out; and that they will, in a
+greater or less degree, think the better of you on account of your fine
+dress. Never was notion more false. All the sensible people that happen
+to see you, will think nothing at all about you: those who are filled
+with the same vain notion as you are, will perceive your attempt to
+impose on them, and will despise you accordingly: rich people will
+wholly disregard you, and you will be envied and hated by those who have
+the same vanity that you have without the means of gratifying it. Dress
+should be suited to your rank and station; a surgeon or physician should
+not dress like a carpenter! but there is no reason why a tradesman, a
+merchant's clerk, or clerk of any kind, or why a shopkeeper or
+manufacturer, or even a merchant; no reason at all why any of these
+should dress in an _expensive_ manner. It is a great mistake to suppose,
+that they derive any advantage from exterior decoration. Men are
+estimated by other _men_ according to their capacity and willingness to
+be in some way or other _useful_; and though, with the foolish and vain
+part of _women_, fine clothes frequently do something, yet the greater
+part of the sex are much too penetrating to draw their conclusions
+solely from the outside show of a man: they look deeper, and find other
+criterions whereby to judge. And, after all, if the fine clothes obtain
+you a wife, will they bring you, in that wife, _frugality, good sense_,
+and that sort of attachment that is likely to be lasting? Natural beauty
+of person is quite another thing: this always has, it always will and
+must have, some weight even with men, and great weight with women. But
+this does not want to be set off by expensive clothes. Female eyes are,
+in such cases, very sharp: they can discover beauty though half hidden
+by beard and even by dirt and surrounded by rags: and, take this as a
+secret worth half a fortune to you, that women, however personally vain
+they may be themselves, _despise personal vanity in men_.
+
+21. Let your dress be as cheap as may be without _shabbiness_; think
+more about the colour of your shirt than about the gloss or texture of
+your coat; be always as _clean_ as your occupation will, without
+inconvenience, permit; but never, no, not for one moment, believe, that
+any human being, with sense in his skull, will love or respect you on
+account of your fine or costly clothes. A great misfortune of the
+present day is, that every one is, in his own estimate, _raised above
+his real state of life_: every one seems to think himself entitled, if
+not to title and great estate, at least _to live without work_. This
+mischievous, this most destructive, way of thinking has, indeed, been
+produced, like almost all our other evils, by the Acts of our Septennial
+and Unreformed Parliament. That body, by its Acts, has caused an
+enormous Debt to be created, and, in consequence, a prodigious sum to be
+raised annually in taxes. It has caused, by these means, a race of
+loan-mongers and stock-jobbers to arise. These carry on a species of
+_gaming_, by which some make fortunes in a day, and others, in a day,
+become beggars. The unfortunate gamesters, like the purchasers of blanks
+in a lottery, are never heard of; but the fortunate ones become
+companions for lords, and some of them lords themselves. We have, within
+these few years, seen many of these gamesters get fortunes of a quarter
+of a million in a few days, and then we have heard them, though
+notoriously amongst the lowest and basest of human creatures, called
+'_honourable gentlemen_'! In such a state of things, who is to expect
+patient industry, laborious study, frugality and care; who, in such a
+state of things, is to expect these to be employed in pursuit of that
+competence which it is the laudable wish of all men to secure? Not long
+ago a man, who had served his time to a tradesman in London, became,
+instead of pursuing his trade, a stock-jobber, or gambler; and, in about
+_two years_, drove his _coach-and-four_, had his town house and country
+house, and visited, and was visited by, _peers of the highest rank_! A
+_fellow-apprentice_ of this lucky gambler, though a tradesman in
+excellent business, seeing no earthly reason why _he_ should not have
+his coach-and-four also, turned his stock in trade into a stake for the
+'Change; but, alas! at the end of a few months, instead of being in a
+coach-and-four, he was in the _Gazette_!
+
+22. This is one instance out of hundreds of thousands; not, indeed,
+exactly of the same description, but all arising from the same copious
+source. The words _speculate_ and _speculation_ have been substituted
+for _gamble_ and _gambling_. The hatefulness of the pursuit is thus
+taken away; and, while taxes to the amount of more than double the whole
+of the rental of the kingdom; while these cause such crowds of idlers,
+every one of whom calls himself a _gentleman_, and avoids the appearance
+of working for his bread; while this is the case, who is to wonder, that
+a great part of the youth of the country, knowing themselves to be as
+_good_, as _learned_, and as _well-bred_ as these _gentlemen_; who is to
+wonder, that they think, that they also ought to be considered as
+_gentlemen_? Then, the late _war_ (also the work of the Septennial
+Parliament) has left us, amongst its many legacies, such swarms of
+_titled_ men and women; such swarms of '_Sirs_' and their '_Ladies_';
+men and women who, only the other day, were the fellow-apprentices,
+fellow-tradesmen's or farmers' sons and daughters, or indeed, the
+fellow-servants, of those who are now in these several states of life;
+the late Septennial Parliament war has left us such swarms of these,
+that it is no wonder that the heads of young people are turned, and that
+they are ashamed of that state of life to act their part well in which
+ought to be their delight.
+
+23. But, though the cause of the evil is in Acts of the Septennial
+Parliament; though this universal desire in people to be thought to be
+above their station; though this arises from such acts; and, though it
+is no wonder that young men are thus turned from patient study and
+labour; though these things be undoubted, they form no reason why I
+should not _warn you_ against becoming a victim to this national
+scourge. For, in spite of every art made use of to avoid labour, the
+taxes will, after all, maintain only _so many_ idlers. We cannot all be
+'_knights_' and '_gentlemen_': there must be a large part of us, after
+all, to make and mend clothes and houses, and carry on trade and
+commerce, and, in spite of all that we can do, the far greater part of
+us must actually _work_ at something; for, unless we can get at some of
+the taxes, we fall under the sentence of Holy Writ, 'He who will not
+_work_ shall not _eat_.' Yet, so strong is the propensity to be thought
+'_gentlemen_'; so general is this desire amongst the youth of this
+formerly laborious and unassuming nation; a nation famed for its pursuit
+of wealth through the channels of patience, punctuality, and integrity;
+a nation famed for its love of solid acquisitions and qualities, and its
+hatred of everything showy and false: so general is this really
+fraudulent desire amongst the youth of this now '_speculating_' nation,
+that thousands upon thousands of them are, at this moment, in a state of
+half starvation, not so much because they are too _lazy_ to earn their
+bread, as because they are too _proud_! And what are the _consequences_?
+Such a youth remains or becomes a burden to his parents, of whom he
+ought to be the comfort, if not the support. Always aspiring to
+something higher than he can reach, his life is a life of disappointment
+and of shame. If marriage _befal_ him, it is a real affliction,
+involving others as well as himself. His lot is a thousand times worse
+than that of the common labouring pauper. Nineteen times out of twenty a
+premature death awaits him: and, alas! how numerous are the cases in
+which that death is most miserable, not to say ignominious! _Stupid
+pride_ is one of the symptoms of _madness_. Of the two madmen mentioned
+in Don Quixote, one thought himself NEPTUNE, and the other JUPITER.
+Shakspeare agrees with CERVANTES; for, Mad Tom, in King Lear, being
+asked who he is, answers, 'I am a _tailor_ run mad with _pride_.' How
+many have we heard of, who claimed relationship with _noblemen_ and
+_kings_; while of not a few each has thought himself the Son of God! To
+the public journals, and to the observations of every one, nay, to the
+'_county-lunatic asylums_' (things never heard of in England till now),
+I appeal for the fact of the vast and hideous _increase of madness in
+this country_; and, within these very few years, how many scores of
+young men, who, if their minds had been unperverted by the gambling
+principles of the day, had a probably long and happy life before them;
+who had talent, personal endowments, love of parents, love of friends,
+admiration of large circles; who had, in short, everything to make life
+desirable, and who, from mortified pride, founded on false pretensions,
+_have put an end to their own existence_!
+
+24. As to DRUNKENNESS and GLUTTONY, generally so called, these are vices
+so nasty and beastly that I deem any one capable of indulging in them to
+be wholly unworthy of my advice; and, if any youth unhappily initiated
+in these odious and debasing vices should happen to read what I am now
+writing, I refer him to the command of God, conveyed to the Israelites
+by Moses, in Deuteronomy, chap. xxi. The father and mother are to take
+the bad son 'and bring him to the elders of the city; and they shall say
+to the elders, This our son will not obey our voice: he is a _glutton_
+and a _drunkard_. And all the men of the city shall stone him with
+stones, that he die.' I refer downright beastly gluttons and drunkards
+to this; but indulgence short, _far short_, of this gross and really
+nasty drunkenness and gluttony is to be deprecated, and that, too, with
+the more earnestness because it is too often looked upon as being no
+crime at all, and as having nothing blameable in it; nay, there are many
+persons who _pride_ themselves on their refined taste in matters
+connected with eating and drinking: so far from being ashamed of
+employing their thoughts on the subject, it is their boast that they do
+it. St. Gregory, one of the Christian fathers, says: 'It is not the
+_quantity_ or the _quality_ of the meat, or drink, but the _love of it_
+that is condemned;' that is to say, the indulgence beyond the absolute
+demands of nature; the hankering after it; the neglect of some duty or
+other for the sake of the enjoyments of the table.
+
+25. This _love_ of what are called 'good eating and drinking,' if very
+unamiable in grown-up persons, is perfectly hateful in _a youth_; and,
+if he indulge in the propensity, he is already half ruined. To warn you
+against acts of fraud, robbery, and violence, is not my province; that
+is the business of those who make and administer _the law_. I am not
+talking to you against acts which the jailor and the hangman punish; nor
+against those moral offences which all men condemn; but against
+indulgences, which, by men in general, are deemed not only harmless, but
+meritorious; but which the observation of my whole life has taught me to
+regard as destructive to human happiness, and against which all ought to
+be cautioned even in their boyish days. I have been a great observer,
+and I can truly say, that I have never known a man, 'fond of good eating
+and drinking,' as it is called; that I have never known such a man (and
+hundreds I have known) who was worthy of respect.
+
+26. Such indulgences are, in the first place, very _expensive_. The
+materials are costly, and the preparations still more so. What a
+monstrous thing, that, in order to satisfy the appetite of a man, there
+must be a person or two _at work every day_! More fuel, culinary
+implements, kitchen-room; what! all these merely to tickle the palate of
+four or five people, and especially people who can hardly pay their way!
+And, then, the _loss of time_: the time spent in pleasing the palate: it
+is truly horrible to behold people who ought to be at work, sitting, at
+the three meals, not less than three of the about fourteen hours that
+they are out of their beds! A youth, habituated to this sort of
+indulgence, cannot be valuable to any employer. Such a youth cannot be
+deprived of his table-enjoyments on any account: his eating and drinking
+form the momentous concern of his life: if business interfere with that,
+the business must give way. A young man, some years ago, offered himself
+to me, on a particular occasion, as an _amanuensis_, for which he
+appeared to be perfectly qualified. The terms were settled, and I, who
+wanted the job dispatched, requested him to sit down, and begin; but he,
+looking out of the window, whence he could see the church clock, said,
+somewhat hastily, 'I _cannot_ stop _now_, sir, I must go to _dinner_.'
+'Oh!' said I, 'you _must_ go to dinner, must you! Let the dinner, which
+you _must_ wait upon to-day, have your constant services, then: for you
+and I shall never agree.' He had told me that he was in _great distress_
+for want of employment; and yet, when relief was there before his eyes,
+he could forego it for the sake of getting at his eating and drinking
+three or four hours, perhaps, sooner than I should have thought it right
+for him to leave off work. Such a person cannot be sent from home,
+except at certain times; he _must_ be near the kitchen at three fixed
+hours of the day; if he be absent more than four or five hours, he is
+ill-treated. In short, a youth thus pampered is worth nothing as a
+person to be employed in business.
+
+27. And, as to _friends_ and _acquaintances_; they will _say_ nothing to
+you; they will _offer_ you indulgences under their roofs; but the more
+ready you are to accept of their offers, and, in fact, the better
+_taste_ you discover, the less they will like you, and the sooner they
+will find means of shaking you off; for, besides the _cost_ which you
+occasion them, people do not like to have _critics_ sitting in judgment
+on their bottles and dishes. _Water-drinkers_ are universally _laughed
+at_; but, it has always seemed to me, that they are amongst the most
+welcome of guests, and that, too, though the host be by no means of a
+niggardly turn. The truth is, they give _no trouble_; they occasion _no
+anxiety_ to please them; they are sure not to make their sittings
+_inconveniently long_; and, which is the great thing of all, their
+example teaches _moderation_ to the rest of the company. Your notorious
+'lovers of good cheer' are, on the contrary, not to be invited without
+_due reflection_: to entertain one of them is a serious business; and as
+people are not apt voluntarily to undertake such pieces of business, the
+well-known 'lovers of good eating and drinking' are left, very
+generally, to enjoy it by themselves and at their own expense.
+
+28. But, all other considerations aside, _health_, the most valuable of
+all earthly possessions, and without which all the rest are worth
+nothing, bids us, not only to refrain from _excess_ in eating and
+drinking, but bids us to stop short of what might be indulged in without
+any apparent impropriety. The words of ECCLESIASTICUS ought to be read
+once a week by every young person in the world, and particularly by the
+young people of this country at this time. 'Eat modestly that which is
+set before thee, and _devour_ not, lest thou be _hated_. When thou
+sittest amongst many, reach not thine hand out first of all. _How little
+is sufficient for man well taught! A wholesome sleep_ cometh of a
+temperate belly. Such a man _riseth up in the morning_, and is _well at
+ease with himself_. Be not too hasty of meats; for excess of meats
+bringeth sickness, and choleric disease cometh of gluttony. By surfeit
+have many perished, and he that _dieteth himself prolongeth his life_.
+Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many. Wine
+measurably taken, and in season, bringeth gladness and cheerfulness of
+mind; but drinking with excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings and
+scoldings.' How true are these words! How well worthy of a constant
+place in our memories! Yet, what pains have been taken to apologise for
+a life contrary to these precepts! And, good God! what punishment can be
+too great, what mark of infamy sufficiently signal, for those pernicious
+villains of talent, who have employed that talent in the composition of
+_Bacchanalian songs_; that is to say, pieces of fine and captivating
+writing in praise of one of the most odious and destructive vices in the
+black catalogue of human depravity!
+
+29. In the passage which I have just quoted from chap. xxxi. of
+ECCLESIASTICUS, it is said, that 'wine, _measurably_ taken, and in
+_season_,' is a _proper thing_. This, and other such passages of the Old
+Testament, have given a handle to drunkards, and to extravagant people,
+to insist, that _God intended_ that _wine_ should be _commonly_ drunk.
+No doubt of that. But, then, he could intend this only _in countries in
+which he had given wine_, and to which he had given no cheaper drink
+except _water_. If it be said, as it truly may, that, by the means of
+the _sea_ and the _winds_, he has given wine to all _countries_, I
+answer that this gift is of no use to us _now_, because our government
+steps in between the sea and the winds and us. _Formerly_, indeed, the
+case was different; and, here I am about to give you, incidentally, a
+piece of _historical knowledge_, which you will not have acquired from
+HUME, GOLDSMITH, or any other of the romancers called historians. Before
+that unfortunate event, the _Protestant Reformation_, as it is called,
+took place, the price of RED WINE, in England, was _fourpence a gallon_,
+Winchester measure; and of WHITE WINE, _sixpence a gallon_. At the same
+time the pay of a labouring man per day, as fixed by law, was
+_fourpence_. Now, when a labouring man could earn _four quarts of good
+wine in a day_, it was, doubtless, allowable, even in England, for
+people in the middle rank of life to drink wine _rather commonly_; and,
+therefore, in those happy days of England, these passages of Scripture
+were applicable enough. But, _now_, when we have got a _Protestant_
+government, which by the taxes which it makes people pay to it, causes
+the _eighth part of a gallon_ of wine to cost more than the pay of a
+labouring man for a day; _now_, this passage of Scripture is not
+applicable to us. There is no '_season_' in which we can take wine
+without ruining ourselves, however '_measurably_' we may take it; and I
+beg you to regard, as perverters of Scripture and as seducers of youth,
+all those who cite passages like that above cited, in justification of,
+or as an apology for, the practice of wine-drinking in England.
+
+30. I beseech you to look again and again at, and to remember every word
+of, the passage which I have just quoted from the book of
+ECCLESIASTICUS. How completely have been, and are, its words verified by
+my experience and in my person! How little of eating and drinking is
+sufficient for me! How wholesome is my sleep! How early do I rise; and
+how '_well at ease_' am I 'with myself!' I should not have deserved such
+blessings, if I had withheld from my neighbours a knowledge of the means
+by which they were obtained; and, therefore, this knowledge I have been
+in the constant habit of communicating. When one _gives a dinner to a
+company_, it is an extraordinary affair, and is intended, by sensible
+men, for purposes other than those of eating and drinking. But, in
+_general_, in the every-day life, despicable are those who suffer any
+part of their happiness to depend upon what they have to eat or to
+drink, provided they have _a sufficiency of wholesome food_; despicable
+is the _man_, and worse than despicable the _youth_, that would make any
+sacrifice, however small, whether of money or of time, or of anything
+else, in order to secure a dinner different from that which he would
+have had without such sacrifice. Who, what man, ever performed a greater
+quantity of labour than I have performed? What man ever did so much?
+Now, in a great measure, I owe my capability to perform this labour to
+my disregard of dainties. Being shut up two years in Newgate, with a
+fine on my head of a thousand pounds to the king, for having expressed
+my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen under a guard of German
+bayonets, I ate, during one whole year, one mutton chop every day. Being
+once in town, with one son (then a little boy) and a clerk, while my
+family was in the country, I had during some weeks nothing but legs of
+mutton; first day, leg of mutton boiled or _roasted_; second, _cold_;
+third, _hashed_; then, leg of mutton _boiled_; and so on. When I have
+been by myself, or nearly so, I have _always_ proceeded thus: given
+directions for having _every day the same thing_, or alternately as
+above, and every day exactly at the same hour, so as to prevent the
+necessity of any _talk_ about the matter. I am certain that, upon an
+average, I have not, during my life, spent more than _thirty-five
+minutes a day at table_, including all the meals of the day. I like, and
+I take care to have, good and clean victuals; but, if wholesome and
+clean, that is enough. If I find it, by chance, _too coarse_ for my
+appetite, I put the food aside, or let somebody do it, and leave the
+appetite to gather keenness. But the great security of all is, to eat
+_little_, and to drink nothing that _intoxicates_. He that eats till he
+is _full_ is little better than a beast; and he that drinks till he is
+_drunk_ is quite a beast.
+
+31. Before I dismiss this affair of eating and drinking, let me beseech
+you to resolve to free yourselves from the slavery of the _tea_ and
+_coffee_ and other _slop-kettle_, if, unhappily, you have been bred up
+in such slavery. Experience has taught me, that those slops are
+_injurious to health_: until I left them off (having taken to them at
+the age of 26), even my habits of sobriety, moderate eating, early
+rising; even these were not, until I left off the slops, sufficient to
+give me that complete health which I have since had. I pretend not to be
+a 'doctor;' but, I assert, that to pour regularly, every day, a pint or
+two of _warm liquid matter_ down the throat, whether under the name of
+tea, coffee, soup, grog, or whatever else, is greatly injurious to
+health. However, at present, what I have to represent to _you is the
+great deduction, which the use of these slops makes, from your power of
+being useful_, and also from your _power to husband your income_,
+whatever it may be, and from whatever source arising. I am to suppose
+you to be desirous to become a clever and a useful man; a man to be, if
+not admired and revered, at least to be _respected_. In order to merit
+respect beyond that which is due to very common men, you must do
+something more than very common men; and I am now going to show you how
+your course _must be impeded_ by the use of the _slops_.
+
+32. If the women exclaim, 'Nonsense! come and take a cup,' take it for
+that once; but hear what I have to say. In answer to my representation
+regarding the _waste of time_ which is occasioned by the slops, it has
+been said, that let what may be the nature of the food, there must _be
+time_ for taking it. Not _so much_ time, however, to eat a bit of meat
+or cheese or butter with a bit of bread. But, these may be eaten in a
+shop, a warehouse, a factory, far from any _fire_, and even in a
+carriage on the road. The slops absolutely demand _fire_ and a
+_congregation_; so that, be your business what it may; be you
+shopkeeper, farmer, drover, sportsman, traveller, to the _slop-board_
+you must come; you must wait for its assembling, or start from home
+without your breakfast; and, being used to the warm liquid, you feel out
+of order for the want of it. If the slops were in fashion amongst
+ploughmen and carters, we must all be starved; for the food could never
+be raised. The mechanics are half-ruined by them. Many of them are
+become poor, enervated creatures; and chiefly from this cause. But is
+the positive _cost_ nothing? At boarding-schools an _additional price is
+given_ on account of the tea slops. Suppose you to be a clerk, in hired
+lodgings, and going to your counting-house at nine o'clock. You get your
+dinner, perhaps, near to the scene of your work; but how are you to have
+the _breakfast slops_ without _a servant_? Perhaps you find a lodging
+just to suit you, but the house is occupied by people who keep no
+_servants_, and you want a servant to _light a fire_ and get the slop
+ready. You could get this lodging for several shillings a week less than
+another at the next door; but _there_ they keep a servant, who will
+'_get_ you your breakfast,' and preserve you, benevolent creature as she
+is, from the cruel necessity of going to the cupboard and cutting off a
+slice of meat or cheese and a bit of bread. She will, most likely, toast
+your bread for you too, and melt your butter; and then muffle you up, in
+winter, and send you out almost swaddled. Really such a thing can hardly
+be expected ever to become a _man_. You are weak; you have delicate
+health; you are '_bilious_!' Why, my good fellow, it is these very slops
+that make you weak and bilious; And, indeed, the _poverty_, the real
+poverty, that they and their concomitants bring on you, greatly assists,
+in more ways than one, in producing your 'delicate health.'
+
+33. So much for indulgences in eating, drinking, and dress. Next, as to
+_amusements_. It is recorded of the famous ALFRED, that he devoted eight
+hours of the twenty-four to _labour_, eight to _rest_, and eight to
+_recreation_. He was, however, _a king_, and could be _thinking_ during
+the eight hours of recreation. It is certain, that there ought to be
+hours of recreation, and I do not know that eight are too many; but,
+then observe, those hours ought to be _well-chosen_, and the _sort_ of
+recreation ought to be attended to. It ought to be such as is at once
+innocent in itself and in its tendency, and not injurious to health. The
+sports of the field are the best of all, because they are conducive to
+health, because they are enjoyed by _day-light_, and because they demand
+early rising. The nearer that other amusements approach to these, the
+better they are. A town-life, which many persons are compelled, by the
+nature of their calling, to lead, precludes the possibility of pursuing
+amusements of this description to any very considerable extent; and
+young men in towns are, generally speaking, compelled to choose between
+_books_ on the one hand, or _gaming_ and the _play-house_ on the other.
+_Dancing_ is at once rational and healthful: it gives animal spirits: it
+is the natural amusement of young people, and such it has been from the
+days of Moses: it is enjoyed in numerous companies: it makes the parties
+to be pleased with themselves and with all about them; it has no
+tendency to excite base and malignant feelings; and none but the most
+grovelling and hateful tyranny, or the most stupid and despicable
+fanaticism, ever raised its voice against it. The bad modern habits of
+England have created one inconvenience attending the enjoyment of this
+healthy and innocent pastime, namely, _late hours_, which are at once
+injurious to health and destructive of order and of industry. In other
+countries people dance by _day-light_. Here they do not; and, therefore,
+you must, in this respect, submit to the custom, though not without
+robbing the dancing night of as many hours as you can.
+
+34. As to GAMING, it is always _criminal_, either in itself, or in its
+tendency. The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others
+something, for which you have given, and intend to give, no equivalent.
+No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and very few gamblers have escaped
+being miserable; and, observe, to _game for nothing_ is still gaming,
+and naturally leads to gaming for something. It is sacrificing time, and
+that, too, for the worst of purposes. I have kept house for nearly forty
+years; I have reared a family; I have entertained as many friends as
+most people; and I have never had cards, dice, a chess-board, nor any
+implement of gaming, under my roof. The hours that young men spend in
+this way are hours _murdered_; precious hours, that ought to be spent
+either in reading or in writing, or in rest, preparatory to the duties
+of the dawn. Though I do not agree with the base and nauseous
+flatterers, who now declare the army to be _the best school for
+statesmen_, it is certainly a school in which to learn experimentally
+many useful lessons; and, in this school I learned, that men, fond of
+gaming, are very rarely, if ever, trust-worthy. I have known many a
+clever man rejected in the way of promotion only because he was addicted
+to gaming. Men, in that state of life, cannot _ruin_ themselves by
+gaming, for they possess no fortune, nor money; but the taste for gaming
+is always regarded as an indication of a radically bad disposition; and
+I can truly say, that I never in my whole life knew a man, fond of
+gaming, who was not, in some way or other, a person unworthy of
+confidence. This vice creeps on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it
+becomes an ungovernable passion, swallowing up every good and kind
+feeling of the heart. The gambler, as pourtrayed by REGNARD, in a comedy
+the translation of which into English resembles the original much about
+as nearly as Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S plagiarisms resembled the Registers on
+which they had been committed, is a fine instance of the contempt and
+scorn to which gaming at last reduces its votaries; but, if any young
+man be engaged in this fatal career, and be not yet wholly lost, let him
+behold HOGARTH'S gambler just when he has made his _last throw_ and when
+disappointment has bereft him of his senses. If after this sight he
+remain obdurate, he is doomed to be a disgrace to his name.
+
+35. The _Theatre may be_ a source not only of amusement but also of
+instruction; but, as things now are in this country, what, that is not
+bad, is to be learned in this school? In the first place not a word is
+allowed to be uttered on the stage, which has not been previously
+approved of by the Lord Chamberlain; that is to say, by a person
+appointed by the Ministry, who, at his pleasure, allows, or disallows,
+of any piece, or any words in a piece, submitted to his inspection. In
+short, those who go to play-houses _pay their money to hear uttered such
+words as the government approve of, and no others_. It is now just
+twenty-six years since I first well understood how this matter was
+managed; and, from that moment to this, I have never been in an English
+play-house. Besides this, the meanness, the abject servility, of the
+players, and the slavish conduct of the audience, are sufficient to
+corrupt and debase the heart of any young man who is a frequent beholder
+of them. Homage is here paid to every one clothed with power, be he who
+or what he may; real virtue and public-spirit are subjects of ridicule;
+and mock-sentiment and mock-liberality and mock-loyalty are applauded to
+the skies.
+
+36. 'Show me a man's _companions_' says the proverb, 'and I will tell
+you _what the man_ is;' and this is, and must be true; because all men
+seek the society of those who think and act somewhat like themselves:
+sober men will not associate with drunkards, frugal men will not like
+spendthrifts, and the orderly and decent shun the noisy, the disorderly,
+and the debauched. It is for the very vulgar to herd together as
+singers, ringers, and smokers; but, there is a class rather higher still
+more blamable; I mean the tavern-haunters, the gay companions, who herd
+together to do little but _talk_, and who are so fond of talk that they
+go from home to get at it. The conversation amongst such persons has
+nothing of instruction in it, and is generally of a vicious tendency.
+Young people naturally and commendably seek the society of those of
+their own age; but, be careful in choosing your companions; and lay this
+down as a rule never to be departed from, that no youth, nor man, ought
+to be called your _friend_, who is addicted to _indecent talk_, or who
+is fond of the _society of prostitutes_. Either of these argues a
+depraved taste, and even a depraved heart; an absence of all principle
+and of all trust-worthiness; and, I have remarked it all my life long,
+that young men, addicted to these vices, never succeed in the end,
+whatever advantages they may have, whether in fortune or in talent. Fond
+mothers and fathers are but too apt to be over-lenient to such
+offenders; and, as long as youth lasts and fortune smiles, the
+punishment is deferred; but, it comes at last; it is sure to come; and
+the gay and dissolute youth is a dejected and miserable man. After the
+early part of a life spent in illicit indulgences, a man is _unworthy_
+of being the husband of a virtuous woman; and, if he have anything like
+justice in him, how is he to reprove, in his children, vices in which he
+himself so long indulged? These vices of youth are varnished over by the
+saying, that there must be time for 'sowing the _wild oats_,' and that
+'_wildest colts_ make the _best horses_.' These figurative oats are,
+however, generally like the literal ones; they are _never to be
+eradicated from the soil_; and as to the _colts_, wildness in them is an
+indication of _high animal spirit_, having nothing at all to do with the
+_mind_, which is invariably debilitated and debased by profligate
+indulgences. Yet this miserable piece of sophistry, the offspring of
+parental weakness, is in constant use, to the incalculable injury of the
+rising generation. What so amiable as a steady, trust-worthy boy? He is
+of _real use_ at an early age: he can be trusted far out of the sight of
+parent or employer, while the 'pickle,' as the poor fond parents call
+the profligate, is a great deal worse than useless, because there must
+be some one to see that he does no harm. If you have to choose, choose
+companions of _your own rank in life_ as nearly as may be; but, at any
+rate, none to whom you acknowledge _inferiority_; for, slavery is too
+soon learned; and, if the mind be bowed down in the youth, it will
+seldom rise up in the man. In the schools of those best of teachers the
+JESUITS, there is perfect equality as to rank in life: the boy, who
+enters there, leaves all family pride behind him: intrinsic merit alone
+is the standard of preference; and the masters are so scrupulous upon
+this head, that they do not suffer one scholar, of whatever rank, to
+have more money to spend than the poorest. These wise men know well the
+mischiefs that must arise from inequality of pecuniary means amongst
+their scholars: they know how injurious it would be to learning, if
+deference were, by the learned, paid to the dunce; and they, therefore,
+take the most effectual means to prevent it. Hence, amongst other
+causes, it is, that their scholars have, ever since the existence of
+their Order, been the most celebrated for learning of any men in the
+world.
+
+37. In your _manners_ be neither boorish nor blunt, but even these are
+preferable to simpering and crawling. I wish every English youth could
+see those of the United States of America; always _civil_, never
+_servile_. Be _obedient_, where obedience is due; for, it is no act of
+meanness, and no indication of want of spirit, to yield implicit and
+ready obedience to those who have a right to demand it at your hands. In
+this respect England has been, and I hope always will be, an example to
+the whole world. To this habit of willing and prompt obedience in
+apprentices, in servants, in all inferiors in station, she owes, in a
+great measure, her multitudes of matchless merchants, tradesmen, and
+workmen of every description, and also the achievements of her armies
+and navies. It is no disgrace, but the contrary, to obey, cheerfully,
+lawful and just commands. None are so saucy and disobedient as slaves;
+and, when you come to read history, you will find that in proportion as
+nations have been _free_ has been their reverence for the laws. But,
+there is a wide difference between lawful and cheerful obedience and
+that servility which represents people as laying petitions 'at the
+_king's feet_,' which makes us imagine that we behold the supplicants
+actually crawling upon their bellies. There is something so abject in
+this expression; there is such horrible self-abasement in it, that I do
+hope that every youth, who shall read this, will hold in detestation the
+reptiles who make use of it. In all other countries, the lowest
+individual can put a petition into the _hands_ of the chief magistrate,
+be he king or emperor: let us hope, that the time will yet come when
+Englishmen will be able to do the same. In the meanwhile I beg you to
+despise these worse than pagan parasites.
+
+38. Hitherto I have addressed you chiefly relative to the things to be
+_avoided_: let me now turn to the things which you ought _to do_. And,
+first of all, the _husbanding of your time_. The respect that you will
+receive, the real and _sincere respect_, will depend entirely on what
+you are able _to do_. If you be rich, you may purchase what is called
+respect; but it is not worth having. To obtain respect worth possessing,
+you must, as I observed before, do more than the common run of men in
+your state of life; and, to be enabled to do this, you must manage well
+_your time_: and, to manage it well, you must have as much of the
+_day-light_ and as little of the _candle-light_ as is consistent with
+the due discharge of your duties. When people get into the habit of
+sitting up _merely for the purpose of talking_, it is no easy matter to
+break themselves of it: and if they do not go to bed early, they cannot
+rise early. Young people require more sleep than those that are grown
+up: there must be the number of hours, and that number cannot well be,
+on an average, less than _eight_: and, if it be more in winter time, it
+is all the better; for, an hour in bed is better than an hour spent over
+fire and candle in an idle gossip. People never should sit talking till
+they do not know what to talk about. It is said by the country-people,
+that one hour's sleep before midnight is worth more than two are worth
+after midnight, and this I believe to be a fact; but it is useless to go
+to bed early and even to rise early, if the time be not well employed
+after rising. In general, half the morning is _loitered_ away, the party
+being in a sort of half-dressed half-naked state; out of bed, indeed,
+but still in a sort of bedding. Those who first invented _morning-gowns_
+and _slippers_ could have very little else to do. These things are very
+suitable to those who have had fortunes gained for them by others; very
+suitable to those who have nothing to do, and who merely live for the
+purpose of assisting to consume the produce of the earth; but he who has
+his bread to earn, or who means to be worthy of respect on account of
+his labours, has no business with morning gown and slippers. In short,
+be your business or calling what it may, _dress at once for the day_;
+and learn to do it _as quickly_ as possible. A looking-glass is a piece
+of furniture a great deal worse than useless. _Looking_ at the face will
+not alter its shape or its colour; and, perhaps, of all wasted time;
+none is so foolishly wasted as that which is employed in surveying one's
+own face. Nothing can be of _little_ importance, if one be compelled to
+attend to it _every day of our lives_; if we _shaved_ but once a year,
+or once a month, the execution of the thing would be hardly worth
+naming: but this is a piece of work that must be done once every day;
+and, as it may cost only about _five minutes_ of time, and may be, and
+frequently is, made to cost _thirty_, or even _fifty minutes_; and, as
+only fifteen minutes make about a fifty-eighth part of the hours of our
+average day-light; this being the case, this is a matter of real
+importance. I once heard SIR JOHN SINCLAIR ask Mr. COCHRANE JOHNSTONE,
+whether he meaned to have a son of his (then a little boy) taught Latin.
+'No,' said Mr. JOHNSTONE, 'but I mean to do something a great deal
+better for him.' 'What is that?' said Sir John. 'Why,' said the other,
+'teach him _to shave with cold water and without a glass_.' Which, I
+dare say, he did; and for which benefit I am sure that son has had good
+reason to be grateful. Only think of the inconvenience attending the
+common practice! There must be _hot water_; to have this there must be
+_a fire_, and, in some cases, a fire for that purpose alone; to have
+these, there must be a _servant_, or you must light a fire yourself. For
+the want of these, the job is put off until a later hour: this causes a
+stripping and _another dressing bout_; or, you go in a slovenly state
+all that day, and the next day the thing must be done, or cleanliness
+must be abandoned altogether. If you be on a journey you must wait the
+pleasure of the servants at the inn before you can dress and set out in
+the morning; the pleasant time for travelling is gone before you can
+move from the spot; instead of being at the end of your day's journey in
+good time, you are benighted, and have to endure all the great
+inconveniences attendant on tardy movements. And, all this, from the
+apparently insignificant affair of shaving! How many a piece of
+important business has failed from a short delay! And how many thousand
+of such delays daily proceed from this unworthy cause! '_Toujours pret_'
+was the motto of a famous French general; and pray let it be yours: be
+'_always ready_;' and never, during your whole life, have to say, '_I
+cannot go till I be shaved and dressed_.' Do the whole at once for the
+day, whatever may be your state of life; and then you have a day
+unbroken by those indispensable performances. Begin thus, in the days of
+your youth, and, having felt the superiority which this practice will
+give you over those in all other respects your equals, the practice will
+stick by you to the end of your life. Till you be shaved and dressed for
+the day, you cannot set steadily about any business; you know that you
+must presently quit your labour to return to the dressing affair; you,
+therefore, put it off until that be over; the interval, the precious
+interval, is spent in lounging about; and, by the time that you are
+ready for business, the best part of the day is gone.
+
+39. Trifling as this matter appears upon _naming_ it, it is, in fact,
+one of the great concerns of life; and, for my part, I can truly say,
+that I owe more of my great labours to my strict adherence to the
+precepts that I have here given you, than to all the natural abilities
+with which I have been endowed; for these, whatever may have been their
+amount, would have been of comparatively little use, even aided by great
+sobriety and abstinence, if I had not, in early life, contracted the
+blessed habit of husbanding well my time. To this, more than to any
+other thing, I owed my very extraordinary promotion in the army. I was
+_always ready_: if I had to mount guard at _ten_, I was ready at _nine_:
+never did any man, or any thing, wait one moment for me. Being, at an
+age _under twenty years_, raised from Corporal to Serjeant Major _at
+once_, over the heads of thirty Serjeants, I naturally should have been
+an object of envy and hatred; but this habit of early rising and of
+rigid adherence to the precepts which I have given you, really subdued
+these passions; because every one felt, that what I did he had never
+done, and never could do. Before my promotion, a clerk was wanted to
+make out the morning report of the regiment. I rendered the clerk
+unnecessary; and, long before any other man was dressed for the parade,
+my work for the morning was all done, and I myself was on the parade,
+walking, in fine weather, for an hour perhaps. My custom was this: to
+get up, in summer, at day-light, and in winter at four o'clock; shave,
+dress, even to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and having
+my sword lying on the table before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I
+ate a bit of cheese, or pork, and bread. Then I prepared my report,
+which was filled up as fast as the companies brought me in the
+materials. After this I had an hour or two to read, before the time came
+for any duty out of doors, unless when the regiment or part of it went
+out to exercise in the morning. When this was the case, and the matter
+was left to me, I always had it on the ground in such time as that the
+bayonets glistened in the _rising sun_, a sight which gave me delight,
+of which I often think, but which I should in vain endeavour to
+describe. If the _officers_ were to go out, eight or ten o'clock was the
+hour, sweating the men in the heat of the day, breaking in upon the time
+for cooking their dinner, putting all things out of order and all men
+out of humour. When I was commander, the men had a long day of leisure
+before them: they could ramble into the town or into the woods; go to
+get raspberries, to catch birds, to catch fish, or to pursue any other
+recreation, and such of them as chose, and were qualified, to work at
+their trades. So that here, arising solely from the early habits of one
+very young man, were pleasant and happy days given to hundreds.
+
+40. _Money_ is said to be _power_, which is, in some cases, true; and
+the same may be said of _knowledge_; but superior _sobriety_, _industry_
+and _activity_, are a still more certain source of power; for without
+these, _knowledge_ is of little use; and, as to the power which _money_
+gives, it is that of _brute force_, it is the power of the bludgeon and
+the bayonet, and of the bribed press, tongue and pen. Superior sobriety,
+industry, activity, though accompanied with but a moderate portion of
+knowledge, command respect, because they have great and visible
+influence. The drunken, the lazy, and the inert, stand abashed before
+the sober and the active. Besides, all those whose interests are at
+stake prefer, of necessity, those whose exertions produce the greatest
+and most immediate and visible effect. Self-interest is no respecter of
+persons: it asks, not who knows best what ought to be done, but who is
+most likely to do it: we may, and often do, admire the talents of lazy,
+and even dissipated men, but we do not trust them with the care of our
+interests. If, therefore, you would have respect and influence in the
+circle in which you move, be more sober, more industrious, more active
+than the general run of those amongst whom you live.
+
+41. As to EDUCATION, this word is now applied exclusively to things
+which are taught in schools; but _education_ means _rearing up_, and the
+French speak of the education of _pigs_ and _sheep_. In a very famous
+French book on rural affairs, there is a Chapter entitled '_Education du
+Cochon_,' that is, _education of the hog_. The word has the same meaning
+in both languages; for both take it from the Latin. Neither is the word
+LEARNING properly confined to things taught in schools, or by books;
+for, _learning_ means _knowledge_; and, but a comparatively small part
+of useful knowledge comes from books. Men are not to be called
+_ignorant_ merely because they cannot make upon paper certain marks with
+a pen, or because they do not know the meaning of such marks when made
+by others. A ploughman may be very _learned_ in his line, though he does
+not know what the letters _p. l. o. u. g. h_ mean when he sees them
+combined upon paper. The first thing to be required of a man is, that he
+understand well his own _calling_, or _profession_; and, be you in what
+state of life you may, to acquire this knowledge ought to be your first
+and greatest care. A man who has had a new-built house tumble down will
+derive little more consolation from being told that the architect is a
+great astronomer, than this distressed nation now derives from being
+assured that its distresses arise from the measures of a long list of
+the greatest orators and greatest heroes that the world ever beheld.
+
+42. Nevertheless, book-learning is by no means to be despised; and it is
+a thing which may be laudably sought after by persons in all states of
+life. In those pursuits which are called _professions_, it is necessary,
+and also in certain trades; and, in persons in the middle ranks of life,
+a total absence of such learning is somewhat disgraceful. There is,
+however, one danger to be carefully guarded against; namely, the opinion
+that your genius, or your literary acquirements, are such as to warrant
+you in disregarding the calling in which you are, and by which you gain
+your bread. Parents must have an uncommon portion of solid sense to
+counterbalance their natural affection sufficiently to make them
+competent judges in such a case. Friends are partial; and those who are
+not, you deem enemies. Stick, therefore, to _the shop; _rely upon your
+mercantile or mechanical or professional calling; try your strength in
+literature, if you like; but, _rely_ on the shop. If BLOOMFIELD, who
+wrote a poem called the FARMER'S BOY, had placed no _reliance_ on the
+faithless muses, his unfortunate and much-to-be-pitied family would, in
+all probability, have not been in a state to solicit relief from
+charity. I remember that this loyal shoemaker was flattered to the
+skies, and (ominous sign, if he had understood it) feasted at the tables
+of some of the great. Have, I beseech you, no hope of this sort; and, if
+you find it creeping towards your heart, drive it instantly away as the
+mortal foe of your independence and your peace.
+
+43. With this precaution, however, book-learning is not only proper, but
+highly commendable; and portions of it are absolutely necessary in every
+case of trade or profession. One of these portions is distinct reading,
+plain and neat writing, and _arithmetic_. The two former are mere
+child's work; the latter not quite so easily acquired, but equally
+indispensable, and of it you ought to have a thorough knowledge before
+you attempt to study even the grammar of your own language. Arithmetic
+is soon learned; it is not a thing that requires much natural talent; it
+is not a thing that loads the memory or puzzles the mind; and it is a
+thing of _every-day utility_. Therefore, this is, to a certain extent,
+an absolute necessary; an indispensable acquisition. Every man is not to
+be a _surveyor_ or an _actuary_; and, therefore, you may stop far short
+of the knowledge, of this sort, which is demanded by these professions;
+but, as far as common accounts and calculations go, you ought to be
+perfect; and this you may make yourself, without any assistance from a
+master, by bestowing upon this science, during six months, only one half
+of the time that is, by persons of your age, usually wasted over the
+tea-slops, or other kettle-slops, alone! If you become _fond_ of this
+science, there may be a little danger of wasting your time on it. When,
+therefore, you have got as much of it as your business or profession can
+possibly render necessary, turn the time to some other purpose. As to
+_books_, on this subject, they are in everybody's hand; but, there is
+_one book_ on the subject of calculations, which I must point out to
+you; 'THE CAMBIST,' by Dr. KELLY. This is a bad title, because, to men
+in general, it gives no idea of what the book treats of. It is a book
+which shows the value of the several pieces of money of one country when
+stated in the money of another country. For instance, it tells us what a
+Spanish Dollar, a Dutch Dollar, a French Frank, and so on, is worth in
+English money. It does the same with regard to _weights_ and _measures_:
+and it extends its information to _all the countries in the world_. It
+is a work of rare merit; and every youth, be his state of life what it
+may, if it permit him to pursue book-learning of any sort, and
+particularly if he be destined, or at all likely to meddle with
+commercial matters, ought, as soon as convenient, to possess this
+valuable and instructive book.
+
+44. The next thing is the GRAMMAR of your own language. Without
+understanding this, you can never hope to become fit for anything beyond
+mere trade or agriculture. It is true, that we do (God knows!) but too
+often see men have great wealth, high titles, and boundless power heaped
+upon them, who can hardly write ten lines together correctly; but,
+remember, it is not _merit_ that has been the cause of their
+advancement; the cause has been, in almost every such case, the
+subserviency of the party to the will of some government, and the
+baseness of some nation who have quietly submitted to be governed by
+brazen fools. Do not you imagine, that you will have luck of this sort:
+do not you hope to be rewarded and honoured for that ignorance which
+shall prove a scourge to your country, and which will earn you the
+curses of the children yet unborn. Rely you upon your merit, and upon
+nothing else. Without a knowledge of grammar, it is impossible for you
+to write correctly, and it is by mere accident if you speak correctly;
+and, pray bear in mind, that all well-informed persons judge of a man's
+mind (until they have other means of judging) by his writing or
+speaking. The labour necessary to acquire this knowledge is, indeed, not
+trifling: grammar is not, like arithmetic, a science consisting of
+several distinct departments, some of which may be dispensed with: it is
+a whole, and the whole must be learned, or no part is learned. The
+subject is abstruse: it demands much reflection and much patience: but,
+when once the task is performed, it is performed _for life_, and in
+every day of that life it will be found to be, in a greater or less
+degree, a source of pleasure or of profit or of both together. And, what
+is the labour? It consists of no bodily exertion; it exposes the student
+to no cold, no hunger, no suffering of any sort. The study need subtract
+from the hours of no business, nor, indeed, from the hours of necessary
+exercise: the hours usually spent on the tea and coffee slops and in the
+mere gossip which accompany them; those wasted hours of only _one year_,
+employed in the study of English grammar, would make you a correct
+speaker and writer for the rest of your life. You want no school, no
+room to study in, no expenses, and no troublesome circumstances of any
+sort. I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of
+sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my
+seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit of board, lying on
+my lap, was my writing-table; and the task did not demand any thing like
+a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in
+winter-time it was rarely that I could get any evening-light but that of
+_the fire_, and only my _turn_ even of that. And if I, under such
+circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or encourage me,
+accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there be for _any youth_,
+however poor, however pressed with business, or however circumstanced as
+to room or other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was
+compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state of
+half-starvation; I had no moment of time that I could call my own; and I
+had to read and to write amidst the talking, laughing, singing,
+whistling and brawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless
+of men, and that too in the hours of their freedom from all control.
+Think not lightly of the _farthing_ that I had to give, now and then,
+for ink, pen, or paper! That farthing was, alas! a _great sum_ to me! I
+was as tall as I am now; I had great health and great exercise. The
+whole of the money, not expended for us at market, was _two-pence a
+week_ for each man. I remember, and well I may! that upon one occasion
+I, after all absolutely necessary expenses, had, on a Friday, made shift
+to have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of
+a _red-herring_ in the morning; but, when I pulled off my clothes at
+night, so hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found that
+I had _lost my halfpenny_! I buried my head under the miserable sheet
+and rug, and cried like a child! And, again I say, if I, under
+circumstances like these, could encounter and overcome this task, is
+there, can there be, in the whole world, a youth to find an excuse for
+the non-performance? What youth, who shall read this, will not be
+ashamed to say, that he is not able to find time and opportunity for
+this most essential of all the branches of book-learning?
+
+45. I press this matter with such earnestness, because a knowledge of
+grammar is the foundation of all literature; and because without this
+knowledge opportunities for writing and speaking are only occasions for
+men to display their unfitness to write and speak. How many false
+pretenders to erudition, have I exposed to shame merely by my knowledge
+of grammar! How many of the insolent and ignorant great and powerful
+have I pulled down and made little and despicable! And, with what ease
+have I conveyed upon numerous important subjects, information and
+instruction to millions now alive, and provided a store of both for
+millions yet unborn! As to the course to be pursued in this great
+undertaking, it is, first, to read the grammar from the first word to
+the last, very attentively, several times over; then, to copy the whole
+of it very correctly and neatly; and then to study the Chapters one by
+one. And what do this reading and writing require as to time? Both
+together not more than the tea-slops and their gossips for _three
+months_! There are about three hundred pages in my English Grammar. Four
+of those little pages in a day, which is a mere trifle of work, do the
+thing in _three months_. Two hours a day are quite sufficient for the
+purpose; and these may, in any _town_ that I have ever known, or in any
+village, be taken from that part of the morning during which the main
+part of the people are in bed. I do not like the evening-candle-light
+work: it wears the eyes much more than the same sort of light in the
+morning, because then the faculties are in vigour and wholly
+unexhausted. But for this purpose there is sufficient of that day-light
+which is usually wasted; usually gossipped or lounged away; or spent in
+some other manner productive of no pleasure, and generally producing
+pain in the end. It is very becoming in all persons, and particularly in
+the young, to be civil, and even polite: but it becomes neither young
+nor old to have an everlasting simper on their faces, and their bodies
+sawing in an everlasting bow: and, how many youths have I seen who, if
+they had spent, in the learning of grammar, a tenth part of the time
+that they have consumed in earning merited contempt for their affected
+gentility, would have laid the foundation of sincere respect towards
+them for the whole of their lives!
+
+46. _Perseverance_ is a prime quality in every pursuit, and particularly
+in this. Yours is, too, the time of life to acquire this inestimable
+habit. Men fail much oftener from want of perseverance than from want of
+talent and of good disposition: as the race was not to the hare but to
+the tortoise, so the meed of success in study is to him who is not in
+haste, but to him who proceeds with a steady and even step. It is not to
+a want of taste or of desire or of disposition to learn that we have to
+ascribe the rareness of good scholars, so much as to the want of patient
+perseverance. Grammar is a branch of knowledge; like all other things of
+high value, it is of difficult acquirement: the study is dry; the
+subject is intricate; it engages not the passions; and, if the _great
+end_ be not kept constantly in view; if you lose, for a moment, sight of
+the _ample reward_, indifference begins, that is followed by weariness,
+and disgust and despair close the book. To guard against this result be
+not in _haste_; keep _steadily on_; and, when you find weariness
+approaching, rouse yourself, and remember, that if you give up, all that
+you have done has been done in vain. This is a matter of great moment;
+for out of every ten, who undertake this task, there are, perhaps, nine
+who abandon it in despair; and this, too, merely for the want of
+resolution to overcome the first approaches of weariness. The most
+effectual means of security against this mortifying result is to lay
+down a rule to write or to read a certain fixed quantity _every day_,
+Sunday excepted. Our minds are not always in the same state; they have
+not, at all times, the same elasticity; to-day we are full of hope on
+the very same grounds which, to-morrow, afford us no hope at all: every
+human being is liable to those flows and ebbs of the mind; but, if
+reason interfere, and bid you _overcome the fits of lassitude_, and
+almost mechanically to go on without the stimulus of hope, the buoyant
+fit speedily returns; you congratulate yourself that you did not yield
+to the temptation to abandon your pursuit, and you proceed with more
+vigour than ever. Five or six triumphs over temptation to indolence or
+despair lay the foundation of certain success; and, what is of still
+more importance, fix in you the _habit of perseverance_.
+
+47. If I have bestowed a large portion of my space on this topic, it has
+been because I know, from experience as well as from observation, that
+it is of more importance than all the other branches of book-learning
+put together. It gives you, when you possess it thoroughly, a real and
+practical superiority over the far greater part of men. How often did I
+experience this even long before I became what is called an author! The
+_Adjutant_, under whom it was my duty to act when I was a Serjeant
+Major, was, as almost all military officers are, or at least _were_, a
+very illiterate man, perceiving that every sentence of mine was in the
+same form and manner as sentences in _print_, became shy of letting me
+see pieces of _his_ writing. The writing of _orders_, and other things,
+therefore, fell to me; and thus, though no nominal addition was made to
+my pay, and no nominal addition to my authority, I acquired the latter
+as effectually as if a law had been passed to confer it upon me. In
+short, I owe to the possession of this branch of knowledge everything
+that has enabled me to do so many things that very few other men have
+done, and that now gives me a degree of influence, such as is possessed
+by few others, in the most weighty concerns of the country. The
+possession of this branch of knowledge raises you in your own esteem,
+gives just confidence in yourself, and prevents you from being the
+willing slave of the rich and the titled part of the community. It
+enables you to discover that riches and titles do not confer merit; you
+think comparatively little of them; and, as far as relates to you, at
+any rate, their insolence is innoxious.
+
+48. Hoping that I have said enough to induce you to set resolutely about
+the study of _grammar_, I might here leave the subject of _learning_;
+arithmetic and grammar, both _well learned_, being as much as I could
+wish in a mere youth. But these need not occupy the whole of your spare
+time; and, there are other branches of learning which ought immediately
+to follow. If your own calling or profession require book-study, books
+treating of that are to be preferred to all others; for, the first
+thing, the first object in life, is to secure the honest means of
+obtaining sustenance, raiment, and a state of being suitable to your
+rank, be that rank what it may: excellence in your own calling is,
+therefore, the first thing to be aimed at. After this may come _general
+knowledge_, and of this, the first is a thorough knowledge of _your own
+country_; for, how ridiculous is it to see an English youth engaged in
+reading about the customs of the Chinese or of the Hindoos, while he is
+content to be totally ignorant of those of Kent or of Cornwall! Well
+employed he must be in ascertaining how Greece was divided and how the
+Romans parcelled out their territory, while he knows not, and apparently
+does not want to know, how England came to be divided into counties,
+hundreds, parishes and tithings.
+
+49. GEOGRAPHY naturally follows Grammar; and you should begin with that
+of this kingdom, which you ought to understand well, perfectly well,
+before you venture to look abroad. A rather slight knowledge of the
+divisions and customs of other countries is, generally speaking,
+sufficient; but, not to know these full well, as far as relates to our
+own country, is, in one who pretends to be a gentleman or a scholar,
+somewhat disgraceful. Yet how many men are there, and those called
+_gentlemen_ too, who seem to think that counties and parishes, and
+churches and parsons, and tithes and glebes, and manors and courts-leet,
+and paupers and poor-houses, all grew up in England, or dropped down
+upon it, immediately after Noah's flood! Surely, it is necessary for
+every man, having any pretensions to scholarship, to know _how these
+things came_; and, the sooner this knowledge is acquired the better;
+for, until it be acquired, you read the _history_ of your country in
+vain. Indeed, to communicate this knowledge is one main part of the
+business of history; but it is a part which no historian, commonly so
+called, has, that I know of, ever yet performed, except, in part,
+myself, in the History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION. I had read HUME'S
+History of England, and the Continuation by SMOLLETT; but, in 1802, when
+I wanted to write on the subject of the _non-residence of the clergy_, I
+found, to my great mortification, that I knew nothing of the foundation
+of the office and the claims of the parsons, and that I could not even
+guess at the _origin of parishes_. This gave a new turn to my inquiries;
+and I soon found the romancers, called historians, had given me no
+information that I could rely on, and, besides, had done, apparently,
+all they could to keep me in the dark.
+
+50. When you come to HISTORY, begin also with that _of your own
+country_; and here it is my bounden duty to put you _well on your
+guard_; for in this respect we are _peculiarly_ unfortunate, and for the
+following reasons, to which I beg you to attend. Three _hundred years
+ago_, the religion of England had been, during _nine hundred years_, the
+Catholic religion: the Catholic clergy possessed about a third part of
+all the lands and houses, which they held _in trust_ for their own
+support, for the _building and repairing of churches_, and for the
+relief of the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger; but, at the
+time just mentioned, the king and the aristocracy changed the religion
+to _Protestant_, took the estates of the church and the poor _to
+themselves as their own property_, and _taxed the people at large_ for
+the building and repairing of churches and for the relief of the poor.
+This great and terrible change, effected partly by force against the
+people and partly by the most artful means of deception, gave rise to a
+series of efforts, which has been continued from that day _to this_, to
+cause us all to believe, _that that change was for the better_, that it
+was for _our good_; and that, _before that time_, our forefathers were a
+set of the most miserable slaves that the sun ever warmed with his
+beams. It happened, too, that the _art of printing_ was not discovered,
+or, at least, it was very little understood, until about the time when
+this change took place; so that the books relating to former times were
+confined to manuscript; and, besides, even these manuscript libraries
+were destroyed with great care by those who had made the change and had
+grasped the property of the poor and the church. Our '_Historians_,' as
+they are called, have written under _fear_ of the powerful, or have been
+_bribed_ by them; and, generally speaking, both at the same time; and,
+accordingly, their works are, as far as they relate to former times,
+masses of lies unmatched by any others that the world has ever seen.
+
+51. The great object of these lies always has been to make the main body
+of the people believe, that the nation is now more happy, more populous,
+more powerful, _than it was before it was Protestant_, and thereby to
+induce us to conclude, that it was _a good thing for us_ that the
+aristocracy should take to themselves the property of the poor and the
+church, and make the people at large _pay taxes for the support of
+both_. This has been, and still is, the great object of all those heaps
+of lies; and those lies are continually spread about amongst us in all
+forms of publication, from heavy folios down to halfpenny tracts. In
+refutation of those lies we have only very few and rare ancient books to
+refer to, and their information is incidental, seeing that their authors
+never dreamed of the possibility of the lying generations which were to
+come. We have the ancient acts of parliament, the common-law, the
+customs, the canons of the church, and _the churches themselves_; but
+these demand _analyses_ and _argument_, and they demand also a _really
+free press_, and _unprejudiced and patient readers_. Never in this
+world, before, had truth to struggle with so many and such great
+disadvantages!
+
+52. To refute lies is not, at present, my business; but it is my
+business to give you, in as small a compass as possible, one striking
+proof that they are lies; and thereby to put you well upon your guard
+for the whole of the rest of your life. The opinion sedulously
+inculcated by these '_historians_' is this; that, before the
+_Protestant_ times came, England was, comparatively, an insignificant
+country, _having few people in it, and those few wretchedly poor and
+miserable_. Now, take the following _undeniable facts_. All the parishes
+in England are now (except where they have been _united_, and two,
+three, or four, have been made into one) in point of _size_, what they
+were _a thousand years ago_. The county of Norfolk is the best
+cultivated of any one in England. This county has _now_ 731 parishes;
+and the number was formerly greater. Of these parishes 22 _have now no
+churches at all_; 74 contain less than 100 souls each: and 268 have _no
+parsonage-houses_. Now, observe, every parish had, in old times, a
+church and a parsonage-house. The county contains 2,092 square miles;
+that is to say, something less than 3 square miles to each parish, and
+that is 1,920 statute acres of land; and the _size_ of each parish is,
+on an average, that of a piece of ground about one mile and a half each
+way; so that the churches are, even now, on an average, only about _a
+mile and a half from each other_. Now, the questions for you to put to
+yourself are these: Were churches formerly built and kept up _without
+being wanted_, and especially by a poor and miserable people? Did these
+miserable people build 74 churches out of 731, each of which 74 had not
+a hundred souls belonging to it? Is it a sign of an augmented
+population, that 22 churches out of 731 have tumbled down and been
+effaced? Was it a country _thinly_ inhabited by miserable people that
+could build and keep a church in every piece of ground a mile and a half
+each way, besides having, in this same county, 77 monastic
+establishments and 142 free chapels? Is it a sign of augmented
+population, ease and plenty, that, out of 731 parishes, 268 have
+suffered the parsonage houses to fall into ruins, and their sites to
+become patches of nettles and of brambles? Put these questions calmly to
+yourself: common sense will dictate the answers; and truth will call for
+an expression of your indignation against the lying historians and the
+still more lying population-mongers.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II
+
+TO A YOUNG MAN
+
+53. In the foregoing Letter, I have given my advice to a Youth. In
+addressing myself to you, I am to presume that you have entered upon
+your present stage of life, having acted upon the precepts contained in
+that letter; and that, of course, you are a sober, abstinent,
+industrious and well-informed young man. In the succeeding letters,
+which will be addressed to the _Lover_, the _Husband_, the _Father_ and
+the _Citizen_, I shall, of course, have to include my notion of your
+duties as a _master_, and as a person employed by _another_. In the
+present letter, therefore, I shall confine myself principally to the
+conduct of a young man with regard to the management of his means, or
+money.
+
+54. Be you in what line of life you may, it will be amongst your
+misfortunes if you have not time properly to attend to this matter; for
+it very frequently happens, it has happened to thousands upon thousands,
+not only to be ruined, according to the common acceptation of the word;
+not only to be made poor, and to suffer from poverty, in consequence of
+want of attention to pecuniary matters; but it has frequently, and even
+generally, happened, that a want of attention to these matters has
+impeded the progress of science, and of genius itself. A man, oppressed
+with pecuniary cares and dangers, must be next to a miracle, if he have
+his mind in a state fit for intellectual labours; to say nothing of the
+temptations, arising from such distress, to abandon good principles, to
+suppress useful opinions and useful facts; and, in short, to become a
+disgrace to his kindred, and an evil to his country, instead of being an
+honour to the former and a blessing to the latter. To be poor and
+independent, is very nearly an impossibility.
+
+55. But, then, poverty is not a positive, but a relative term. BURKE
+observed, and very truly, that a labourer who earned a sufficiency to
+maintain him as a labourer, and to maintain him in a suitable manner; to
+give him a sufficiency of good food, of clothing, of lodging, and of
+fuel, ought not to be called _a poor man_; for that, though he had
+little riches, though his, _compared_ with that of a lord, was a state
+of poverty, it was not a state of poverty in itself. When, therefore, I
+say that poverty is the cause of a depression of spirit, of inactivity
+and of servility in men of literary talent, I must say, at the same
+time, that the evil arises from their own fault; from their having
+created for themselves imaginary wants; from their having indulged in
+unnecessary enjoyments, and from their having caused that to be poverty,
+which would not have been poverty, if they had been moderate in their
+enjoyments.
+
+56. As it may be your lot (such has been mine) to live by your literary
+talent, I will here, before I proceed to matter more applicable to
+persons in other states of life, observe, that I cannot form an idea of
+a mortal more wretched than a man of real talent, compelled to curb his
+genius, and to submit himself in the exercise of that genius, to those
+whom he knows to be far inferior to himself, and whom he must despise
+from the bottom of his soul. The late Mr. WILLIAM GIFFORD, who was the
+son of a shoemaker at ASHBURTON in Devonshire; who was put to school and
+sent to the university at the expense of a generous and good clergyman
+of the name of COOKSON, and who died, the other day, a sort of
+whipper-in of MURRAY'S QUARTERLY REVIEW; this was a man of real genius;
+and, to my certain personal knowledge, he detested, from the bottom of
+his soul, the whole of the paper-money and Boroughmongering system, and
+despised those by whom the system was carried on. But, he had imaginary
+wants; he had been bred up in company with the rich and the extravagant;
+expensive indulgences had been made necessary to him by habit; and, when
+in the year 1798, or thereabouts, he had to choose between a bit of
+bacon, a scrag of mutton, and a lodging at ten shillings a week, on the
+one side, and made-dishes, wine, a fine house and a footman on the other
+side, he chose the latter. He became the servile Editor of CANNING'S
+Anti-jacobin newspaper; and he, who had more wit and learning than all
+the rest of the writers put together, became the miserable tool in
+circulating their attacks upon everything that was hostile to a system
+which he deplored and detested. But he secured the made-dishes, the
+wine, the footman and the coachman. A sinecure as '_clerk of the Foreign
+Estreats_,' gave him 329_l._ a year, a double commissionership of the
+lottery gave him 600_l._ or 700_l._ more; and, at a later period, his
+Editorship of the Quarterly Review gave him perhaps as much more. He
+rolled in his carriage for several years; he fared sumptuously; he was
+buried at _Westminster Abbey_, of which his friend and formerly his
+brother pamphleteer in defence of PITT was the _Dean_; and never is he
+to be heard of more! Mr. GIFFORD would have been full as happy; his
+health would have been better, his life longer, and his name would have
+lived for ages, if he could have turned to the bit of bacon and scrag of
+mutton in 1798; for his learning and talents were such, his reasonings
+so clear and conclusive, and his wit so pointed and keen, that his
+writings must have been generally read, must have been of long duration!
+and, indeed, must have enabled him (he being always a single man) to
+live in his latter days in as good style as that which he procured by
+becoming a sinecurist, a pensioner and a _hack_, all which he was from
+the moment he lent himself to the Quarterly Review. Think of the
+mortification of such a man, when he was called upon to justify the
+power-of-imprisonment bill in 1817! But to go into particulars would be
+tedious: his life was a life of luxurious misery, than which a worse is
+not to be imagined.
+
+57. So that poverty is, except where there is an actual want of food and
+raiment, a thing much more imaginary than real. _The shame of poverty_,
+the shame of being thought poor, is a great and fatal weakness, though
+arising, in this country, from the fashion of the times themselves. When
+a _good man_, as in the phraseology of the city, means a _rich man_, we
+are not to wonder that every one wishes to be thought richer than he is.
+When adulation is sure to follow wealth, and when contempt would be
+awarded to many if they were not wealthy, who are spoken of with
+deference, and even lauded to the skies, because their riches are great
+and notorious; when this is the case, we are not to be surprised that
+men are ashamed to be thought to be poor. This is one of the greatest of
+all the dangers at the outset of life: it has brought thousands and
+hundreds of thousands to ruin, even to _pecuniary_ ruin. One of the most
+amiable features in the character of American society is this; that men
+never boast of their riches, and never disguise their poverty; but they
+talk of both as of any other matter fit for public conversation. No man
+shuns another because he is poor: no man is preferred to another because
+he is rich. In hundreds and hundreds of instances, men, not worth a
+shilling, have been chosen by the people and entrusted with their rights
+and interests, in preference to men who ride in their carriages.
+
+58. This shame of being thought poor, is not only dishonourable in
+itself, and fatally injurious to men of talent; but it is ruinous even
+in a _pecuniary_ point of view, and equally destructive to farmers,
+traders, and even gentlemen of landed estate. It leads to everlasting
+efforts to _disguise one's poverty_: the carriage, the servants, the
+wine, (oh, that fatal wine!) the spirits, the decanters, the glasses,
+all the table apparatus, the dress, the horses, the dinners, the
+parties, all must be kept up; not so much because he or she who keeps or
+gives them, has any pleasure arising therefrom, as because not to keep
+and give them, would give rise to a suspicion _of the want of means_ so
+to give and keep; and thus thousands upon thousands are yearly brought
+into a state of real poverty by their great _anxiety not to be thought
+poor_. Look round you, mark well what you behold, and say if this be not
+the case. In how many instances have you seen most amiable and even most
+industrious families brought to ruin by nothing but this! Mark it well;
+resolve to set this false shame at defiance, and when you have done
+that, you have laid the first stone of the surest foundation of your
+future tranquillity of mind. There are thousands of families, at this
+very moment, who are thus struggling to keep up appearances. The farmers
+accommodate themselves to circumstances more easily than tradesmen and
+professional men. They live at a greater distance from their neighbours:
+they can change their style of living unperceived: they can banish the
+decanter, change the dishes for a bit of bacon, make a treat out of a
+rasher and eggs, and the world is none the wiser all the while. But the
+tradesman, the doctor, the attorney, and the trader, cannot make the
+change so quietly, and unseen. The accursed wine, which is a sort of
+criterion of the style of living, a sort of _scale_ to the _plan_, a
+sort of _key_ to the _tune_; this is the thing to banish first of all;
+because all the rest follow, and come down to their proper level in a
+short time. The accursed decanter cries footman or waiting maid, puts
+bells to the side of the wall, screams aloud for carpets; and when I am
+asked, 'Lord, _what_ is a glass of wine?' my answer is, that, in this
+country, it is _everything_; it is the pitcher of the key; it demands
+all the other unnecessary expenses; it is injurious to health, and must
+be injurious, every bottle of wine that is drunk containing a certain
+portion of ardent spirits, besides other drugs deleterious in their
+nature; and, of all the friends to the doctors, this fashionable
+beverage is the greatest. And, which adds greatly to the folly, or, I
+should say, the real vice of using it, is, that the parties themselves,
+nine times out of ten, do not drink it by _choice_; do not like it; do
+not relish it; but use it from mere ostentation, being ashamed to be
+seen even by their own servants, not to drink wine. At the very moment I
+am writing this, there are thousands of families in and near London, who
+daily have wine upon their tables, and who _drink_ it too, merely
+because their own servants should not suspect them to be poor, and not
+deem them to be genteel; and thus families by thousands are ruined, only
+because they are ashamed to be thought poor.
+
+59. There is no shame belonging to poverty, which frequently arises from
+the virtues of the impoverished parties. Not so frequently, indeed, as
+from vice, folly, and indiscretion; but still very frequently. And as
+the Scripture tells us, that we are not to 'despise the poor _because_
+he is poor'; so we ought not to honour the rich because he is rich. The
+true way is, to take a fair survey of the character of a man as depicted
+in his conduct, and to respect him, or despise him, according to a due
+estimate of that character. No country upon earth exhibits so many, as
+this, of those fatal terminations of life, called suicides. These arise,
+in nine instances out of ten, from this very source. The victims are, in
+general, what may be fairly called insane; but their insanity almost
+always arises from the dread of poverty; not from the dread of a want of
+the means of sustaining life, or even decent living, but from the dread
+of being thought or known to be poor; from the dread of what is called
+falling in the scale of society; a dread which is prevalent hardly in
+any country but this. Looked at in its true light, what is there in
+poverty to make a man take away his own life? he is the same man that he
+was before: he has the same body and the same mind: if he even foresee a
+great alteration in his dress or his diet, why should he kill himself on
+that account? Are these all the things that a man wishes to live for?
+But, such is the fact; so great is the disgrace upon this country, and
+so numerous and terrible are the evils arising from this dread of being
+thought to be poor.
+
+60. Nevertheless, men ought to take care of their means, ought to use
+them prudently and sparingly, and to keep their expenses always within
+the bounds of their income, be it what it may. One of the effectual
+means of doing this is to purchase with ready money. ST. PAUL says,
+'_Owe no man any thing_:' and of his numerous precepts this is by no
+means the least worthy of our attention. _Credit_ has been boasted of as
+a very fine thing: to decry credit seems to be setting oneself up
+against the opinions of the whole world; and I remember a paper in the
+FREEHOLDER or the SPECTATOR, published just after the funding system had
+begun, representing 'PUBLIC Credit' as a GODDESS, enthroned in a temple
+dedicated to her by her votaries, amongst whom she is dispensing
+blessings of every description. It must be more than forty years since I
+read this paper, which I read soon after the time when the late Mr. PITT
+uttered in Parliament an expression of his anxious hope, that his 'name
+would be inscribed on the _monument_ which he should raise to '_public
+credit_.' Time has taught me, that PUBLIC CREDIT means, the contracting
+of debts which a nation never can pay; and I have lived to see this
+_Goddess_ produce effects, in my country, which Satan himself never
+could have produced. It is a very bewitching Goddess; and not less fatal
+in her influence in private than in public affairs. It has been carried
+in this latter respect to such a pitch, that scarcely any transaction,
+however low and inconsiderable in amount, takes place in any other way.
+There is a trade in London, called the 'tally-trade,' by which,
+household goods, coals, clothing, all sorts of things, are sold upon
+credit, the seller keeping _a tally_, and receiving payment for the
+goods, little by little; so that the income and the earnings of the
+buyers are always anticipated; are always gone, in fact, before they
+come in or are earned; the sellers receiving, of course, a great deal
+more than the proper profit.
+
+61. Without supposing you to descend to so low a grade as this, and even
+supposing you to be lawyer, doctor, parson, or merchant; it is still the
+same thing, if you purchase on credit, and not, perhaps, in a much less
+degree of disadvantage. Besides the higher price that you pay there is
+the temptation to have what you _really do not want_. The cost seems a
+trifle, when you have not to pay the money until a future time. It has
+been observed, and very truly observed, that men used to lay out a
+one-pound note when they would not lay out a sovereign; a consciousness
+of the intrinsic value of the things produces a retentiveness in the
+latter case more than in the former: the sight and the touch assist the
+mind in forming its conclusions, and the one-pound note was parted with,
+when the sovereign would have been kept. Far greater is the difference
+between Credit and Ready money. Innumerable things are not bought at all
+with ready money, which would be bought in case of trust: it is so much
+easier to _order_ a thing than to _pay_ for it. A future day; a day of
+payment must come, to be sure, but that is little thought of at the
+time; but if the money were to be drawn out, the moment the thing was
+received or offered, this question would arise, '_Can I do without it_?'
+Is this thing indispensable; am I compelled to have it, or suffer a loss
+or injury greater in amount than the cost of the thing? If this question
+were put, every time we make a purchase, seldom should we hear of those
+suicides which are such a disgrace to this country.
+
+62. I am aware, that it will be said, and very truly said, that the
+concerns of merchants; that the purchasing of great estates, and various
+other great transactions, cannot be carried on in this manner; but these
+are rare exceptions to the rule; even in these cases there might be much
+less of bills and bonds, and all the sources of litigation; but in the
+every-day business of life; in transactions with the butcher, the baker,
+the tailor, the shoemaker, what excuse can there be for pleading the
+example of the merchant, who carries on his work by ships and exchanges?
+I was delighted, some time ago, by being told of a young man, who, upon
+being advised _to keep a little account_ of all he received and
+expended, answered, 'that his business was not to keep account books:
+that he was sure not to make a mistake as to his income; and that, as to
+his expenditure, the little bag that held his sovereigns would be an
+infallible guide, as he never bought anything that he did not
+immediately pay for.'
+
+63. I believe that nobody will deny, that, generally speaking, you pay
+for the same article a fourth part more in the case of trust than you do
+in the case of ready money. Suppose, then, the baker, butcher, tailor,
+and shoemaker, receive from you only one hundred pounds a year. Put that
+together; that is to say, multiply twenty-five by twenty, and you will
+find, that, at the end of twenty years, you have 500_l._, besides the
+accumulating and growing interest. The fathers of the Church (I mean the
+ancient ones), and also the canons of the Church, forbade selling on
+trust at a higher price than for ready money, which was in effect to
+forbid _trust_; and this, doubtless, was one of the great objects which
+those wise and pious men had in view; for they were fathers in
+legislation and morals as well as in religion. But the doctrine of these
+fathers and canons no longer prevails; they are set at nought by the
+present age, even in the countries that adhere to their religion.
+ADDISON'S Goddess has prevailed over the fathers and the canons; and men
+not only make a difference in the price regulated by the difference in
+the mode of payment; but it would be absurd to expect them to do
+otherwise. They must not only charge something for the want of the _use_
+of the money; but they must charge something additional for the _risk_
+of its loss, which may frequently arise, and most frequently does arise,
+from the misfortunes of those to whom they have assigned their goods on
+trust. The man, therefore, who purchases on trust, not only pays for the
+trust, but he also pays his due share of what the tradesman loses by
+trust; and, after all, he is not so good a customer as the man who
+purchases cheaply with ready money; for there is his name indeed in the
+tradesman's book; but with that name the tradesman cannot go to market
+to get a fresh supply.
+
+64. Infinite are the ways in which gentlemen lose by this sort of
+dealing. Servants go and order sometimes things not wanted at all; at
+other times, more than is wanted; at others, things of a higher quality;
+and all this would be obviated by purchasing with ready money; for,
+whether through the hands of the party himself, or through those of an
+inferior, there would always be an actual counting out of the money;
+somebody would _see_ the thing bought and see the money paid; and, as
+the master would give the housekeeper or steward a bag of money at the
+time, he would _see_ the money too, would set a proper value upon it,
+and would just desire to know upon what it had been expended.
+
+65. How is it that farmers are so exact, and show such a disposition to
+retrench in the article of labour, when they seem to think little, or
+nothing, about the sums which they pay in tax upon malt, wine, sugar,
+tea, soap, candles, tobacco, and various other things? You find the
+utmost difficulty in making them understand, that they are affected by
+these. The reason is, that they _see_ the money which they give to the
+labourer on each succeeding Saturday night; but they do not see that
+which they give in taxes on the articles before mentioned. Why is it
+that they make such an outcry about the six or seven millions a year
+which are paid in poor-rates, and say not a word about the sixty
+millions a year raised in other taxes? The consumer pays all; and,
+therefore, they are as much interested in the one as the other; and yet
+the farmers think of no tax but the poor tax. The reason is, that the
+latter is collected from them in _money_: they _see_ it go out of their
+hands into the hands of another; and, therefore, they are everlastingly
+anxious to reduce the poor-rates, and they take care to keep them within
+the smallest possible bounds.
+
+66. Just thus would it be with every man that never purchased but with
+ready money: he would make the amount as low as possible in proportion
+to his means: this care and frugality would make an addition to his
+means, and therefore, in the end, at the end of his life, he would have
+had a great deal more to spend, and still be as rich as if he had gone
+in trust; while he would have lived in tranquillity all the while, and
+would have avoided all the endless papers and writings and receipts and
+bills and disputes and law-suits inseparable from a system of credit.
+This is by no means a lesson of _stinginess_; by no means tends to
+inculcate a heaping up of money; for the purchasing with ready money
+really gives you more money to purchase with; you can afford to have a
+greater quantity and variety of things; and I will engage that, if
+horses or servants be your taste, the saving in this way gives you an
+additional horse or an additional servant, if you be in any profession
+or engaged in any considerable trade. In towns, it tends to accelerate
+your pace along the streets; for the temptation of the windows is
+answered in a moment by clapping your hand upon your thigh; and the
+question, 'Do I really want that?' is sure to occur to you immediately,
+because the touch of the money is sure to put that thought in your mind.
+
+67. Now, supposing you to have a plenty; to have a fortune beyond your
+wants, would not the money which you would save in this way be very well
+applied in acts of real benevolence? Can you walk many yards in the
+streets; can you ride a mile in the country; can you go to half-a-dozen
+cottages; can you, in short, open your eyes, without seeing some human
+being, some one born in the same country with yourself, and who, on that
+account alone, has some claim upon your good wishes and your charity;
+can you open your eyes without seeing some person to whom even a small
+portion of your annual savings would convey gladness of heart? Your own
+heart will suggest the answer; and, if there were no motive but this,
+what need I say more in the advice which I have here tendered to you?
+
+68. Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or,
+rather from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing
+which has been honoured by the name of '_speculation_;' but which ought
+to be called Gambling. It is a purchasing of something which you do not
+want either in your family or in the way of ordinary trade: a something
+to be sold again with a great profit; and on the sale of which there is
+a considerable hazard. When purchases of this sort are made with ready
+money, they are not so offensive to reason and not attended with such
+risk; but when they are made with money _borrowed_ for the purpose, they
+are neither more nor less than gambling transactions; and they have
+been, in this country, a source of ruin, misery, and suicide, admitting
+of no adequate description. I grant that this gambling has arisen from
+the influence of the '_Goddess_' before mentioned; I grant that it has
+arisen from the facility of obtaining the fictitious means of making the
+purchases; and I grant that that facility has been created by the system
+under the baneful influence of which we live. But it is not the less
+necessary that I beseech you not to practise such gambling; that I
+beseech you, if you be engaged in it, to disentangle yourself from it as
+soon as you can. Your life, while you are thus engaged, is the life of
+the gamester; a life of constant anxiety; constant desire to over-reach;
+constant apprehension; general gloom, enlivened, now and then, by a
+gleam of hope or of success. Even that success is sure to lead to
+further adventures; and, at last, a thousand to one, that your fate is
+that of the pitcher to the well.
+
+69. The great temptation to this gambling is, as is the case in other
+gambling, the _success of the few_. As young men who crowd to the army,
+in search of rank and renown, never look into the ditch that holds their
+slaughtered companions; but have their eye constantly fixed on the
+General-in-chief; and as each of them belongs to the _same profession_,
+and is sure to be conscious that he has equal merit, every one deems
+himself the suitable successor of him who is surrounded with _Aides des
+camps_, and who moves battalions and columns by his nod; so with the
+rising generation of 'speculators:' they see the great estates that have
+succeeded the pencil-box and the orange-basket; they see those whom
+nature and good laws made to black shoes, sweep chimnies or the streets,
+rolling in carriages, or sitting in saloons surrounded by gaudy footmen
+with napkins twisted round their thumbs; and they can see no earthly
+reason why they should not all do the same; forgetting the thousands and
+thousands, who, in making the attempt, have reduced themselves to that
+beggary which, before their attempt, they would have regarded as a thing
+wholly impossible.
+
+70. In all situations of life, avoid the _trammels of the law_. Man's
+nature must be changed before law-suits will cease; and, perhaps, it
+would be next to impossible to make them less frequent than they are in
+the present state of this country; but though no man, who has any
+property at all, can say that he will have nothing to do with law-suits,
+it is in the power of most men to avoid them in a considerable degree.
+One good rule is to have as little as possible to do with any man who is
+fond of law-suits, and who, upon every slight occasion, talks of an
+appeal to the law. Such persons, from their frequent litigations,
+contract a habit of using the technical terms of the Courts, in which
+they take a pride, and are, therefore, companions peculiarly disgusting
+to men of sense. To such men a law-suit is a luxury, instead of being as
+it is, to men of ordinary minds, a source of anxiety and a real and
+substantial scourge. Such men are always of a quarrelsome disposition,
+and avail themselves of every opportunity to indulge in that which is
+mischievous to their neighbours. In thousands of instances men go to law
+for the indulgence of mere anger. The Germans are said to bring
+_spite-actions_ against one another, and to harass their poorer
+neighbours from motives of pure revenge. They have carried this their
+disposition with them to America; for which reason no one likes to live
+in a German neighbourhood.
+
+71. Before you go to law consider well the _cost_; for if you win your
+suit and are poorer than you were before, what do you accomplish? You
+only imbibe a little additional anger against your opponent; you injure
+him, but do harm to yourself. Better to put up with the loss of one
+pound than of two, to which latter is to be added all the loss of time,
+all the trouble, and all the mortification and anxiety attending a
+law-suit. To set an attorney to work to worry and torment another man is
+a very base act; to alarm his family as well as himself, while you are
+sitting quietly at home. If a man owe you money which he cannot pay, why
+add to his distress without the chance of benefit to yourself? Thousands
+of men have injured themselves by resorting to the law; while very few
+ever bettered themselves by it, except such resort were unavoidable.
+
+72. Nothing is much more discreditable than what is called _hard
+dealing_. They say of the Turks, that they know nothing of _two prices_
+for the same article; and that to ask an abatement of the lowest
+shopkeeper is to insult him. It would be well if Christians imitated
+Mahometans in this respect. To ask one price and take another, or to
+offer one price and give another, besides the loss of time that it
+occasions, is highly dishonourable to the parties, and especially when
+pushed to the extent of solemn protestations. It is, in fact, a species
+of lying; and it answers no one advantageous purpose to either buyer or
+seller. I hope that every young man who reads this, will start in life
+with a resolution never to higgle and lie in dealings. There is this
+circumstance in favour of the bookseller's business: every book has its
+fixed price, and no one ever asks an abatement. If it were thus in all
+other trades, how much time would be saved, and how much immorality
+prevented!
+
+73. As to the spending of your time, your business or your profession
+is to claim the priority of everything else. Unless that be _duly
+attended to_, there can be no real pleasure in any other employment of
+a portion of your time. Men, however, must have some leisure, some
+relaxation from business; and in the choice of this relaxation much of
+your happiness will depend. Where fields and gardens are at hand, they
+present the most rational scenes for leisure. As to company, I have
+said enough in the former letter to deter any young man from that of
+drunkards and rioting companions; but there is such a thing as your
+quiet '_pipe-and-pot-companions_,' which are, perhaps, the most fatal
+of all. Nothing can be conceived more dull, more stupid, more the
+contrary of edification and rational amusement, than sitting, sotting,
+over a pot and a glass, sending out smoke from the head, and
+articulating, at intervals, nonsense about all sorts of things. Seven
+years service as a galley-slave would be more bearable to a man of
+sense, than seven months confinement to society like this. Yet, such is
+the effect of habit, that, if a young man become a frequenter of such
+scenes, the idle propensity sticks to him for life. Some companions,
+however, every man must have; but these every well-behaved man will find
+in private houses, where families are found residing and where the
+suitable intercourse takes place between women and men. A man that
+cannot pass an evening without drink merits the name of a sot. Why
+should there be drink for the purpose of carrying on conversation? Women
+stand in need of no drink to stimulate them to converse; and I have a
+thousand times admired their patience in sitting quietly at their work,
+while their husbands are engaged, in the same room, with bottles and
+glasses before them, thinking nothing of the expense and still less of
+the shame which the distinction reflects upon them. We have to thank the
+women for many things, and particularly for their sobriety, for fear of
+following their example in which men drive them from the table, as if
+they said to them: 'You have had enough; food is sufficient for you; but
+we must remain to fill ourselves with drink, and to talk in language
+which your ears ought not to endure.' When women are getting up to
+retire from the table, men rise _in honour of_ them; but they take
+special care not to follow their excellent example. That which is not
+fit to be uttered before women is not fit to be uttered at all; and it
+is next to a proclamation, tolerating drunkenness and indecency, to send
+women from the table the moment they have swallowed their food. The
+practice has been ascribed to a desire to leave them to themselves; but
+why should they be left to themselves? Their conversation is always the
+most lively, while their persons are generally the most agreeable
+objects. No: the plain truth is, that it is the love of the drink and of
+the indecent talk that send women from the table; and it is a practice
+which I have always abhorred. I like to see young men, especially,
+follow them out of the room, and prefer their company to that of the
+sots who are left behind.
+
+74. Another mode of spending the leisure time is that of books. Rational
+and well-informed companions may be still more instructive; but books
+never annoy; they cost little; and they are always at hand, and ready at
+your call. The sort of books must, in some degree, depend upon your
+pursuit in life; but there are some books necessary to every one who
+aims at the character of a well-informed man. I have slightly mentioned
+HISTORY and Geography in the preceding letter; but I must here observe,
+that, as to both these, you should begin with your own country, and make
+yourself well acquainted, not only with its ancient state, but with the
+_origin_ of all its principal institutions. To read of the battles which
+it has fought, and of the intrigues by which one king or one minister
+has succeeded another, is very little more profitable than the reading
+of a romance. To understand well the history of the country, you should
+first understand how it came to be divided into counties, hundreds, and
+into parishes; how judges, sheriffs, and juries, first arose; to what
+end they were all invented, and how the changes with respect to any of
+them have been produced. But it is of particular consequence that you
+ascertain the _state of the people_ in former times, which is to be
+ascertained by _comparing the then price of labour with the then price
+of food_. You hear enough, and you read enough, about the _glorious
+wars_ in the reign of KING EDWARD the THIRD; and it is very proper that
+those glories should be recorded and remembered; but you never read, in
+the works of the historians, that, in that reign, a common labourer
+earned threepence-halfpenny a day; and that a _fat sheep_ was sold, at
+the same time, for one shilling and twopence, and a fat hog, two years
+old, for three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose for
+twopence-halfpenny. You never read that women received a penny a day for
+hay-making or weeding in the corn, and that a gallon of red wine was
+sold for fourpence. These are matters which historians have deemed to be
+beneath their notice; but they are matters of real importance: they are
+matters which ought to have practical effect at this time; for these
+furnish the criterion whereby we are to judge of our condition compared
+with that of our forefathers. The poor-rates form a great feature in the
+laws and customs of this country. Put to a thousand persons who have
+read what is called the history of England; put to them the question,
+how the poor-rates came? and nine hundred and ninety-nine of the
+thousand will tell you, that they know nothing at all of the matter.
+This is not history; a list of battles and a string of intrigues are not
+history, they communicate no knowledge applicable to our present state;
+and it really is better to amuse oneself with an avowed romance, which
+latter is a great deal worse than passing one's time in counting the
+trees.
+
+75. History has been described as affording arguments of experience; as
+a record of what has been, in order to guide us as to what is likely to
+be, or what ought to be; but, from this romancing history, no such
+experience is to be derived: for it furnishes no facts on which to found
+arguments relative to the existing or future state of things. To come at
+the true history of a country you must read its laws: you must read
+books treating of its usages and customs in former times; and you must
+particularly inform yourself as to _prices of labour and of food_. By
+reading the single Act of the 23rd year of EDWARD the THIRD, specifying
+the price of labour at that time; by reading an Act of Parliament passed
+in the 24th year of HENRY the EIGHTH; by reading these two Acts, and
+then reading the CHRONICON PRECIOSUM of BISHOP FLEETWOOD, which shows
+the price of food in the former reign, you come into full possession of
+the knowledge of what England was in former times. Divers books teach
+how the divisions of the country arose, and how its great institutions
+were established; and the result of this reading is a store of
+knowledge, which will afford you pleasure for the whole of your life.
+
+76. History, however, is by no means the only thing about which every
+man's leisure furnishes him with the means of reading; besides which,
+every man has not the same taste. Poetry, geography, moral essays, the
+divers subjects of philosophy, travels, natural history, books on
+sciences; and, in short, the whole range of book-knowledge is before
+you; but there is one thing always to be guarded against; and that is,
+not to admire and applaud anything you read, merely because it is the
+_fashion_ to admire and applaud it. Read, consider well what you read,
+form _your own judgment_, and stand by that judgment in despite of the
+sayings of what are called learned men, until fact or argument be
+offered to convince you of your error. One writer praises another; and
+it is very possible for writers so to combine as to cry down and, in
+some sort, to destroy the reputation of any one who meddles with the
+combination, unless the person thus assailed be blessed with uncommon
+talent and uncommon perseverance. When I read the works of POPE and of
+SWIFT, I was greatly delighted with their lashing of DENNIS; but
+wondered, at the same time, why they should have taken so much pains in
+running down such a _fool_. By the merest accident in the world, being
+at a tavern in the woods of America, I took up an old book, in order to
+pass away the time while my travelling companions were drinking in the
+next room; but seeing the book contained the criticisms of DENNIS, I was
+about to lay it down, when the play of 'CATO' caught my eye; and having
+been accustomed to read books in which this play was lauded to the
+skies, and knowing it to have been written by ADDISON, every line of
+whose works I had been taught to believe teemed with wisdom and genius,
+I condescended to begin to read, though the work was from the pen of
+that _fool_ DENNIS. I read on, and soon began to _laugh_, not at Dennis,
+but at Addison. I laughed so much and so loud, that the landlord, who
+was in the passage, came in to see what I was laughing at. In short, I
+found it a most masterly production, one of the most witty things that I
+had ever read in my life. I was delighted with DENNIS, and was heartily
+ashamed of my former admiration of CATO, and felt no little resentment
+against POPE and SWIFT for their endless reviling of this most able and
+witty critic. This, as far as I recollect, was the first _emancipation_
+that had assisted me in my reading. I have, since that time, never taken
+any thing upon trust: I have judged for myself, trusting neither to the
+opinions of writers nor in the fashions of the day. Having been told by
+DR. BLAIR, in his lectures on Rhetoric, that, if I meant to write
+correctly, I must 'give my days and nights to ADDISON,' I read a few
+numbers of the Spectator at the time I was writing my English Grammar: I
+gave neither my nights nor my days to him; but I found an abundance of
+matter to afford examples _of false grammar_; and, upon a reperusal, I
+found that the criticisms of DENNIS might have been extended to this
+book too.
+
+77. But that which never ought to have been forgotten by those who were
+men at the time, and that which ought to be _made known to every young
+man of the present day_, in order that he may be induced to exercise his
+own judgment with regard to books, is, the transactions relative to the
+writings of SHAKSPEARE, which transactions took place about thirty years
+ago. It is still, and it was then much more, the practice to extol every
+line of SHAKSPEARE to the skies: not to admire SHAKSPEARE has been
+deemed to be a proof of want of understanding and taste. MR. GARRICK,
+and some others after him, had their own good and profitable reasons for
+crying up the works of this poet. When I was a very little boy, there
+was a _jubilee_ in honour of SHAKSPEARE, and as he was said to have
+planted a _Mulberry tree_, boxes, and other little ornamental things in
+wood, were sold all over the country, as having been made out of the
+trunk or limbs of this ancient and sacred tree. We Protestants laugh at
+the _relics_ so highly prized by Catholics; but never was a Catholic
+people half so much duped by the relics of saints, as this nation was by
+the mulberry tree, of which, probably, more wood was sold than would
+have been sufficient in quantity to build a ship of war, or a large
+house. This madness abated for some years; but, towards the end of the
+last century it broke out again with more fury than ever. SHAKSPEARE'S
+works were published by BOYDELL, an Alderman of London, at a
+subscription of _five hundred pounds for each copy_, accompanied by
+plates, each forming a large picture. Amongst the mad men of the day was
+a MR. IRELAND, who seemed to be more mad than any of the rest. His
+adoration of the poet led him to perform a pilgrimage to an old
+farm-house, near Stratford-upon-Avon, said to have been the birth-place
+of the poet. Arrived at the spot, he requested the farmer and his wife
+to let him search the house for papers, _first going upon his knees_,
+and praying, in the poetic style, the gods to aid him in his quest. He
+found no papers; but he found that the farmer's wife, in clearing out a
+garret some years before, had found some rubbishy old papers which she
+had _burnt_, and which had probably been papers used in the wrapping up
+of pigs' cheeks to keep them from the bats. 'O, wretched woman!'
+exclaimed he; 'do you know what you have done?' 'O dear, no!' said the
+woman, half frightened out of her wits: 'no harm, I hope; for the papers
+were _very old_; I dare say as old as the house itself.' This threw him
+into an additional degree of _excitement_, as it is now fashionably
+called: he raved, he stamped, he foamed, and at last quitted the house,
+covering the poor woman with very term of reproach; and hastening back
+to Stratford, took post-chaise for London, to relate to his brother
+madmen the horrible sacrilege of this heathenish woman. Unfortunately
+for MR. IRELAND, unfortunately for his learned brothers in the
+metropolis, and unfortunately for the reputation of SHAKSPEARE, MR.
+IRELAND took with him to the scene of his adoration _a son, about
+sixteen years of age_, who was articled to an attorney in London. The
+son was by no means so sharply bitten as the father; and, upon returning
+to town, he conceived the idea of _supplying the place of the invaluable
+papers_ which the farm-house heathen had destroyed. He thought, and he
+thought rightly, that he should have little difficulty in writing plays
+_just like those of Shakspeare_! To get _paper_ that should seem to have
+been made in the reign of QUEEN ELIZABETH, and _ink_ that should give to
+writing the appearance of having the same age, was somewhat difficult;
+but both were overcome. Young IRELAND was acquainted with a son of a
+bookseller, who dealt in _old books_: the blank leaves of these books
+supplied the young author with paper; and he found out the way of making
+proper ink for his purpose. To work he went, _wrote several plays_, some
+_love-letters_, and other things; and having got a Bible, extant in the
+time of SHAKSPEARE, he wrote _notes_ in the margin. All these, together
+with _sonnets_ in abundance, and other little detached pieces, he
+produced to his father, telling him he got them from a gentleman, who
+had _made him swear that he would not divulge his name_. The father
+announced the invaluable discovery to the literary world: the literary
+world rushed to him; the manuscripts were regarded as genuine by the
+most grave and learned Doctors, some of whom (and amongst these were
+DOCTORS PARR and WARTON) gave, _under their hands_, an opinion, that the
+manuscripts _must have been written_ by SHAKSPEARE; for that _no other
+man in the world could have been capable of writing them_!
+
+78. MR. IRELAND opened a subscription, published these new and
+invaluable manuscripts at an enormous price; and preparations were
+instantly made for _performing one of the plays_, called VORTIGERN. Soon
+after the acting of the play, the indiscretion of the lad caused the
+secret to explode; and, instantly, those who had declared that he had
+written as well as SHAKSPEARE, did every thing in their power _to
+destroy him_! The attorney drove him from his office; the father drove
+him from his house; and, in short, he was hunted down as if he had been
+a malefactor of the worst description. The truth of this relation is
+undeniable; it is recorded in numberless books. The young man is, I
+believe, yet alive; and, in short, no man will question any one of the
+facts.
+
+79. After this, where is the person of sense who will be guided in these
+matters by _fashion_? where is the man, who wishes not to be deluded,
+who will not, when he has read a book, _judge for himself_? After all
+these jubilees and pilgrimages; after BOYDELL'S subscription of 500_l._
+for one single copy; after it had been deemed almost impiety to doubt of
+the genius of SHAKSPEARE surpassing that of all the rest of mankind;
+after he had been called the '_Immortal Bard_,' as a matter of course,
+as we speak of MOSES and AARON, there having been but one of each in the
+world; after all this, comes a lad of sixteen years of age, writes that
+which learned Doctors declare could have been written by no man but
+SHAKSPEARE, and, when it is discovered that this laughing boy is the
+real author, the DOCTORS turn round upon him, with all the newspapers,
+magazines, and reviews, and, of course, the public at their back, revile
+him as an _impostor_; and, under that odious name, hunt him out of
+society, and doom him to starve! This lesson, at any rate, he has given
+us: not to rely on the judgment of Doctors and other pretenders to
+literary superiority. Every young man, when he takes up a book for the
+first time, ought to remember this story; and if he do remember it, he
+will disregard fashion with regard to the book, and will pay little
+attention to the decision of those who call themselves critics.
+
+80. I hope that your taste would keep you aloof from the writings of
+those detestable villains, who employ the powers of their mind in
+debauching the minds of others, or in endeavours to do it. They present
+their poison in such captivating forms, that it requires great virtue
+and resolution to withstand their temptations; and, they have, perhaps,
+done a thousand times as much mischief in the world as all the infidels
+and atheists put together. These men ought to be called _literary
+pimps_: they ought to be held in universal abhorrence, and never spoken
+of but with execration. Any appeal to bad passions is to be despised;
+any appeal to ignorance and prejudice; but here is an appeal to the
+frailties of human nature, and an endeavour to make the mind corrupt,
+just as it is beginning to possess its powers. I never have known any
+but bad men, worthless men, men unworthy of any portion of respect, who
+took delight in, or even kept in their possession, writings of the
+description to which I here allude. The writings of SWIFT have this
+blemish; and, though he is not a teacher of _lewdness_, but rather the
+contrary, there are certain parts of his poems which are much too filthy
+for any decent person to read. It was beneath him to stoop to such means
+of setting forth that wit which would have been far more brilliant
+without them. I have heard, that, in the library of what is called an
+'_illustrious_ person,' sold some time ago, there was an immense
+collection of books of this infamous description; and from this
+circumstance, if from no other, I should have formed my judgment of the
+character of that person.
+
+81. Besides reading, a young man ought to write, if he have the capacity
+and the leisure. If you wish to remember a thing well, put it into
+writing, even if you burn the paper immediately after you have done; for
+the eye greatly assists the mind. Memory consists of a concatenation of
+ideas, the place, the time, and other circumstances, lead to the
+recollection of facts; and no circumstance more effectually than stating
+the facts upon paper. A JOURNAL should be kept by every young man. Put
+down something against every day in the year, if it be merely a
+description of the weather. You will not have done this for one year
+without finding the benefit of it. It disburthens the mind of many
+things to be recollected; it is amusing and useful, and ought by no
+means to be neglected. How often does it happen that we cannot make a
+statement of facts, sometimes very interesting to ourselves and our
+friends, for the want of a record of the places where we were, and of
+things that occurred on such and such a day! How often does it happen
+that we get into disagreeable disputes about things that have passed,
+and about the time and other circumstances attending them! As a thing of
+mere curiosity, it is of some value, and may frequently prove of very
+great utility. It demands not more than a minute in the twenty-four
+hours; and that minute is most agreeably and advantageously employed. It
+tends greatly to produce regularity in the conducting of affairs: it is
+a thing demanding a small portion of attention _once in every day_; I
+myself have found it to be attended with great and numerous benefits,
+and I therefore strongly recommend it to the practice of every reader.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III
+
+TO A LOVER
+
+82. There are two descriptions of Lovers on whom all advice would be
+wasted; namely, those in whose minds passion so wholly overpowers reason
+as to deprive the party of his sober senses. Few people are entitled to
+more compassion than young men thus affected: it is a species of
+insanity that assails them; and, when it produces self-destruction,
+which it does in England more frequently than in all the other countries
+in the world put together, the mortal remains of the sufferer ought to
+be dealt with in as tender a manner as that of which the most merciful
+construction of the law will allow. If SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY'S remains
+were, as they were, in fact, treated as those of a person labouring
+under '_temporary mental derangement_,' surely the youth who destroys
+his life on account of unrequited love, ought to be considered in as
+mild a light! SIR SAMUEL was represented, in the evidence taken before
+the Coroner's Jury, to have been _inconsolable for the loss of his
+wife_; that this loss had so dreadful an effect upon his mind, that it
+_bereft him of his reason_, made life insupportable, and led him to
+commit the act of _suicide_: and, on _this ground alone_, his _remains_
+and his _estate_ were rescued from the awful, though just and wise,
+sentence of the law. But, unfortunately for the reputation of the
+administration of that just and wise law, there had been, only about two
+years before, a _poor_ man, at Manchester, _buried in crossroads_, and
+under circumstances which entitled his remains to mercy much more
+clearly than in the case of SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY.
+
+83. This unfortunate youth, whose name was SMITH, and who was a
+shoemaker, was in love with a young woman, who, in spite of all his
+importunities and his proofs of ardent passion, refused to marry him,
+and even discovered her liking for another; and he, unable to support
+life, accompanied by the thought of her being in possession of any body
+but himself, put an end to his life by the means of a rope. If, in any
+case, we are to _presume_ the existence of insanity; if, in any case, we
+are led to believe the thing _without positive proof_; if, in any case,
+there can be an apology in human nature itself, for such an act; _this
+was that case_. We all know (as I observed at the time); that is to say,
+all of us who cannot wait to calculate upon the gains and losses of the
+affair; all of us, except those who are endowed with this provident
+frigidity, know well what youthful love is; and what its torments are,
+when accompanied by even the smallest portion of jealousy. Every man,
+and especially every Englishman (for here we seldom love or hate by
+halves), will recollect how many mad pranks he has played; how many wild
+and ridiculous things he has said and done between the age of sixteen
+and that of twenty-two; how many times a kind glance has scattered all
+his reasoning and resolutions to the winds; how many times a cool look
+has plunged him into the deepest misery! Poor SMITH, who was at this age
+of love and madness, might, surely, be presumed to have done the deed in
+a moment of '_temporary mental derangement_.' He was an object of
+compassion in every humane breast: he had parents and brethren and
+kindred and friends to lament his death, and to feel shame at the
+disgrace inflicted on his lifeless body: yet, HE was pronounced to be a
+_felo de se_, or _self-murderer_, and his body was put into a hole by
+the way-side, with a stake driven down through it; while that of ROMILLY
+had mercy extended to it, on the ground that the act had been occasioned
+by '_temporary mental derangement_' caused by his grief for the death of
+his wife!
+
+84. To _reason_ with passion like that of the unfortunate SMITH, is
+perfectly useless; you may, with as much chance of success, reason and
+remonstrate with the winds or the waves: if you make impression, it
+lasts but for a moment: your effort, like an inadequate stoppage of
+waters, only adds, in the end, to the violence of the torrent: the
+current must have and will have its course, be the consequences what
+they may. In cases not quite so decided, _absence_, the sight _of new
+faces_, the sound _of new voices_, generally serve, if not as a radical
+cure, as a mitigation, at least, of the disease. But, the worst of it
+is, that, on this point, we have the girls (and women too) against us!
+For they look upon it as right that every lover should be _a little
+maddish_; and, every attempt to rescue him from the thraldom imposed by
+their charms, they look upon as an overt act of treason against their
+natural sovereignty. No girl ever liked a young man less for his having
+done things foolish and wild and ridiculous, provided she was _sure_
+that love of her had been the cause: let her but be satisfied upon this
+score, and there are very few things which she will not forgive. And,
+though wholly unconscious of the fact, she is a great and sound
+philosopher after all. For, from the nature of things, the rearing of a
+family always has been, is, and must ever be, attended with cares and
+troubles, which must infallibly produce, at times, feelings to be
+combated and overcome by nothing short of that ardent affection which
+first brought the parties together. So that, talk as long as Parson
+MALTHUS likes about 'moral _restraint_;' and report as long as the
+Committees of Parliament please about preventing '_premature_ and
+_improvident_ marriages' amongst the labouring classes, the passion that
+they would _restrain_, while it is necessary to the existence of
+mankind, is the greatest of all the compensations for the inevitable
+cares, troubles, hardships, and sorrows of life; and, as to the
+_marriages_, if they could once be rendered universally _provident_,
+every generous sentiment would quickly be banished from the world.
+
+85. The other description of lovers, with whom it is useless to reason,
+are those who love according to the _rules of arithmetic_, or who
+measure their matrimonial expectations by the _chain of the
+land-surveyor_. These are not love and marriage; they are bargain and
+sale. Young men will naturally, and almost necessarily, fix their choice
+on young women in their own rank in life; because from habit and
+intercourse they will know them best. But, if the length of the girl's
+purse, present or contingent, be a consideration with the man, or the
+length of his purse, present or contingent, be a consideration with her,
+it is an affair of bargain and sale. I know that kings, princes, and
+princesses are, in respect of marriage, restrained by the law: I know
+that nobles, if not thus restrained by positive law, are restrained, in
+fact, by the very nature of their order. And here is a disadvantage
+which, as far as real enjoyment of life is concerned, more than
+counterbalances all the advantages that they possess over the rest of
+the community. This disadvantage, generally speaking, pursues rank and
+riches downwards, till you approach very nearly to that numerous class
+who live by manual labour, becoming, however, less and less as you
+descend. You generally find even very vulgar rich men making a sacrifice
+of their natural and rational taste to their mean and ridiculous pride,
+and thereby providing for themselves an ample supply of misery for life.
+By preferring '_provident_ marriages' to marriages of love, they think
+to secure themselves against all the evils of poverty; but, _if poverty
+come_, and come it may, and frequently does, in spite of the best laid
+plans, and best modes of conduct; _if poverty come_, then where is the
+counterbalance for that ardent mutual affection, which troubles, and
+losses, and crosses always increase rather than diminish, and which,
+amidst all the calamities that can befall a man, whispers to his heart,
+that his best possession is still left him unimpaired? The
+WORCESTERSHIRE BARONET, who has had to endure the sneers of fools on
+account of his marriage with a beautiful and virtuous servant maid,
+would, were the present ruinous measures of the Government to drive him
+from his mansion to a cottage, still have a source of happiness; while
+many of those, who might fall in company with him, would, in addition to
+all their other troubles, have, perhaps, to endure the reproaches of
+wives to whom poverty, or even humble life, would be insupportable.
+
+86. If marrying for the sake of money be, under any circumstances,
+despicable, if not disgraceful; if it be, generally speaking, a species
+of legal prostitution, only a little less shameful than that which,
+under some governments, is openly licensed for the sake of a tax; if
+this be the case generally, what ought to be said of a young man, who,
+in the heyday of youth, should couple himself on to a libidinous woman,
+old enough, perhaps, to be his grandmother, ugly as the nightmare,
+offensive alike to the sight and the smell, and who should pretend to
+_love_ her too: and all this merely for the sake of her money? Why, it
+ought, and it, doubtless, would be said of him, that his conduct was a
+libel on both man and womankind; that his name ought, for ever, to be
+synonymous with baseness and nastiness, and that in no age and in no
+nation, not marked by a general depravity of manners, and total absence
+of all sense of shame, every associate, male or female, of such a man,
+or of his filthy mate, would be held in abhorrence. Public morality
+would drive such a hateful pair from society, and strict justice would
+hunt them from the face of the earth.
+
+87. BUONAPARTE could not be said to marry for _money_, but his motive
+was little better. It was for dominion, for power, for ambition, and
+that, too, of the most contemptible kind. I knew an American Gentleman,
+with whom BUONAPARTE had always been a great favourite; but the moment
+the news arrived of his divorce and second marriage, he gave him up.
+This piece of grand prostitution was too much to be defended. And the
+truth is, that BUONAPARTE might have dated his decline from the day of
+that marriage. My American friend said, 'If I had been he, I would, in
+the first place, have married the poorest and prettiest girl in all
+France.' If he had done this, he would, in all probability, have now
+been on an imperial throne, instead of being eaten by worms at the
+bottom of a very deep hole in Saint Helena; whence, however, his bones
+convey to the world the moral, that to marry for money, for ambition, or
+from any motive other than the one pointed out by affection, is not the
+road to glory, to happiness, or to peace.
+
+88. Let me now turn from these two descriptions of lovers, with whom it
+is useless to reason, and address myself to you, my reader, whom I
+suppose to be a _real_ lover, but not so smitten as to be bereft of your
+reason. You should never forget, that marriage, which is a state that
+every young person ought to have in view, is a thing to last _for life_;
+and that, generally speaking, it is to make life _happy_, or
+_miserable_; for, though a man may bring his mind to something nearly a
+state of _indifference_, even _that_ is misery, except with those who
+can hardly be reckoned amongst sensitive beings. Marriage brings
+numerous _cares_, which are amply compensated by the more numerous
+delights which are their companions. But to have the delights, as well
+as the cares, the choice of the partner must be fortunate. I say
+_fortunate_; for, after all, love, real love, impassioned affection, is
+an ingredient so absolutely necessary, that no _perfect_ reliance can
+be placed on the judgment. Yet, the judgment may do something; reason
+may have some influence; and, therefore, I here offer you my advice with
+regard to the exercise of that reason.
+
+89. The things which you ought to desire in a wife are, 1. Chastity; 2.
+sobriety; 3. industry; 4. frugality; 5. cleanliness; 6. knowledge of
+domestic affairs; 7. good temper; 8. beauty.
+
+90. CHASTITY, perfect modesty, in word, deed, and even thought, is so
+essential, that, without it, no female is fit to be a wife. It is not
+enough that a young woman abstain from everything approaching towards
+indecorum in her behaviour towards men; it is, with me, not enough that
+she cast down her eyes, or turn aside her head with a smile, when she
+hears an indelicate allusion: she ought to appear _not to understand_
+it, and to receive from it no more impression than if she were a post. A
+loose woman is a disagreeable _acquaintance_: what must she be, then, as
+a _wife_? Love is so blind, and vanity is so busy in persuading us that
+our own qualities will be sufficient to ensure fidelity, that we are
+very apt to think nothing, or, at any rate, very little, of trifling
+symptoms of levity; but if such symptoms show themselves _now_, we may
+be well assured, that we shall never possess the power of effecting a
+cure. If _prudery_ mean _false_ modesty, it is to be despised; but if it
+mean modesty pushed to the utmost extent, I confess that I like it. Your
+'_free and hearty_' girls I have liked very well to talk and laugh with;
+but never, for one moment, did it enter into my mind that I could have
+endured a 'free and hearty' girl for a wife. The thing is, I repeat, to
+_last for life_; it is to be a counterbalance for troubles and
+misfortunes; and it must, therefore, be perfect, or it had better not be
+at all. To say that one _despises_ jealousy is foolish; it is a thing to
+be lamented; but the very elements of it ought to be avoided. Gross
+indeed is the beast, for he is unworthy of the name of man; nasty indeed
+is the wretch, who can even entertain the thought of putting himself
+between a pair of sheets with a wife of whose infidelity he possesses
+the proof; but, in such cases, a man ought to be very slow to believe
+appearances; and he ought not to decide against his wife but upon the
+clearest proof. The last, and, indeed, the only effectual safeguard is,
+to _begin_ well; to make a good choice; to let the beginning be such as
+to render infidelity and jealousy next to impossible. If you begin in
+grossness; if you couple yourself on to one with whom you have taken
+liberties, infidelity is the natural and _just_ consequence. When a
+_Peer of the realm_, who had not been over-fortunate in his matrimonial
+affairs, was urging MAJOR CARTWRIGHT to seek for nothing more than
+'_moderate_ reform,' the Major (forgetting the domestic circumstances of
+his Lordship) asked him how he should relish '_moderate_ chastity' in a
+wife! The bare use of the two words, thus coupled together, is
+sufficient to excite disgust. Yet with this '_moderate_ chastity' you
+must be, and ought to be, content, if you have entered into marriage
+with one, in whom you have ever discovered the slightest approach
+towards lewdness, either in deeds, words, or looks. To marry has been
+your own act; you have made the contract for your own gratification; you
+knew the character of the other party; and the children, if any, or the
+community, are not to be the sufferers for your gross and corrupt
+passion. '_Moderate_ chastity' is all that you have, in fact, contracted
+for: you have it, and you have no reason to complain. When I come to
+address myself to the _husband_, I shall have to say more upon this
+subject, which I dismiss for the present with observing, that my
+observation has convinced me, that, when families are rendered unhappy
+from the existence of '_moderate_ chastity,' the fault, first or last,
+has been in the man, ninety-nine times out of every hundred.
+
+91. SOBRIETY. By _sobriety_ I do not mean merely an absence of _drinking
+to a state of intoxication_; for, if that be _hateful_ in a man, what
+must it be in a woman! There is a Latin proverb, which says, that wine,
+that is to say, intoxication, _brings forth truth_. Whatever it may do
+in this way, in men, in women it is sure, unless prevented by age or by
+salutary ugliness, to produce a moderate, and a _very moderate_, portion
+of chastity. There never was a drunken woman, a woman who loved strong
+drink, who was chaste, if the opportunity of being the contrary
+presented itself to her. There are cases where _health_ requires wine,
+and even small portions of more ardent liquor; but (reserving what I
+have further to say on this point, till I come to the conduct of the
+husband) _young_ unmarried women can seldom stand in need of these
+stimulants; and, at any rate, only in cases of well-known definite
+ailments. Wine! '_only_ a _glass or two_ of wine at dinner, or so'! As
+soon as have married a girl whom I had thought liable to be persuaded to
+drink, habitually, '_only_ a glass or two of wine at dinner, or so;' as
+soon as have _married_ such a girl, I would have taken a strumpet from
+the streets. And it has not required _age_ to give me this way of
+thinking: it has always been rooted in my mind from the moment that I
+began to think the girls prettier than posts. There are few things so
+disgusting as a guzzling woman. A gormandizing one is bad enough; but,
+one who tips off the liquor with an appetite, and exclaims '_good!
+good!_' by a smack of her lips, is fit for nothing but a brothel. There
+may be cases, amongst the _hard_-labouring women, such as _reapers_, for
+instance, especially when they have children at the breast; there may be
+cases, where very _hard-working_ women may stand in need of a little
+_good_ beer; beer, which, if taken in immoderate quantities, would
+produce intoxication. But, while I only allow the _possibility_ of the
+existence of such cases, I deny the necessity of any strong drink at all
+in every other case. Yet, in this metropolis, it is the general custom
+for tradesmen, journeymen, and even labourers, to have regularly on
+their tables the big brewers' poison, twice in every day, and at the
+rate of not less than a pot to a person, women, as well as men, as the
+allowance for the day. A pot of poison a day, at fivepence the pot,
+amounts to _seven pounds and two shillings_ in the year! Man and wife
+suck down, in this way, _fourteen pounds four shillings_ a year! Is it
+any wonder that they are clad in rags, that they are skin and bone, and
+that their children are covered with filth?
+
+92. But by the word SOBRIETY, in a young woman, I mean a great deal more
+than even a rigid abstinence from that love of _drink_, which I am not
+to suppose, and which I do not believe, to exist any thing like
+generally amongst the young women of this country. I mean a great deal
+more than this; I mean _sobriety of conduct_. The word _sober_, and its
+derivatives, do not confine themselves to matters of _drink_: they
+express _steadiness, seriousness, carefulness, scrupulous propriety of
+conduct_; and they are thus used amongst country people in many parts of
+England. When a Somersetshire fellow makes too free with a girl, she
+reproves him with, 'Come! be _sober_!' And when we wish a team, or any
+thing, to be moved on _steadily_ and with _great care_, we cry out to
+the carter, or other operator, '_Soberly, soberly_.' Now, this species
+of sobriety is a great qualification in the person you mean to make your
+wife. Skipping, capering, romping, rattling girls are very amusing where
+all costs and other consequences are out of the question; and they _may_
+become _sober_ in the Somersetshire sense of the word. But while you
+have _no certainty_ of this, you have a presumptive argument on the
+other side. To be sure, when girls are _mere children_, they are to play
+and romp like children. But, when they arrive at that age which turns
+their thoughts towards that sort of connexion which is to be theirs for
+life; when they begin to think of having the command of a house, however
+small or poor, it is time for them to cast away the levity of the child.
+It is natural, nor is it very wrong, that I know of, for children to
+like to gad about and to see all sorts of strange sights, though I do
+not approve of this even in children: but, if I could not have found a
+_young woman_ (and I am sure I never should have married an _old_ one)
+who I was not _sure_ possessed _all_ the qualities expressed by the word
+sobriety, I should have remained a bachelor to the end of that life,
+which, in that case, would, I am satisfied, have terminated without my
+having performed a thousandth part of those labours which have been, and
+are, in spite of all political prejudice, the wonder of all who have
+seen, or heard of, them. Scores of gentlemen have, at different times,
+expressed to me their surprise, that I was '_always in spirits_;' that
+nothing _pulled me down_; and the truth is, that, throughout nearly
+forty years of troubles, losses, and crosses, assailed all the while by
+more numerous and powerful enemies than ever man had before to contend
+with, and performing, at the same time, labours greater than man ever
+before performed; all those labours requiring mental exertion, and some
+of them mental exertion of the highest order; the truth is, that,
+throughout the whole of this long time of troubles and of labours, I
+have never known a single hour of _real anxiety_; the troubles have been
+no troubles to me; I have not known what _lowness of spirits_ meaned;
+have been more gay, and felt less care, than any bachelor that ever
+lived. 'You are _always in spirits_, Cobbett!' To be sure; for why
+should I not? _Poverty_ I have always set at defiance, and I could,
+therefore, defy the temptations of riches; and, as to _home_ and
+_children_, I had taken care to provide myself with an inexhaustible
+store of that '_sobriety_,' which I am so strongly recommending my
+reader to provide himself with; or, if he cannot do that, to deliberate
+long before he ventures on the life-enduring matrimonial voyage. This
+sobriety is a title to _trust-worthiness_; and _this_, young man, is the
+treasure that you ought to prize far above all others. Miserable is the
+husband, who, when he crosses the threshold of his house, carries with
+him doubts and fears and suspicions. I do not mean suspicions of the
+_fidelity_ of his wife, but of her care, frugality, attention to his
+interests, and to the health and morals of his children. Miserable is
+the man, who cannot leave _all unlocked_, and who is not _sure_, quite
+certain, that all is as safe as if grasped in his own hand. He is the
+happy husband, who can go away, at a moment's warning, leaving his house
+and his family with as little anxiety as he quits an inn, not more
+fearing to find, on his return, any thing wrong, than he would fear a
+discontinuance of the rising and setting of the sun, and if, as in my
+case, leaving books and papers all lying about at sixes and sevens,
+finding them arranged in proper order, and the room, during the lucky
+interval, freed from the effects of his and his ploughman's or
+gardener's dirty shoes. Such a man has no _real cares_; such a man has
+_no troubles_; and this is the sort of life that I have led. I have had
+all the numerous and indescribable delights of home and children, and,
+at the same time, all the bachelor's freedom from domestic cares: and to
+this cause, far more than to any other, my readers owe those labours,
+which I never could have performed, if even the slightest degree of want
+of confidence at home had ever once entered into my mind.
+
+93. But, in order to possess this precious _trust-worthiness_, you must,
+if you can, exercise your _reason_ in the choice of your partner. If she
+be vain of her person, very fond of dress, fond of _flattery_, at all
+given to gadding about, fond of what are called _parties of pleasure_,
+or coquetish, though in the least degree; if either of these, she never
+will be trust-worthy; worthy; she cannot change her nature; and if you
+marry her, you will be _unjust_ if you expect trust-worthiness at her
+hands. But, besides this, even if you find in her that innate
+'_sobriety_' of which I have been speaking, there requires on your part,
+and that at once too, confidence and trust without any limit. Confidence
+is, in this case, nothing unless it be reciprocal. To have a trust-worthy
+wife, you must begin by showing her, even before you are married, that
+you have no suspicions, no fears, no doubts, with regard to her. Many a
+man has been discarded by a virtuous girl, merely on account of his
+querulous conduct. All women despise jealous men; and, if they marry
+such their motive is other than that of affection. Therefore, _begin_ by
+proofs of unlimited confidence; and, as _example_ may serve to assist
+precept, and as I never have preached that which I have not practised, I
+will give you the history of my own conduct in this respect.
+
+94. When I first saw my wife, she was _thirteen years old_, and I was
+within about a month of _twenty-one_. She was the daughter of a Serjeant
+of artillery, and I was the Serjeant-Major of a regiment of foot, both
+stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the Province of
+New-Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her, for about an hour, in
+company with others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl
+for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that I had always
+said should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I
+deemed marks of that sobriety of _conduct_ of which I have said so much,
+and which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now
+dead of winter, and, of course, the snow several feet deep on the
+ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done
+my morning's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill
+at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings after I
+had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up
+two young men to join me in my walk; and our road lay by the house of
+her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow,
+scrubbing out a washing-tub. 'That's the girl for me,' said I, when we
+had got out of her hearing. One of these young men came to England soon
+afterwards; and he, who keeps an inn in Yorkshire, came over to Preston,
+at the time of the election, to verify whether I were the same man. When
+he found that I was, he appeared surprised; but what was his surprise,
+when I told him that those tall young men, whom he saw around me, were
+the _sons_ of that pretty little girl that he and I saw scrubbing out
+the washing-tub on the snow in New-Brunswick at day-break in the
+morning!
+
+95. From the day that I first spoke to her, I never had a thought of her
+ever being the wife of any other man, more than I had a thought of her
+being transformed into a chest of drawers; and I formed my resolution at
+once, to marry her as soon as we could get permission, and to get out of
+the army as soon as I could. So that this matter was, at once, settled
+as firmly as if written in the book of fate. At the end of about six
+months, my regiment, and I along with it, were removed to FREDERICKTON,
+a distance of a _hundred miles_, up the river of ST. JOHN; and, which
+was worse, the artillery were expected to go off to England a year or
+two before our regiment! The artillery went, and she along with them;
+and now it was that I acted a part becoming a real and sensible lover. I
+was aware, that, when she got to that gay place WOOLWICH, the house of
+her father and mother, necessarily visited by numerous persons not the
+most select, might become unpleasant to her, and I did not like,
+besides, that she should continue to _work hard_. I had saved a _hundred
+and fifty guineas_, the earnings of my early hours, in writing for the
+paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in addition to the savings of
+my own pay. _I sent her all my money_, before she sailed; and wrote to
+her to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a
+lodging with respectable people: and, at any rate, not to spare the
+money, by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, and to live
+without hard work, until I arrived in England; and I, in order to induce
+her to lay out the money, told her that I should get plenty more before
+I came home.
+
+96. As the malignity of the devil would have it, we were kept abroad
+_two years longer_ than our time, Mr. PITT (England not being so tame
+then as she is now) having knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka
+Sound. Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt too, I am
+afraid! At the end _of four years_, however, home I came; landed at
+Portsmouth, and got my discharge from the army by the great kindness of
+poor LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, who was then the Major of my regiment. I
+found my little girl _a servant of all work_ (and hard work it was), at
+_five pounds a year_, in the house of a CAPTAIN BRISAC; and, without
+hardly saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands _the whole
+of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken_!
+
+97. Need I tell the reader what my feelings were? Need I tell
+kind-hearted English parents what effect this anecdote _must_ have
+produced on the minds of our children? Need I attempt to describe what
+effect this example ought to have on every young woman who shall do me
+the honour to read this book? Admiration of her conduct, and
+self-gratulation on this indubitable proof of the soundness of my own
+judgment, were now added to my love of her beautiful person.
+
+98. Now, I do not say that there are not many young women of this
+country who would, under similar circumstances, have acted as my wife
+did in this case; on the contrary, I hope, and do sincerely believe,
+that there are. But when _her age_ is considered; when we reflect, that
+she was living in a place crowded, literally _crowded_, with
+gaily-dressed and handsome young men, many of whom really far richer and
+in higher rank than I was, and scores of them ready to offer her their
+hand; when we reflect that she was living amongst young women who put
+upon their backs every shilling that they could come at; when we see her
+keeping the bag of gold untouched, and working hard to provide herself
+with but mere necessary apparel, and doing this while she was passing
+from _fourteen to eighteen years of age_; when we view the whole of the
+circumstances, we must say that here is an example, which, while it
+reflects honour on her sex, ought to have weight with every young woman
+whose eyes or ears this relation shall reach.
+
+99. If any young man imagine, that this great _sobriety of conduct_ in
+young women must be accompanied with seriousness approaching to _gloom_,
+he is, according to my experience and observation, very much deceived.
+The _contrary_ is the fact; for I have found that as, amongst men, your
+jovial companions are, except over the bottle, the dullest and most
+insipid of souls; so amongst women, the gay, rattling, and laughing,
+are, unless some party of pleasure, or something out of domestic life,
+is going on, generally in the dumps and blue-devils. Some _stimulus_ is
+always craved after by this description of women; some sight to be seen,
+something to see or hear other than what is to be found _at home_,
+which, as it affords no incitement, nothing '_to raise and keep up the
+spirits_', is looked upon merely as a place _to be at_ for want of a
+better; merely a place for eating and drinking, and the like; merely a
+biding place, whence to sally in search of enjoyments. A greater curse
+than a wife of this description, it would be somewhat difficult to find;
+and, in your character of Lover, you are to provide against it. I hate a
+dull, melancholy, moping thing: I could not have existed in the same
+house with such a thing for a single month. The mopers are, too, all
+giggle at other times: the gaiety is for others, and the moping for the
+husband, to comfort him, happy man, when he is alone: plenty of smiles
+and of badinage for others, and for him to participate with others; but
+the moping is reserved exclusively for him. One hour she is capering
+about, as if rehearsing a jig; and, the next, sighing to the motion of a
+lazy needle, or weeping over a novel and this is called _sentiment_!
+Music, indeed! Give me a mother singing to her clean and fat and rosy
+baby, and making the house ring with her extravagant and hyperbolical
+encomiums on it. That is the music which is '_the food of love_;' and
+not the formal, pedantic noises, an affectation of skill in which is
+now-a-days the ruin of half the young couples in the middle rank of
+life. Let any man observe, as I so frequently have, with delight, the
+excessive fondness of the labouring people for their children. Let him
+observe with what pride they dress them out on a Sunday, with means
+deducted from their own scanty meals. Let him observe the husband, who
+has toiled all the week like a horse, nursing the baby, while the wife
+is preparing the bit of dinner. Let him observe them both abstaining
+from a sufficiency, lest the children should feel the pinchings of
+hunger. Let him observe, in short, the whole of their demeanour, the
+real mutual affection, evinced, not in words, but in unequivocal deeds.
+Let him observe these things, and, having then cast a look at the lives
+of the great and wealthy, he will say, with me, that, when a man is
+choosing his partner for life, the dread of poverty ought to be cast to
+the winds. A labourer's cottage, on a Sunday; the husband or wife having
+a baby in arms, looking at two or three older ones playing between the
+flower-borders going from the wicket to the door, is, according to my
+taste, the most interesting object that eyes ever beheld; and, it is an
+object to be beheld in no country upon earth but England. In France, a
+labourer's cottage means _a shed_ with a _dung-heap_ before the door;
+and it means much about the same in America, where it is wholly
+inexcusable. In riding once, about five years ago, from Petworth to
+Horsham, on a Sunday in the afternoon, I came to a solitary cottage
+which stood at about twenty yards distance from the road. There was the
+wife with the baby in her arms, the husband teaching another child to
+walk, while _four_ more were at play before them. I stopped and looked
+at them for some time, and then, turning my horse, rode up to the
+wicket, getting into talk by asking the distance to Horsham. I found
+that the man worked chiefly in the woods, and that he was doing pretty
+well. The wife was then only _twenty-two_, and the man only
+_twenty-five_. She was a pretty woman, even for _Sussex_, which, not
+excepting Lancashire, contains the prettiest women in England. He was a
+very fine and stout young man. 'Why,' said I, 'how many children do you
+reckon to have at last?' 'I do not care how many,' said the man: 'God
+never sends mouths without sending meat.' 'Did you ever hear,' said I,
+'of one PARSON MALTHUS?' 'No, sir.' 'Why, if he were to hear of your
+works, he would be outrageous; for he wants an act of parliament to
+prevent poor people from marrying young, and from having such lots of
+children.' 'Oh! the brute!' exclaimed the wife; while the husband
+laughed, thinking that I was joking. I asked the man whether he had ever
+had _relief from the parish_; and upon his answering in the negative, I
+took out my purse, took from it enough to bait my horse at Horsham, and
+to clear my turnpikes to WORTH, whither I was going in order to stay
+awhile, and gave him all the rest. Now, is it not a shame, is it not a
+sin of all sins, that people like these should, by acts of the
+government, be reduced to such misery as to be induced to abandon their
+homes and their country, to seek, in a foreign land, the means of
+preventing themselves and their children from starving? And this has
+been, and now is, actually the case with many such families in this same
+county of Sussex!
+
+100. An _ardent-minded_ young man (who, by-the-by, will, as I am afraid,
+have been wearied by this rambling digression) may fear, that this great
+_sobriety of conduct_ in a young woman, for which I have been so
+strenuously contending, argues a want of that _warmth_, which he
+naturally so much desires; and, if my observation and experience
+warranted the entertaining of this fear, I should say, had I to live my
+life over again, give me the _warmth_, and I will stand my chance as to
+the rest. But, this observation and this experience tell me the
+contrary; they tell me that _levity_ is, ninety-nine times out of a
+hundred, the companion of _a want of ardent feeling_. Prostitutes never
+_love_, and, for the far greater part, never did. Their passion, which
+is more _mere animal_ than any thing else, is easily gratified; they,
+like rakes, change not only without pain, but with pleasure; that is to
+say, pleasure as great as they can enjoy. Women of _light minds_ have
+seldom any _ardent_ passion; love is a mere name, unless confined to one
+object; and young women, in whom levity of conduct is observable, will
+not be thus restricted. I do not, however, recommend a young man to be
+_too severe_ in judging, where the conduct does not go beyond _mere
+levity_, and is not bordering on _loose_ conduct; for something depends
+here upon constitution and animal spirits, and something also upon the
+manners of the country. That levity, which, in a French girl, I should
+not have thought a great deal of, would have frightened me away from an
+English or an American girl. When I was in France, just after I was
+married, there happened to be amongst our acquaintance a gay, sprightly
+girl, of about seventeen. I was remonstrating with her, one day, on the
+facility with which she seemed to shift her smiles from object to
+object; and she, stretching one arm out in an upward direction, the
+other in a downward direction, raising herself upon one foot, leaning
+her body on one side, and thus throwing herself into _flying_ attitude,
+answered my grave lecture by singing, in a very sweet voice
+(significantly bowing her head and smiling at the same time), the
+following lines from the _vaudeville_, in the play of Figaro:
+
+  Si l'amour a des _ailles_;
+  N'est ce pas pour _voltiger_?
+
+That is, if love has _wings_, is it not _to flutter about_ with? The
+wit, argument, and manner, all together, silenced me. She, after I left
+France, married a very worthy man, has had a large family, and has been,
+and is, a most excellent wife and mother. But that which does sometimes
+well in France, does not do here at all. Our manners are more grave:
+steadiness is the rule, and levity the exception. Love may _voltige_ in
+France; but, in England, it cannot, with safety to the lover: and it is
+a truth which, I believe, no man of attentive observation will deny,
+that, as, in general, English wives are _more warm_ in their conjugal
+attachments than those of France, so, with regard to individuals, that
+those English women who are the _most light_ in their manners, and who
+are the _least constant_ in their attachments, have the smallest portion
+of that _warmth_, that indescribable passion which God has given to
+human beings as the great counterbalance to all the sorrows and
+sufferings of life.
+
+101. INDUSTRY. By _industry_, I do not mean merely _laboriousness_,
+merely labour or activity of body, for purposes of gain or of saving;
+for there may be industry amongst those who have more money than they
+know well what to do with: and there may be _lazy ladies_, as well as
+lazy farmers' and tradesmen's wives. There is no state of life in which
+_industry_ in the wife is not necessary to the happiness and prosperity
+of the family, at the head of the household affairs of which she is
+placed. If she be lazy, there will be lazy servants, and, which is a
+great deal worse, children habitually lazy: every thing, however
+necessary to be done, will be put off to the last moment: then it will
+be done badly, and, in many cases, not at all: the dinner will be _too
+late_; the journey or the visit will be tardy; inconveniencies of all
+sorts will be continually arising: there will always be a heavy _arrear_
+of things unperformed; and this, even amongst the most wealthy of all,
+is a great curse; for, if they have no _business_ imposed upon them by
+necessity, they _make business_ for themselves; life would be unbearable
+without it: and therefore a lazy woman must always be a curse, be her
+rank or station what it may.
+
+102. But, _who is to tell_ whether a girl will make an industrious
+woman? How is the purblind lover especially, to be able to ascertain
+whether she, whose smiles and dimples and bewitching lips have half
+bereft him of his senses; how is he to be able to judge, from any thing
+that he can see, whether the beloved object will be industrious or lazy?
+Why, it is very difficult: it is a matter that reason has very little to
+do with; but there are, nevertheless, certain outward and visible signs,
+from which a man, not wholly deprived of the use of his reason, may form
+a pretty accurate judgment as to this matter. It was a story in
+Philadelphia, some years ago, that a young man, who was courting one of
+three sisters, happened to be on a visit to her, when all the three were
+present, and when one said to the others, 'I _wonder_ where _our_ needle
+is.' Upon which he withdrew, as soon as was consistent with the rules of
+politeness, resolved never to think more of a girl who possessed a
+needle only in partnership, and who, it appeared, was not too well
+informed as to the place where even that share was deposited.
+
+103. This was, to be sure, a very flagrant instance of a want of
+industry; for, if the third part of the use of a needle satisfied her
+when single, it was reasonable to anticipate that marriage would banish
+that useful implement altogether. But such instances are seldom suffered
+to come in contact with the eyes and ears of the lover, to disguise all
+defects from whom is the great business, not only of the girl herself,
+but of her whole family. There are, however, certain _outward signs_,
+which, if attended to with care, will serve as pretty sure guides. And,
+first, if you find the _tongue_ lazy, you may be nearly certain that the
+hands and feet are the same. By laziness of the tongue I do not mean
+_silence_; I do not mean an _absence of talk_, for that is, in most
+cases, very good; but, I mean, a _slow_ and _soft utterance_; a sort of
+_sighing out_ of the words instead of _speaking_ them; a sort of letting
+the sounds fall out, as if the party were _sick at stomach_. The
+pronunciation of an industrious person is generally _quick_, _distinct_,
+and the voice, if not strong, _firm_ at the least. Not masculine; as
+feminine as possible; not a _croak_ nor a _bawl_, but a quick, distinct,
+and sound voice. Nothing is much more disgusting than what the sensible
+country people call a _maw-mouthed_ woman. A maw-mouthed man is bad
+enough: he is sure to be a lazy fellow: but, a woman of this
+description, in addition to her laziness, soon becomes the most
+disgusting of mates. In this whole world nothing is much more hateful
+than a female's under jaw, lazily moving up and down, and letting out a
+long string of half-articulate sounds. It is impossible for any man, who
+has any spirit in him, to love such a woman for any length of time.
+
+104. Look a little, also, at the labours of the _teeth_, for these
+correspond with those of the other members of the body, and with the
+operations of the mind. 'Quick at _meals_, quick at _work_,' is a saying
+as old as the hills, in this, the most industrious nation upon earth;
+and never was there a truer saying. But fashion comes in here, and
+decides that you shall not be quick at meals; that you shall sit and be
+carrying on the affair of eating for an hour, or more. Good God! what
+have I not suffered on this account! However, though she must _sit_ as
+long as the rest, and though she must join in the _performance_ (for it
+is a real performance) unto the end of the last scene, she cannot make
+her _teeth_ abandon their character. She may, and must, suffer the slice
+to linger on the plate, and must make the supply slow, in order to fill
+up the time; but when she _does_ bite, she cannot well disguise what
+nature has taught her to do; and you may be assured, that if her jaws
+move in slow time, and if she rather _squeeze_ than bite the food; if
+she so deal with it as to leave you in doubt as to whether she mean
+finally to admit or reject it; if she deal with it thus, set her down as
+being, in her very nature, incorrigibly lazy. Never mind the pieces of
+needle-work, the tambouring, the maps of the world made by her needle.
+Get to see her at work upon a mutton chop, or a bit of bread and cheese;
+and, if she deal quickly with these, you have a pretty good security for
+that activity, that _stirring_ industry, without which a wife is a
+burden instead of being a help. And, as to _love_, it cannot live for
+more than a month or two (in the breast of a man of spirit) towards a
+lazy woman.
+
+105. Another mark of industry is, a _quick step_, and a somewhat _heavy
+tread_, showing that the foot comes down with a _hearty good will_; and
+if the body lean a little forward, and the eyes keep steadily in the
+same direction, while the feet are going, so much the better, for these
+discover _earnestness_ to arrive at the intended point. I do not like,
+and I never liked, your _sauntering_, soft-stepping girls, who move as
+if they were perfectly indifferent as to the result; and, as to the
+_love_ part of the story, whoever expects ardent and lasting affection
+from one of these sauntering girls, will, when too late, find his
+mistake: the character runs the same all the way through; and no man
+ever yet saw a sauntering girl, who did not, when married, make a
+_mawkish_ wife, and a cold-hearted mother; cared very little for either
+by husband or children; and, of course, having no store of those
+blessings which are the natural resources to apply to in sickness and in
+old age.
+
+106. _Early-rising_ is another mark of industry; and though, in the
+higher situations of life, it may be of no importance in a mere
+pecuniary point of view, it is, even there, of importance in other
+respects; for it is, I should imagine, pretty difficult to keep love
+alive towards a woman who _never sees the dew_, never beholds the
+_rising sun_, and who constantly comes directly from a reeking bed to
+the breakfast table, and there chews about, without appetite, the
+choicest morsels of human food. A man might, perhaps, endure this for a
+month or two, without being disgusted; but that is ample allowance of
+time. And, as to people in the middle rank of life, where a living and a
+provision for children is to be sought by labour of some sort or other,
+late rising in the wife is _certain ruin_; and, never was there yet an
+early-rising wife, who had been a late-rising girl. If brought up to
+late rising, she will like it; it will be her _habit_; she will, when
+married, never want excuses for indulging in the habit; at first she
+will be indulged without bounds; to make a _change_ afterwards will be
+difficult; it will be deemed a _wrong_ done to her; she will ascribe it
+to diminished affection; a quarrel must ensue, or, the husband must
+submit to be ruined, or, at the very least, to see half the fruit of his
+labour snored and lounged away. And, is this being _rigid_? Is it being
+_harsh_; is it being _hard_ upon women? Is it the offspring of the
+frigid severity of age? It is none of these: it arises from an ardent
+desire to promote the happiness, and to add to the natural, legitimate,
+and salutary influence, of the female sex. The tendency of this advice
+is to promote the preservation of their health; to prolong the duration
+of their beauty; to cause them to be beloved to the last day of their
+lives; and to give them, during the whole of those lives, weight and
+consequence, of which laziness would render them wholly unworthy.
+
+107. FRUGALITY. This means the contrary of _extravagance_. It does not
+mean _stinginess_; it does not mean a pinching of the belly, nor a
+stripping of the back; but it means an abstaining from all _unnecessary_
+expenditure, and all _unnecessary_ use, of goods of any and of every
+sort; and a quality of great importance it is, whether the rank in life
+be high or low. Some people are, indeed, so rich, they have such an
+overabundance of money and goods, that how to get rid of them would, to
+a looker-on, seem to be their only difficulty. But while the
+inconvenience of even these immense masses is not too great to be
+overcome by a really extravagant woman, who jumps with joy at a basket
+of strawberries at a guinea an ounce, and who would not give a straw for
+green peas later in the year than January; while such a dame would
+lighten the bags of a loan-monger, or shorten the rent-roll of
+half-a-dozen peerages amalgamated into one possession, she would, with
+very little study and application of her talent, send a nobleman of
+ordinary estate to the poor-house or the pension list, which last may be
+justly regarded as the poor-book of the aristocracy. How many noblemen
+and gentlemen, of fine estates, have been ruined and degraded by the
+extravagance of their wives! More frequently by their _own_
+extravagance, perhaps; but, in numerous instances, by that of those
+whose duty it is to assist in upholding their stations by husbanding
+their fortunes.
+
+108. If this be the case amongst the opulent, who have estates to draw
+upon, what must be the consequences of a want of frugality in the middle
+and lower ranks of life? Here it must be fatal, and especially amongst
+that description of persons whose wives have, in many cases, the
+_receiving_ as well as the expending of money. In such a case, there
+wants nothing but extravagance in the wife to make ruin as sure as the
+arrival of old age. To obtain _security_ against this is very difficult;
+yet, if the lover be not _quite blind_, he may easily discover a
+propensity towards extravagance. The object of his addresses will, nine
+times out of ten, not be the manager of a house; but she must have her
+_dress_, and other little matters under her control. If she be _costly_
+in these; if, in these, she step above her rank, or even to the top of
+it; if she purchase all she is _able_ to purchase, and prefer the showy
+to the useful, the gay and the fragile to the less sightly and more
+durable, he may be sure that the disposition will cling to her through
+life. If he perceive in her a taste for costly food, costly furniture,
+costly amusements; if he find her love of gratification to be bounded
+only by her want of means; if he find her full of admiration of the
+trappings of the rich, and of desire to be able to imitate them, he may
+be pretty sure that she will not spare his purse, when once she gets her
+hand into it; and, therefore, if he can bid adieu to her charms, the
+sooner he does it the better.
+
+109. The outward and visible and vulgar signs of extravagance are
+_rings_, _broaches_, _bracelets_, _buckles_, _necklaces_, _diamonds_
+(real or mock), and, in short, all the _hard-ware_ which women put upon
+their persons. These things may be proper enough in _palaces_, or in
+scenes resembling palaces; but, when they make their appearance amongst
+people in the middle rank of life, where, after all, they only serve to
+show that poverty in the parties which they wish to disguise; when the
+nasty, mean, tawdry things make their appearance in this rank of life,
+they are the sure indications of a disposition that will _always be
+straining at what it can never attain_. To marry a girl of this
+disposition is really self-destruction. You never can have either
+property or peace. Earn her a horse to ride, she will want a gig: earn
+the gig, she will want a chariot: get her that, she will long for a
+coach and four: and, from stage to stage, she will torment you to the
+end of her or your days; for, still there will be somebody with a finer
+equipage than you can give her; and, as long as this is the case, you
+will never have rest. Reason would tell her, that she could never be at
+the _top_; that she must stop at some point short of that; and that,
+therefore, all expenses in the rivalship are so much thrown away. But,
+_reason_ and broaches and bracelets do not go in company: the girl who
+has not the sense to perceive that her person is disfigured, and not
+beautified, by parcels of brass and tin (for they are generally little
+better) and other hard-ware, stuck about her body; the girl that is so
+foolish as not to perceive, that, when silks and cottons and cambrics,
+in their neatest form, have done their best, nothing more is to be done;
+the girl that cannot perceive this is too great a fool to be trusted
+with the purse of any man.
+
+110. CLEANLINESS. This is a capital ingredient; for there never yet was,
+and there never will be, love of long duration, sincere and ardent love,
+in any man, towards a '_filthy mate_.' I mean any man _in England_, or
+in those parts of _America_ where the people have descended from the
+English. I do not say, that there are not men enough, even in England,
+to live _peaceably_ and even contentedly, with dirty, sluttish women;
+for, there are some who seem to like the filth well enough. But what I
+contend for is this: that there never can exist, for any length of time,
+_ardent affection_ in any man towards a woman who is filthy either in
+her person, or in her house affairs. Men may be careless as to their own
+persons; they may, from the nature of their business, or from their want
+of time to adhere to neatness in dress, be slovenly in their own dress
+and habits; but, they do not relish this in their wives, who must still
+have _charms_; and charms and filth do not go together.
+
+111. It is not _dress_ that the husband wants to be perpetual: it is not
+_finery_; but _cleanliness_ in every thing. The French women dress
+enough, especially when they _sally forth_. My excellent neighbour, Mr.
+JOHN TREDWELL, of Long Island, used to say, that the French were 'pigs
+in the parlour, and peacocks on the promenade;' an alliteration which
+'CANNING'S SELF' might have envied! This _occasional_ cleanliness is not
+the thing that an English or an American husband wants: he wants it
+always; indoors as well as out; by night as well as by day; on the floor
+as well as on the table; and, however he may grumble about the '_fuss_'
+and the '_expense_' of it, he would grumble more if he had it not. I
+once saw a picture representing the _amusements_ of Portuguese Lovers;
+that is to say, three or four young men, dressed in gold or silver laced
+clothes, each having a young girl, dressed like a princess, and
+affectionately engaged in hunting down and _killing the vermin in his
+head_! This was, perhaps, an _exaggeration_; but that it should have had
+the shadow of foundation, was enough to fill me with contempt for the
+whole nation.
+
+112. The _signs_ of cleanliness are, in the first place, a clean _skin_.
+An English girl will hardly let her lover see the stale dirt between her
+fingers, as I have many times seen it between those of French women, and
+even ladies, of all ages. An English girl will have her _face_ clean, to
+be sure, if there be soap and water within her reach; but, get a glance,
+just a glance, at her _poll_, if you have any doubt upon the subject;
+and, if you find there, or _behind the ears_, what the Yorkshire people
+call _grime_, the sooner you cease your visits the better. I hope, now,
+that no young woman will be offended at this, and think me too severe on
+her sex. I am only saying, I am only telling the women, that which _all
+men think_; and, it is a decided advantage to them to be fully informed
+of _our thoughts_ on the subject. If any one, who shall read this, find,
+upon self-examination, that she is defective in this respect, there is
+plenty of time for correcting the defect.
+
+113. In the _dress_ you can, amongst rich people, find little whereon to
+form a judgment as to cleanliness, because they have not only the dress
+prepared for them, but _put upon them_ into the bargain. But, in the
+middle rank of life, the dress is a good criterion in two respects:
+first, as to its _colour_; for, if the _white_ be a sort of _yellow_,
+cleanly hands would have been at work to prevent that. A _white-yellow_
+cravat, or shirt, on a man, speaks, at once, the character of his wife;
+and, be you assured, that she will not take with your dress pains which
+she has never taken with her own. Then, the manner _of putting on_ the
+dress is no bad foundation for judging. If it be careless, slovenly, if
+it do not fit properly, no matter for its _mean quality_: mean as it may
+be, it may be neatly and trimly put on; and, if it be not, take care of
+yourself; for, as you will soon find to your cost, a sloven in one thing
+is a sloven in all things. The country-people judge greatly from the
+state of the covering of the _ancles_ and, if that be not clean and
+tight, they conclude, that all out of sight is not what it ought to be.
+Look at the _shoes_! If they be trodden on one side, loose on the foot,
+or run down at the heel, it is a very bad sign; and, as to _slip-shod_,
+though at coming down in the morning and even before day-light, make up
+your mind to a rope, rather than to live with a slip-shod wife.
+
+114. Oh! how much do women lose by inattention to these matters! Men, in
+general, say nothing about it to their wives; but they _think_ about it;
+they envy their luckier neighbours; and in numerous cases, consequences
+the most serious arise from this apparently trifling cause. Beauty is
+valuable; it is one of the ties, and a strong tie too; that, however,
+cannot last to old age; but, the charm of cleanliness never ends but
+with life itself. I dismiss this part of my subject with a quotation
+from my 'YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN AMERICA,' containing words which I venture
+to recommend to every young woman to engrave on her heart: 'The sweetest
+flowers, when they become putrid, stink the most; and a nasty woman is
+the nastiest thing in nature.'
+
+115. KNOWLEDGE OF DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. Without more or less of this
+knowledge, _a lady_, even the wife of a peer, is but a poorish thing. It
+was the fashion, in former times, for ladies to understand a great deal
+about these affairs, and it would be very hard to make me believe that
+this did not tend to promote the interests and honour of their husbands.
+The affairs of a great family never can be _well_ managed, if left
+_wholly_ to hirelings; and there are many parts of these affairs in
+which it would be unseemly for the husband to meddle. Surely, no lady
+can be too high in rank to make it proper for her to be well acquainted
+with the characters and general demeanour of all the _female servants_.
+To receive and give them characters is too much to be left to a servant,
+however good, and of service however long. Much of the ease and
+happiness of the great and rich must depend on the character of those by
+whom they are served: they live under the same roof with them; they are
+frequently the children of their tenants, or poorer neighbours; the
+conduct of their whole lives must be influenced by the examples and
+precepts which they here imbibe; and when ladies consider how much more
+weight there must be in one word from them than in ten thousand words
+from a person who, call her what you like, is still a _fellow-servant_,
+it does appear strange that they should forego the performance of this
+at once important and pleasing part of their duty. It was from the
+mansions of noblemen and gentlemen, and not from boarding-schools, that
+farmers and tradesmen formerly took their wives; and though these days
+are gone, with little chance of returning, there is still something left
+for ladies to do in checking that torrent of immorality which is now
+crowding the streets with prostitutes and cramming the jails with
+thieves.
+
+116. I am, however, addressing myself, in this work, to persons in the
+middle rank of life; and here a _knowledge of domestic affairs_ is so
+necessary in every wife, that the lover ought to have it continually in
+his eye. Not only a _knowledge_ of these affairs; not only to know how
+things _ought to be done_, but how _to do them_; not only to know what
+ingredients ought to be put into a pie or a pudding, but to be able _to
+make_ the pie or the pudding. Young people, when they come together,
+ought not, unless they have fortunes, or are in a great way of business,
+to think about _servants_! Servants for what! To help them to eat and
+drink and sleep? When children come, there must be some _help_ in a
+farmer's or tradesman's house; but until then, what call for a servant
+in a house, the master of which has to _earn_ every mouthful that is
+consumed?
+
+117. I shall, when I come to address myself to the husband, have much
+more to say upon this subject of _keeping servants_; but, what the
+lover, if he be not quite blind, has to look to, is, that his intended
+wife know _how to do_ the work of a house, unless he have fortune
+sufficient to keep her like a lady. 'Eating and drinking,' as I observe
+in COTTAGE ECONOMY, came _three times every day_; they must come; and,
+however little we may, in the days of our health and vigour, care about
+choice food and about cookery, we very soon get _tired_ of heavy or
+burnt bread and of spoiled joints of meat: we bear them for a time, or
+for two, perhaps; but, about the third time, we lament _inwardly_; about
+the fifth time, it must be an extraordinary honey-moon that will keep us
+from complaining: if the like continue for a month or two, we begin to
+_repent_, and then adieu to all our anticipated delights. We discover,
+when it is too late, that we have not got a help-mate, but a burden;
+and, the fire of love being damped, the unfortunately educated creature,
+whose parents are more to blame than she is, is, unless she resolve to
+learn her duty, doomed to lead a life very nearly approaching to that of
+misery; for, however considerate the husband, he never can esteem her as
+he would have done, had she been skilled and able in domestic affairs.
+
+118. The mere _manual_ performance of domestic labours is not, indeed,
+absolutely necessary in the female head of the family of professional
+men, such as lawyers, doctors, and parsons; but, even here, and also in
+the case of great merchants and of gentlemen living on their fortunes,
+surely the head of the household ought to be able to give directions as
+to the purchasing of meat, salting meat, making bread, making preserves
+of all sorts, and ought to see the things done, or that they be done.
+She ought to take care that food be well cooked, drink properly prepared
+and kept; that there be always a sufficient supply; that there be good
+living without waste; and that, in her department, nothing shall be seen
+inconsistent with the rank, station, and character of her husband, who,
+if he have a skilful and industrious wife, will, unless he be of a
+singularly foolish turn, gladly leave all these things to her absolute
+dominion, controlled only by the extent of the whole expenditure, of
+which he must be the best, and, indeed, the sole, judge.
+
+119. But, in a farmer's or a tradesman's family, the _manual
+performance_ is absolutely necessary, whether there be servants or not.
+No one knows how to teach another so well as one who has done, and can
+do, the thing himself. It was said of a famous French commander, that,
+in attacking an enemy, he did not say to his men '_go_ on,' but '_come_
+on;' and, whoever have well observed the movements of servants, must
+know what a prodigious difference there is in the effect of the words,
+_go_ and _come_. A very good rule would be, to have nothing to eat, in a
+farmer's or tradesman's house, that the mistress did not know how to
+prepare and to cook; no pudding, tart, pie or cake, that she did not
+know how to make. Never fear the toil to her: exercise is good for
+health; and without _health_ there is _no beauty_; a sick beauty may
+excite pity, but pity is a short-lived passion. Besides, what is the
+labour in such a case? And how many thousands of ladies, who loll away
+the day, would give half their fortunes for that sound sleep which the
+stirring house-wife seldom fails to enjoy.
+
+120. Yet, if a young farmer or tradesman _marry_ a girl, who has been
+brought up to _play music_, to what is called _draw_, to _sing_, to
+waste paper, pen and ink, in writing long and half romantic letters, and
+to see shows, and plays, and read novels; if a young man do _marry_ such
+an unfortunate young creature, let him bear the consequences with
+temper; let him be _just_; and justice will teach him to treat her with
+great indulgence; to endeavour to cause her to learn her business as a
+wife; to be patient with her; to reflect that he has taken her, being
+apprised of her inability; to bear in mind, that he was, or seemed to
+be, pleased with her showy and useless acquirements; and that, when the
+gratification of his passion has been accomplished, he is unjust and
+cruel and unmanly, if he turn round upon her, and accuse her of a want
+of that knowledge, which he well knew that she did not possess.
+
+121. For my part, I do not know, nor can I form an idea of, a more
+unfortunate being than a girl with a mere boarding-school education, and
+without a fortune to enable her to keep a servant, when married. Of what
+_use_ are her accomplishments? Of what use her music, her drawing, and
+her romantic epistles? If she be good in _her nature_, the first little
+faint cry of her first baby drives all the tunes and all the landscapes
+and all the Clarissa Harlowes out of her head for ever. I once saw a
+very striking instance of this sort. It was a climb-over-the-wall match,
+and I gave the bride away, at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, the
+pair being as handsome a pair as ever I saw in my life. Beauty, however,
+though in double quantity, would not pay the baker and butcher; and,
+after an absence of little better than a year, I found the husband in
+prison for debt; but I there found also his wife, with her baby, and
+she, who had never, before her marriage, known what it was to get water
+to wash her own hands, and whose talk was all about music, and the like,
+was now the cheerful sustainer of her husband, and the most affectionate
+of mothers. All the _music_ and all the _drawing_, and all the plays and
+romances were gone to the winds! The husband and baby had fairly
+supplanted them; and even this prison-scene was a blessing, as it gave
+her, at this early stage, an opportunity of proving her devotion to her
+husband, who, though I have not seen him for about fifteen years, he
+being in a part of America which I could not reach when last there, has,
+I am sure, amply repaid her for that devotion. They have now a numerous
+family (not less than twelve children, I believe), and she is, I am
+told, a most excellent and able mistress of a respectable house.
+
+122. But, this is a rare instance: the husband, like his countrymen in
+general, was at once brave, humane, gentle, and considerate, and the
+love was so sincere and ardent, on both sides, that it made losses and
+sufferings appear as nothing. When I, in a sort of half-whisper, asked
+Mrs. DICKENS where her _piano_ was, she smiled, and turned her face
+towards her baby, that was sitting on her knee; as much as to say, 'This
+little fellow has beaten the piano;' and, if what I am now writing
+should ever have the honour to be read by her, let it be the bearer of a
+renewed expression of my admiration of her conduct, and of that regard
+for her kind and sensible husband, which time and distance have not in
+the least diminished, and which will be an inmate of my heart until it
+shall cease to beat.
+
+123. The like of this is, however, not to be expected: no man ought to
+think that he has even a chance of it: besides, the husband was, in this
+case, a man of learning and of great natural ability: he has not had to
+get his bread by farming or trade; and, in all probability, his wife has
+had the leisure to practise those acquirements which she possessed at
+the time of her marriage. But, can this be the case with the farmer or
+the tradesman's wife? She has to _help to earn_ a provision for her
+children; or, at the least, to help to earn a store for sickness or old
+age. She, therefore, ought to be qualified to begin, at once, to assist
+her husband in his earnings: the way in which she can most efficiently
+assist, is by taking care of his property; by expending his money to the
+greatest advantage; by wasting nothing; by making the table sufficiently
+abundant with the least expense. And how is she to do these things,
+unless she have been _brought up_ to understand domestic affairs? How is
+she to do these things, if she have been taught to think these matters
+beneath her study? How is any man to expect her to do these things, if
+she have been so bred up as to make her habitually look upon them as
+worthy the attention of none but low and _ignorant_ women?
+
+124. _Ignorant_, indeed! Ignorance consists in a want of knowledge of
+those things which your calling or state of life naturally supposes you
+to understand. A ploughman is not an _ignorant man_ because he does not
+know how to read: if he knows how to plough, he is not to be called an
+ignorant man; but, a wife may be justly called an ignorant woman, if she
+does not know how to provide a dinner for her husband. It is cold
+comfort for a hungry man, to tell him how delightfully his wife plays
+and sings: lovers may live on very aerial diet; but husbands stand in
+need of the solids; and young women may take my word for it, that a
+constantly clean board, well cooked victuals, a house in order, and a
+cheerful fire, will do more in preserving a husband's heart, than all
+the '_accomplishments_,' taught in all the '_establishments_' in the
+world.
+
+125. GOOD TEMPER. This is a very difficult thing to ascertain
+beforehand. Smiles are so cheap; they are so easily put on for the
+occasion; and, besides, the frowns are, according to the lover's whim,
+interpreted into the contrary. By '_good temper_,' I do not mean _easy
+temper_, a serenity which nothing disturbs, for that is a mark of
+laziness. _Sulkiness_, if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a
+temper to be avoided by all means. A sulky man is bad enough; what,
+then, must be a sulky woman, and that woman _a wife_; a constant inmate,
+a companion day and night! Only think of the delight of sitting at the
+same table, and sleeping in the same bed, for a week, and not exchange a
+word all the while! Very bad to be scolding for such a length of time;
+but this is far better than the sulks. If you have your eyes, and look
+sharp, you will discover symptoms of this, if it unhappily exist. She
+will, at some time or other, show it towards some one or other of the
+family; or, perhaps, towards yourself; and you may be quite sure that,
+in this respect, marriage will not mend her. Sulkiness arises from
+capricious displeasure, displeasure not founded in reason. The party
+takes offence unjustifiably; is unable to frame a complaint, and
+therefore expresses displeasure by silence. The remedy for sulkiness is,
+to suffer it to take its _full swing_; but it is better not to have the
+disease in your house; and to be _married to it_ is little short of
+madness.
+
+126. _Querulousness_ is a great fault. No man, and, especially, no
+_woman_, likes to hear eternal plaintiveness. That she complain, and
+roundly complain, of your want of punctuality, of your coolness, of your
+neglect, of your liking the company of others: these are all very well,
+more especially as they are frequently but too just. But an everlasting
+complaining, without rhyme or reason, is a bad sign. It shows want of
+patience, and, indeed, want of sense. But, the contrary of this, a _cold
+indifference_, is still worse. 'When will you come again? You can never
+find time to come here. You like any company better than mine.' These,
+when groundless, are very teasing, and demonstrate a disposition too
+full of anxiousness; but, from a girl who always receives you with the
+same _civil_ smile, lets you, at your own good pleasure, depart with the
+same; and who, when you take her by the hand, holds her cold fingers as
+straight as sticks, I say (or should if I were young), God, in his
+mercy, preserve me!
+
+127. _Pertinacity_ is a very bad thing in anybody, and especially in a
+young woman; and it is sure to increase in force with the age of the
+party. To have the last word is a poor triumph; but with some people it
+is a species of disease of the mind. In a wife it must be extremely
+troublesome; and, if you find an ounce of it in the maid, it will become
+a pound in the wife. An eternal _disputer_ is a most disagreeable
+companion; and where young women thrust their _say_ into conversations
+carried on by older persons, give their opinions in a positive manner,
+and court a contest of the tongue, those must be very bold men who will
+encounter them as wives.
+
+128. Still, of all the faults as to _temper_, your _melancholy_ ladies
+have the worst, unless you have the same mental disease. Most wives are,
+at times, _misery-makers_; but these carry it on as a regular trade.
+They are always unhappy about _something_, either past, present, or to
+come. Both arms full of children is a pretty efficient remedy in most
+cases; but, if the ingredients be wanting, a little _want_, a little
+_real trouble_, a little _genuine affliction_ must, if you would effect
+a cure, be resorted to. But, this is very painful to a man of any
+feeling; and, therefore, the best way is to avoid a connexion, which is
+to give you a life of wailing and sighs.
+
+129. BEAUTY. Though I have reserved this to the last of the things to be
+desired in a wife, I by no means think it the last in point of
+importance. The less favoured part of the sex say, that 'beauty is but
+_skin-deep_;' and this is very true; but, it is very _agreeable_,
+though, for all that. Pictures are only paint-deep, or pencil-deep; but
+we admire them, nevertheless. "Handsome is that handsome _does_," used
+to say to me an old man, who had marked me out for his not over handsome
+daughter. 'Please your _eye_ and plague your heart' is an adage that
+want of beauty invented, I dare say, more than a thousand years ago.
+These adages would say, if they had but the courage, that beauty is
+inconsistent with chastity, with sobriety of conduct, and with all the
+female virtues. The argument is, that beauty exposes the possessor _to
+greater temptation_ than women not beautiful are exposed to; and that,
+_therefore_, their fall is more probable. Let us see a little how this
+matter stands.
+
+130. It is certainly true, that pretty girls will have more, and more
+ardent, admirers than ugly ones; but, as to the _temptation_ when in
+their unmarried state, there are few so very ugly as to be exposed to no
+_temptation_ at all; and, which is the most likely to resist; she who
+has a choice of lovers, or she who if she let the occasion slip may
+never have it again? Which of the two is most likely to set a high value
+upon her reputation, she whom all beholders admire, or she who is
+admired, at best, by mere chance? And as to women in the married state,
+this argument assumes, that, when they fall, it is from their own
+vicious disposition; when the fact is, that, if you search the annals of
+conjugal infidelity, you will find, that, nine times out of ten, the
+_fault is in the husband_. It is his neglect, his flagrant disregard,
+his frosty indifference, his foul example; it is to these that, nine
+times out of ten, he owes the infidelity of his wife; and, if I were to
+say ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the facts, if verified, would, I
+am certain, bear me out. And whence this neglect, this disregard, this
+frosty indifference; whence this foul example? Because it is easy, in so
+many cases, to find some woman more beautiful than the wife. This is no
+_justification_ for the husband to plead; for he has, with his eyes
+open, made a solemn contract: if he have not beauty enough to please
+him, he should have sought it in some other woman: if, as is frequently
+the case, he have preferred rank or money to beauty, he is an
+unprincipled man, if he do any thing to make her unhappy who has brought
+him the rank or the money. At any rate, as conjugal infidelity is, in so
+many cases; as it is _generally_ caused by the want of affection and due
+attention in the husband, it follows, of course, that it must more
+frequently happen in the case of ugly than in that of handsome women.
+
+131. In point of _dress_, nothing need be said to convince any
+reasonable man, that beautiful women will be less expensive in this
+respect than women of a contrary description. Experience teaches us,
+that ugly women are always the most studious about their dress; and, if
+we had never observed upon the subject, _reason_ would tell us, that it
+must be so. Few women are handsome without knowing it; and if they know
+that their features naturally attract admiration, will they desire to
+draw it off, and to fix it on lace and silks and jewels?
+
+132. As to _manners_ and _temper_ there are certainly some handsome
+women who are conceited and arrogant; but, as they have all the best
+reasons in the world for being pleased with themselves, they afford you
+the best chance of general good humour; and this good humour is a very
+valuable commodity in the married state. Some that are called handsome,
+and that are such at the first glance, are dull, inanimate things, that
+might as well have been made of wax, or of wood. But, the truth is, that
+this is _not beauty_, for this is not to be found _only_ in the _form_
+of the features, but in the movements of them also. Besides, here nature
+is very impartial; for she gives animation promiscuously to the handsome
+as well as to the ugly; and the want of this in the former is surely as
+bearable as in the latter.
+
+133. But, the great use of female beauty, the great practical advantage
+of it is, that it naturally and unavoidably tends to _keep the husband
+in good humour with himself_, to make him, to use the dealer's phrase,
+_pleased with his bargain_. When old age approaches, and the parties
+have become endeared to each other by a long series of joint cares and
+interests, and when children have come and bound them together by the
+strongest ties that nature has in store; at this age the features and
+the person are of less consequence; but, in the _young days_ of
+matrimony, when the roving eye of the bachelor is scarcely become steady
+in the head of the husband, it is dangerous for him to see, every time
+he stirs out, a face more captivating than that of the person to whom he
+is bound for life. Beauty is, in some degree, a matter of _taste_: what
+one man admires, another does not; and it is fortunate for us that it is
+thus. But still there are certain things that all men admire; and a
+husband is always pleased when he perceives that a portion, at least, of
+these things are in his own possession: he takes this possession as a
+_compliment to himself_: there must, he will think the world will
+believe, have been _some merit in him_, some charm, seen or unseen, to
+have caused him to be blessed with the acquisition.
+
+134. And then there arise so many things, sickness, misfortune in
+business, losses, many many things, wholly unexpected; and, there are so
+many circumstances, perfectly _nameless_, to communicate to the
+new-married man the fact, that it is not a real _angel_ of whom he has
+got the possession; there are so many things of this sort, so many and
+such powerful dampers of the passions, and so many incentives to _cool
+reflection_; that it requires something, and a good deal too, to keep
+the husband in countenance in this his altered and enlightened state.
+The passion of women does not cool so soon: the lamp of their love burns
+more steadily, and even brightens as it burns: and, there is, the young
+man may be assured, a vast difference in the effect of the fondness of a
+pretty woman and that of one of a different description; and, let reason
+and philosophy say what they will, a man will come down stairs of a
+morning better pleased after seeing the former, than he would after
+seeing the latter, in her _night-cap_.
+
+135. To be sure, when a man has, from whatever inducement, once married
+a woman, he is unjust and cruel if he even _slight_ her on account of
+her want of beauty, and, if he treat her harshly, on this account, he is
+a brute. But, it requires a greater degree of reflection and
+consideration than falls to the lot of men in general to make them act
+with justice in such a case; and, therefore, the best way is to guard,
+if you can, against the temptation to commit such injustice, which is to
+be done in no other way, than by not marrying any one that you _do not
+think handsome_.
+
+136. I must not conclude this address to THE LOVER without something on
+the subject of _seduction_ and _inconstancy_. In, perhaps, nineteen
+cases out of twenty, there is, in the unfortunate cases of illicit
+gratification, no seduction at all, the passion, the absence of virtue,
+and the crime, being all mutual. But, there are other cases of a very
+different description; and where a man goes coolly and deliberately to
+work, first to gain and rivet the affections of a young girl, then to
+take advantage of those affections to accomplish that which he knows
+must be her ruin, and plunge her into misery for life; when a man does
+this merely for the sake of a momentary gratification, he must be either
+a selfish and unfeeling brute, unworthy of the name of man, or he must
+have a heart little inferior, in point of obduracy, to that of the
+murderer. Let young women, however, be aware; let them be well aware,
+that few, indeed, are the cases in which this apology can possibly avail
+them. Their character is not solely theirs, but belongs, in part, to
+their family and kindred. They may, in the case contemplated, be objects
+of compassion with the world; but what contrition, what repentance, what
+remorse, what that even the tenderest benevolence can suggest, is to
+heal the wounded hearts of humbled, disgraced, but still affectionate,
+parents, brethren and sisters?
+
+137. As to _constancy_ in Lovers, though I do not approve of the saying,
+'At lovers' lies Jove laughs;' yet, when people are young, one object
+may supplant another in their affections, not only without criminality
+in the party experiencing the change, but without blame; and it is
+honest, and even humane, to act upon the change; because it would be
+both foolish and cruel to marry one girl while you liked another better:
+and the same holds good with regard to the other sex. Even when
+_marriage_ has been _promised_, and that, too, in the most solemn
+manner, it is better for both parties to break off, than to be coupled
+together with the reluctant assent of either; and I have always thought,
+that actions for damages, on this score, if brought by the girl, show a
+want of delicacy as well as of spirit; and, if brought by the man,
+excessive meanness. Some damage may, indeed, have been done to the
+complaining party; but no damage equal to what that party would have
+sustained from a marriage, to which the other party would have yielded
+by a sort of compulsion, producing to almost a certainty what Hogarth,
+in his _Marriage a la Mode_, most aptly typifies by two curs, of
+different sexes, fastened together by what sportsmen call _couples_,
+pulling different ways, and snarling and barking and foaming like
+furies.
+
+138. But when promises have been made to a young woman; when they have
+been relied on for any considerable time; when it is manifest that her
+peace and happiness, and, perhaps, her life, depend upon their
+fulfilment; when things have been carried to this length, the change in
+the Lover ought to be announced in the manner most likely to make the
+disappointment as supportable as the case will admit of; for, though it
+is better to break the promise than to marry one while you like another
+better; though it is better for both parties, you have no right to break
+the heart of her who has, and that, too, with your accordance, and,
+indeed, at your instigation, or, at least, by your encouragement,
+confided it to your fidelity. You cannot help your change of affections;
+but you can help making the transfer in such a way as to cause the
+destruction, or even probable destruction, nay, if it were but the deep
+misery, of her, to gain whose heart you had pledged your own. You ought
+to proceed by slow degrees; you ought to call time to your aid in
+executing the painful task; you ought scrupulously to avoid every thing
+calculated to aggravate the sufferings of the disconsolate party.
+
+139. A striking, a monstrous, instance of conduct the contrary of this
+has recently been placed upon the melancholy records of the Coroner of
+Middlesex; which have informed an indignant public, that a young man,
+having first secured the affections of a virtuous young woman, next
+promised her marriage, then caused the banns to be published, and then,
+on the very day appointed for the performance of the ceremony, married
+another woman, in the same church; and this, too, without, as he avowed,
+any provocation, and without the smallest intimation or hint of his
+intention to the disappointed party, who, unable to support existence
+under a blow so cruel, put an end to that existence by the most deadly
+and the swiftest poison. If any thing could wipe from our country the
+stain of having given birth to a monster so barbarous as this, it would
+be the abhorrence of him which the jury expressed; and which, from every
+tongue, he ought to hear to the last moment of his life.
+
+140. Nor has a man any right to _sport_ with the affections of a young
+woman, though he stop short of _positive promises_. Vanity is generally
+the tempter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being admired by
+the women: a very despicable species of vanity, but frequently greatly
+mischievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, actually, in so many
+words, promise to marry; but the general tenor of your language and
+deportment has that meaning; you know that your meaning is so
+understood; and if you have not such meaning; if you be fixed by some
+previous engagement with, or greater liking for, another; if you know
+you are here sowing the seeds of disappointment; and if you, keeping
+your previous engagement or greater liking a secret, persevere, in spite
+of the admonitions of conscience, you are guilty of deliberate
+deception, injustice and cruelty: you make to God an ungrateful return
+for those endowments which have enabled you to achieve this inglorious
+and unmanly triumph; and if, as is frequently the case, you _glory_ in
+such triumph, you may have person, riches, talents to excite envy; but
+every just and humane man will abhor your heart.
+
+141. There are, however, certain cases in which you deceive, or nearly
+deceive, _yourself_; cases in which you are, by degrees and by
+circumstances, deluded into something very nearly resembling sincere
+love for a second object, the first still, however, maintaining her
+ground in your heart; cases in which you are not actuated by vanity, in
+which you are not guilty of injustice and cruelty; but cases in which
+you, nevertheless, _do wrong_: and as I once did a wrong of this sort
+myself, I will here give a history of it, as a warning to every young
+man who shall read this little book; that being the best and, indeed,
+the only atonement, that I can make, or ever could have made, for this
+only _serious sin_ that I ever committed against the female sex.
+
+142. The Province of New Brunswick, in North America, in which I passed
+my years from the age of eighteen to that of twenty-six, consists, in
+general, of heaps of rocks, in the interstices of which grow the pine,
+the spruce, and various sorts of fir trees, or, where the woods have
+been burnt down, the bushes of the raspberry or those of the
+huckleberry. The province is cut asunder lengthwise, by a great river,
+called the St. John, about two hundred miles in length, and, at half way
+from the mouth, full a mile wide. Into this main river run innumerable
+smaller rivers, there called CREEKS. On the sides of these creeks the
+land is, in places, clear of rocks; it is, in these places, generally
+good and productive; the trees that grow here are the birch, the maple,
+and others of the deciduous class; natural meadows here and there
+present themselves; and some of these spots far surpass in rural beauty
+any other that my eyes ever beheld; the creeks, abounding towards their
+sources in water-falls of endless variety, as well in form as in
+magnitude, and always teeming with fish, while water-fowl enliven their
+surface, and while wild-pigeons, of the gayest plumage, flutter, in
+thousands upon thousands, amongst the branches of the beautiful trees,
+which, sometimes, for miles together, form an arch over the creeks.
+
+143. I, in one of my rambles in the woods, in which I took great
+delight, came to a spot at a very short distance from the source of one
+of these creeks. Here was every thing to delight the eye, and especially
+of one like me, who seem to have been born to love rural life, and trees
+and plants of all sorts. Here were about two hundred acres of natural
+meadow, interspersed with patches of maple-trees in various forms and of
+various extent; the creek (there about thirty miles from its point of
+joining the St. John) ran down the middle of the spot, which formed a
+sort of dish, the high and rocky hills rising all round it, except at
+the outlet of the creek, and these hills crowned with lofty pines: in
+the hills were the sources of the creek, the waters of which came down
+in cascades, for any one of which many a nobleman in England would, if
+he could transfer it, give a good slice of his fertile estate; and in
+the creek, at the foot of the cascades, there were, in the season,
+salmon the finest in the world, and so abundant, and so easily taken, as
+to be used for manuring the land.
+
+144. If nature, in her very best humour, had made a spot for the express
+purpose of captivating me, she could not have exceeded the efforts which
+she had here made. But I found something here besides these rude works
+of nature; I found something in the fashioning of which _man_ had had
+something to do. I found a large and well-built log dwelling house,
+standing (in the month of September) on the edge of a very good field of
+Indian Corn, by the side of which there was a piece of buck-wheat just
+then mowed. I found a homestead, and some very pretty cows. I found all
+the things by which an easy and happy farmer is surrounded: and I found
+still something besides all these; something that was destined to give
+me a great deal of pleasure and also a great deal of pain, both in their
+extreme degree; and both of which, in spite of the lapse of forty years,
+now make an attempt to rush back into my heart.
+
+145. Partly from misinformation, and partly from miscalculation, I had
+lost my way; and, quite alone, but armed with my sword and a brace of
+pistols, to defend myself against the bears, I arrived at the log-house
+in the middle of a moonlight night, the hoar frost covering the trees
+and the grass. A stout and clamorous dog, kept off by the gleaming of my
+sword, waked the master of the house, who got up, received me with great
+hospitality, got me something to eat, and put me into a feather-bed, a
+thing that I had been a stranger to for some years. I, being very tired,
+had tried to pass the night in the woods, between the trunks of two
+large trees, which had fallen side by side, and within a yard of each
+other. I had made a nest for myself of dry fern, and had made a covering
+by laying boughs of spruce across the trunks of the trees. But unable to
+sleep on account of the cold; becoming sick from the great quantity of
+water that I had drank during the heat of the day, and being, moreover,
+alarmed at the noise of the bears, and lest one of them should find me
+in a defenceless state, I had roused myself up, and had crept along as
+well as I could. So that no hero of eastern romance ever experienced a
+more enchanting change.
+
+146. I had got into the house of one of those YANKEE LOYALISTS, who, at
+the close of the revolutionary war (which, until it had succeeded, was
+called a rebellion) had accepted of grants of land in the King's
+Province of New Brunswick; and who, to the great honour of England, had
+been furnished with all the means of making new and comfortable
+settlements. I was suffered to sleep till breakfast time, when I found a
+table, the like of which I have since seen so many in the United States,
+loaded with good things. The master and the mistress of the house, aged
+about fifty, were like what an English farmer and his wife were half a
+century ago. There were two sons, tall and stout, who appeared to have
+come in from work, and the youngest of whom was about my age, then
+twenty-three. But there was _another member_ of the family, aged
+nineteen, who (dressed according to the neat and simple fashion of New
+England, whence she had come with her parents five or six years before)
+had her long light-brown hair twisted nicely up, and fastened on the top
+of her head, in which head were a pair of lively blue eyes, associated
+with features of which that softness and that sweetness, so
+characteristic of American girls, were the predominant expressions, the
+whole being set off by a complexion indicative of glowing health, and
+forming, figure, movements, and all taken together, an assemblage of
+beauties, far surpassing any that I had ever seen but _once_ in my life.
+That _once_ was, too, _two years agone_; and, in such a case and at such
+an age, two years, two whole years, is a long, long while! It was a
+space as long as the eleventh part of my then life! Here was the
+_present_ against the _absent_: here was the power of the _eyes_ pitted
+against that of the _memory_: here were all the senses up in arms to
+subdue the influence of the thoughts: here was vanity, here was passion,
+here was the spot of all spots in the world, and here were also the
+life, and the manners and the habits and the pursuits that I delighted
+in: here was every thing that imagination can conceive, united in a
+conspiracy against the poor little brunette in England! What, then, did
+I fall in love at once with this bouquet of lilies and roses? Oh! by no
+means. I was, however, so enchanted with _the place_; I so much enjoyed
+its tranquillity, the shade of the maple trees, the business of the
+farm, the sports of the water and of the woods, that I stayed at it to
+the last possible minute, promising, at my departure, to come again as
+often as I possibly could; a promise which I most punctually fulfilled.
+
+147. Winter is the great season for jaunting and _dancing_ (called
+_frolicking_) in America. In this Province the river and the creeks were
+the only _roads_ from settlement to settlement. In summer we travelled
+in _canoes_; in winter in _sleighs_ on the ice or snow. During more than
+two years I spent all the time I could with my Yankee friends: they were
+all fond of me: I talked to them about country affairs, my evident
+delight in which they took as a compliment to themselves: the father and
+mother treated me as one of their children; the sons as a brother; and
+the daughter, who was as modest and as full of sensibility as she was
+beautiful, in a way to which a chap much less sanguine than I was would
+have given the tenderest interpretation; which treatment I, especially
+in the last-mentioned case, most cordially repaid.
+
+148. It is when you meet in company with others of your own age that you
+are, in love matters, put, most frequently, to the test, and exposed to
+detection. The next door neighbour might, in that country, be ten miles
+off. We used to have a frolic, sometimes at one house and sometimes at
+another. Here, where female eyes are very much on the alert, no secret
+can long be kept; and very soon father, mother, brothers and the whole
+neighbourhood looked upon the thing as certain, not excepting herself,
+to whom I, however, had never once even talked of marriage, and had
+never even told her that I _loved_ her. But I had a thousand times done
+these by _implication_, taking into view the interpretation that she
+would naturally put upon my looks, appellations and acts; and it was of
+this, that I had to accuse myself. Yet I was not a _deceiver_; for my
+affection for her was very great: I spent no really pleasant hours but
+with her: I was uneasy if she showed the slightest regard for any other
+young man: I was unhappy if the smallest matter affected her health or
+spirits: I quitted her in dejection, and returned to her with eager
+delight: many a time, when I could get leave but for a day, I paddled in
+a canoe two whole succeeding nights, in order to pass that day with her.
+If this was not love, it was first cousin to it; for as to any
+_criminal_ intention I no more thought of it, in her case, than if she
+had been my sister. Many times I put to myself the questions: 'What am I
+at? Is not this wrong? _Why do I go?_' But still I went.
+
+149. Then, further in my excuse, my _prior engagement_, though carefully
+left unalluded to by both parties, was, in that thin population, and
+owing to the singular circumstances of it, and to the great talk that
+there always was about me, _perfectly well known_ to her and all her
+family. It was matter of so much notoriety and conversation in the
+Province, that GENERAL CARLETON (brother of the late Lord Dorchester),
+who was the Governor when I was there, when he, about fifteen years
+afterwards, did me the honour, on his return to England, to come and see
+me at my house in Duke Street, Westminster, asked, before he went away,
+to see my _wife_, of whom _he had heard so much_ before her marriage. So
+that here was no _deception_ on my part: but still I ought not to have
+suffered even the most distant hope to be entertained by a person so
+innocent, so amiable, for whom I had so much affection, and to whose
+heart I had no right to give a single twinge. I ought, from the very
+first, to have prevented the possibility of her ever feeling pain on my
+account. I was young, to be sure; but I was old enough to know what was
+my duty in this case, and I ought, dismissing my own feelings, to have
+had the resolution to perform it.
+
+150. The _last parting_ came; and now came my just punishment! The time
+was known to every body, and was irrevocably fixed; for I had to move
+with a regiment, and the embarkation of a regiment is an _epoch_ in a
+thinly settled province. To describe this parting would be too painful
+even at this distant day, and with this frost of age upon my head. The
+kind and virtuous father came forty miles to see me just as I was going
+on board in the river. _His_ looks and words I have never forgotten. As
+the vessel descended, she passed the mouth of _that creek_ which I had
+so often entered with delight; and though England, and all that England
+contained, were before me, I lost sight of this creek with an aching
+heart.
+
+151. On what trifles turn the great events in the life of man! If I had
+received a _cool_ letter from my intended wife; if I had only heard a
+rumour of any thing from which fickleness in her might have been
+inferred; if I had found in her any, even the smallest, abatement of
+affection; if she had but let go any one of the hundred strings by which
+she held my heart: if any of these, never would the world have heard of
+me. Young as I was; able as I was as a soldier; proud as I was of the
+admiration and commendations of which I was the object; fond as I was,
+too, of the command, which, at so early an age, my rare conduct and
+great natural talents had given me; sanguine as was my mind, and
+brilliant as were my prospects: yet I had seen so much of the
+meannesses, the unjust partialities, the insolent pomposity, the
+disgusting dissipations of that way of life, that I was weary of it: I
+longed, exchanging my fine laced coat for the Yankee farmer's home-spun,
+to be where I should never behold the supple crouch of servility, and
+never hear the hectoring voice of authority, again; and, on the lonely
+banks of this branch-covered creek, which contained (she out of the
+question) every thing congenial to my taste and dear to my heart, I,
+unapplauded, unfeared, unenvied and uncalumniated, should have lived and
+died.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV
+
+TO A HUSBAND
+
+152. It is in this capacity that your conduct will have the greatest
+effect on your happiness; and a great deal will depend on the manner in
+which you _begin_. I am to suppose that you have made a _good choice_;
+but a good young woman may be made, by a weak, a harsh, a neglectful, an
+extravagant, or a profligate husband, a really bad wife and mother. All
+in a wife, beyond her own natural disposition and education is, nine
+times out of ten, the work of her husband.
+
+153. The first thing of all, be the rank in life what it may, is to
+convince her of the necessity of _moderation in expense_; and to make
+her clearly see the justice of beginning to act upon the presumption,
+that there are _children coming_, that they are to be provided for, and
+that she is to _assist_ in the making of that provision. Legally
+speaking, we have a right to do what we please with our own property,
+which, however, is not our own, unless it exceed our debts. And, morally
+speaking, we, at the moment of our marriage, contract a debt with the
+naturally to be expected fruit of it; and, therefore (reserving further
+remarks upon this subject till I come to speak of the education of
+children), the scale of expense should, at the beginning, be as low as
+that of which a due attention to rank in life will admit.
+
+154. The great danger of all is, beginning with _servants_, or a
+_servant_. Where there are riches, or where the business is so great as
+to demand _help_ in the carrying on of the affairs of a house, one or
+more female servants must be kept; but, where the work of a house can be
+done by one pair of hands, why should there be two; especially as you
+cannot have the hands without having the _mouth_, and, which is
+frequently not less costly, inconvenient and injurious, the _tongue_?
+When children come, there must, at times, be some foreign aid; but,
+until then, what need can the wife of a young tradesman, or even farmer
+(unless the family be great) have of a servant? The wife is young, and
+why is she not to work as well as the husband? What justice is there in
+wanting you to keep two women instead of one? You have not married them
+both in form; but, if they be inseparable, you have married them in
+substance; and if you are free from the crime of bigamy, you have the
+far most burthensome part of its consequences.
+
+155. I am well aware of the unpopularity of this doctrine; well aware of
+its hostility to prevalent habits; well aware that almost every
+tradesman and every farmer, though with scarcely a shilling to call his
+own; and that every clerk, and every such person, begins by keeping a
+servant, and that the latter is generally provided before the wife be
+installed: I am well aware of all this; but knowing, from long and
+attentive observation, that it is the great bane of the marriage life;
+the great cause of that penury, and of those numerous and tormenting
+embarrassments, amidst which conjugal felicity can seldom long be kept
+alive, I give the advice, and state the reasons on which it was founded.
+
+156. In London, or near it, a maid servant cannot be kept at an expense
+so low as that of _thirty pounds a year_; for, besides her wages, board
+and lodging, there must be a _fire_ solely for her; or she must sit with
+the husband and wife, hear every word that passes between them, and
+between them and their friends; which will, of course, greatly add to
+the pleasures of their fire-side! To keep her tongue still would be
+impossible, and, indeed, unreasonable; and if, as may frequently happen,
+she be prettier than the wife, she will know how to give the suitable
+interpretation to the looks which, to a next to a certainty, she will
+occasionally get from him, whom, as it were in mockery, she calls by the
+name of '_master_.' This is almost downright bigamy; but this can never
+do; and, therefore, she must have a _fire to herself_. Besides the blaze
+of coals, however, there is another sort of _flame_ that she will
+inevitably covet. She will by no means be sparing of the coals; but,
+well fed and well lodged, as _she_ will be, whatever you may be, she
+will naturally sigh for the fire of love, for which she carries in her
+bosom a match always ready prepared. In plain language, you have a man
+to keep, a part, at least, of every week; and the leg of lamb, which
+might have lasted you and your wife for three days, will, by this
+gentleman's sighs, be borne away in one. Shut the door against this
+intruder; out she goes herself; and, if she go empty-handed, she is no
+true Christian, or, at least, will not be looked upon as such by the
+charitable friend at whose house she meets the longing soul, dying
+partly with love and partly with hunger.
+
+157. The cost, altogether, is nearer fifty pounds a year than thirty.
+How many thousands of tradesmen and clerks, and the like, who might have
+passed through life without a single embarrassment, have lived in
+continual trouble and fear, and found a premature grave, from this very
+cause, and this cause alone! When I, on my return from America, in 1800,
+lived a short time in Saint James's Street, following my habit of early
+rising, I used to see the servant maids, at almost every house,
+dispensing charity at the expense of their masters, long before they,
+good men, opened their eyes, who thus did deeds of benevolence, not only
+without boasting of them, but without knowing of them. Meat, bread,
+cheese, butter, coals, candles; all came with equal freedom from these
+liberal hands. I have observed the same, in my early walks and rides, in
+every part of this great place and its environs. Where there is _one_
+servant it is worse than where there are _two_ or more; for, happily for
+their employers, they do not always agree. So that the oppression is
+most heavy on those who are the least able to bear it: and particularly
+on _clerk_, and such like people, whose wives seem to think, that,
+because the husband's work is of a genteel description, they ought to
+live the life of _ladies_. Poor fellows! their work is not hard and
+rough, to be sure; but, it is _work_, and work for many hours too, and
+painful enough; and as to their income, it scarcely exceeds, on an
+average, the double, at any rate, of that of a journeyman carpenter,
+bricklayer, or tailor.
+
+158. Besides, the man and wife will live on cheaper diet and drink than
+a servant will live. Thousands, who would never have had beer in their
+house, have it for the servant, who will not live without it. However
+frugal your wife, her frugality is of little use, if she have one of
+these inmates to provide for. Many a hundred thousand times has it
+happened that the butcher and the butter-man have been applied to solely
+because there was a servant to satisfy. You cannot, with this clog
+everlastingly attached to you, be frugal, if you would: you can save
+nothing against the days of expense, which are, however, pretty sure to
+come. And why should you bring into your house a trouble like this; an
+absolute annoyance; a something for your wife to watch, to be a
+constraint upon her, to thwart her in her best intentions, to make her
+uneasy, and to sour her temper? Why should you do this foolish thing?
+Merely to comply with corrupt fashion; merely from false shame, and
+false and contemptible pride? If a young man were, on his marriage, to
+find any difficulty in setting this ruinous fashion at defiance, a very
+good way would be to count down to his wife, at the end of every week,
+the amount of the expense of a servant for that week, and request her to
+deposit it in her drawer. In a short time she would find the sum so
+large, that she would be frightened at the thoughts of a servant; and
+would never dream of one again, except in case of absolute necessity,
+and then for as short a time as possible.
+
+159. But the wife may not be _able_ to do all the work to be done in the
+house. Not _able_! A young woman not able to cook and wash, and mend and
+make, and clean the house and make the bed for one young man and
+herself, and that young man her husband too, who is quite willing (if he
+be worth a straw) to put up with cold dinner, or with a crust; to get up
+and light her fire; to do any thing that the mind can suggest to spare
+her labour, and to conduce to her convenience! Not _able_ to do this?
+Then, if she brought no fortune, and he had none, she ought not to have
+been _able to marry_: and, let me tell you, young man, a _small fortune_
+would not put a servant-keeping wife upon an equality with one who
+required no such inmate.
+
+160. If, indeed, the work of a house were _harder_ than a young woman
+could perform without pain, or great fatigue; if it had a tendency to
+impair her health or deface her beauty; then you might hesitate: but, it
+is not too hard, and it tends to preserve health, to keep the spirits
+buoyant, and, of course, to preserve beauty. You often hear girls, while
+scrubbing or washing, singing till they are out of breath; but never
+while they are at what they call _working_ at the needle. The American
+wives are most exemplary in this respect. They have none of that false
+pride, which prevents thousands in England from doing that which
+interest, reason, and even their own inclination would prompt them to
+do. They work, not from necessity; not from compulsion of any sort; for
+their husbands are the most indulgent in the whole world. In the towns
+they go to the market, and cheerfully carry home the result: in the
+country, they not only do the work in the house, but extend their
+labours to the garden, plant and weed and hoe, and gather and preserve
+the fruits and the herbs; and this, too, in a climate far from being so
+favourable to labour as that of England; and they are amply repaid for
+these by those gratifications which their excellent economy enables
+their husbands to bestow upon them, and which it is their universal
+habit to do with a liberal hand.
+
+161. But did I _practise_ what I am here preaching? Aye, and to the full
+extent. Till I had a second child, no servant ever entered my house,
+though well able to keep one; and never, in my whole life, did I live in
+a house so clean, in such trim order, and never have I eaten or drunk,
+or slept or dressed, in a manner so perfectly to my fancy, as I did
+then. I had a great deal of business to attend to, that took me a great
+part of the day from home; but, whenever I could spare a minute from
+business, the child was in my arms; I rendered the mother's labour as
+light as I could; any bit of food satisfied me; when watching was
+necessary, we shared it between us; and that famous GRAMMAR for teaching
+French people English, which has been for thirty years, and still is,
+the great work of this kind, throughout all America, and in every nation
+in Europe, was written by me, in hours not employed in business, and, in
+great part, during my share of the night-watchings over a sick, and then
+only child, who, after lingering many months, died in my arms.
+
+162. This was the way that we went on: this was the way that we _began_
+the married life; and surely, that which we did with pleasure no young
+couple, unendowed with fortune, ought to be ashamed to do. But she may
+be _ill_; the time may be near at hand, or may have actually arrived,
+when she must encounter that particular pain and danger of which _you
+have been the happy cause_! Oh! that is quite another matter! And if you
+now exceed in care, in watchings over her, in tender attention to all
+her wishes, in anxious efforts to quiet her fears; if you exceed in
+pains and expense to procure her relief and secure her life; if you, in
+any of these, exceed that which I would recommend, you must be romantic
+indeed! She deserves them all, and more than all, ten thousand times
+told. And now it is that you feel the blessing conferred by her economy.
+That heap of money, which might have been squandered on, or by, or in
+consequence of, an useless servant, you now have in hand wherewith to
+procure an abundance of that skill and that attendance of which she
+stands in absolute need; and she, when restored to you in smiling
+health, has the just pride to reflect, that she may have owed her life
+and your happiness to the effects of her industry.
+
+163. It is the _beginning_ that is every thing in this important case;
+and you will have, perhaps, much to do to convince her, not that what
+you recommend is advantageous; not that it is right; but to convince her
+that she can do it without sinking below the station that she ought to
+maintain. She would cheerfully do it; but there are her _next-door
+neighbours_, who do not do it, though, in all other respects, on a par
+with her. It is not laziness, but pernicious fashion, that you will have
+to combat. But the truth is, that there ought to be _no combat_ at all;
+this important matter ought to be settled and fully agreed on
+_beforehand_. If she really love you, and have common sense, she will
+not hesitate a moment; and if she be deficient in either of these
+respects; and if you be so mad in love as to be unable to exist without
+her, it is better to cease to exist at once, than to become the toiling
+and embarrassed slave of a wasting and pillaging servant.
+
+164. The next thing to be attended to is, your _demeanor_ towards a
+young wife. As to oldish ones, or widows, time and other things have, in
+most cases, blunted their feelings, and rendered harsh or stern demeanor
+in the husband a matter not of heart-breaking consequence. But with a
+young and inexperienced one, the case is very different; and you should
+bear in mind, that the first frown that she receives from _you_ is a
+dagger to her heart. Nature has so ordered it, that men shall become
+less ardent in their passion after the wedding day; and that women shall
+not. Their ardour increases rather than the contrary; and they are
+surprisingly quick-sighted and inquisitive on this score. When the
+_child_ comes, it divides this ardour with the father; but until then
+you have it all; and if you have a mind to be happy, repay it with all
+your soul. Let what may happen to put you out of humour with others, let
+nothing put you out of humour with her. Let your words and looks and
+manners be just what they were before you called her wife.
+
+165. But now, and throughout your life, show your affection for her, and
+your admiration of her, not in nonsensical compliment; not in picking up
+her handkerchief, or her glove, or in carrying her fan or parasol; not,
+if you have the means, in hanging trinkets and baubles upon her; not in
+making yourself a fool by winking at, and seeming pleased at, her
+foibles, or follies, or faults; but show them by acts of real goodness
+towards her; prove by unequivocal deeds the high value that you set on
+her health and life and peace of mind; let your praise of her go to the
+full extent of her deserts, but let it be consistent with truth and with
+sense, and such as to convince her of your sincerity. He who is the
+flatterer of his wife only prepares her ears for the hyperbolical stuff
+of others. The kindest appellation that her Christian name affords is
+the best you can use, especially before faces. An everlasting '_my
+dear_' is but a sorry compensation for a want of that sort of love that
+makes the husband cheerfully toil by day, break his rest by night,
+endure all sorts of hardships, if the life or health of his wife demand
+it. Let your deeds, and not your words, carry to her heart a daily and
+hourly confirmation of the fact, that you value her health and life and
+happiness beyond all other things in the world; and let this be manifest
+to her, particularly at those times when life is always more or less in
+danger.
+
+166. I began my young marriage days in and near Philadelphia. At one of
+those times to which I have just alluded, in the middle of the burning
+hot month of July, I was greatly afraid of fatal consequences to my wife
+for want of sleep, she not having, after the great danger was over, had
+any sleep for more than forty-eight hours. All great cities, in hot
+countries, are, I believe, full of dogs; and they, in the very hot
+weather, keep up, during the night, a horrible barking and fighting and
+howling. Upon the particular occasion to which I am adverting, they made
+a noise so terrible and so unremitted, that it was next to impossible
+that even a person in full health and free from pain should obtain a
+minute's sleep. I was, about nine in the evening, sitting by the bed: 'I
+do think,' said she, 'that I could go to sleep _now_, if it were not
+_for the dogs_.' Down stairs I went, and out I sallied, in my shirt and
+trowsers, and without shoes and stockings; and, going to a heap of
+stones lying beside the road, set to work upon the dogs, going backward
+and forward, and keeping them at two or three hundred yards' distance
+from the house. I walked thus the whole night, barefooted, lest the
+noise of my shoes might possibly reach her ears; and I remember that the
+bricks of the causeway were, even in the night, so hot as to be
+disagreeable to my feet. My exertions produced the desired effect: a
+sleep of several hours was the consequence; and, at eight o'clock in the
+morning, off went I to a day's business, which was to end at six in the
+evening.
+
+167. Women are all patriots of the soil; and when her neighbours used to
+ask my wife whether _all_ English husbands were like hers, she boldly
+answered in the affirmative. I had business to occupy the whole of my
+time, Sundays and weekdays, except sleeping hours; but I used to make
+time to assist her in the taking care of her baby, and in all sorts of
+things: get up, light her fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm
+water in cold weather, take the child while she dressed herself and got
+the breakfast ready, then breakfast, get her in water and wood for the
+day, then dress myself neatly, and sally forth to my business. The
+moment that was over I used to hasten back to her again; and I no more
+thought of spending a moment _away from her_, unless business compelled
+me, than I thought of quitting the country and going to sea. The
+_thunder_ and _lightning_ are tremendous in America, compared with what
+they are in England. My wife was, at one time, very much afraid of
+thunder and lightning; and as is the feeling of all such women, and,
+indeed, all men too, she wanted company, and particularly her husband,
+in those times of danger. I knew well, of course, that my presence would
+not diminish the danger; but, be I at what I might, if within reach of
+home, I used to quit my business and hasten to her, the moment I
+perceived a thunder storm approaching. Scores of miles have I, first and
+last, _run_ on this errand, in the streets of Philadelphia! The
+Frenchmen, who were my scholars, used to laugh at me exceedingly on this
+account; and sometimes, when I was making an appointment with them, they
+would say, with a smile and a bow, '_Sauve la tonnerre toujours,
+Monsieur Cobbett_.'
+
+168. I never _dangled_ about at the heels of my wife; seldom, very
+seldom, ever _walked out_, as it is called, with her; I never 'went _a
+walking_' in the whole course of my life; never went to walk without
+having some _object_ in view other than the walk; and, as I never could
+walk at a slow pace, it would have been _hard work_ for her to keep up
+with me; so that, in the nearly forty years of our married life, we have
+not walked out together, perhaps, twenty times. I hate a _dangler_, who
+is more like a footman than a husband. It is very cheap to be kind in
+_trifles_; but that which rivets the affections is not to be purchased
+with money. The great thing of all, however, is to prove your anxiety at
+those times of peril to her, and for which times you, nevertheless,
+wish. Upon those occasions I was never from home, be the necessity for
+it ever so great: it was my rule, that every thing must give way to
+that. In the year 1809, some English local militiamen were _flogged_, in
+the Isle of Ely, in England, under a guard of _Hanoverians_, then
+stationed in England. I, reading an account of this in a London
+newspaper, called the COURIER, expressed my indignation at it in such
+terms as it became an Englishman to do. The Attorney General, Gibbs, was
+set on upon me; he harassed me for nearly a year, then brought me to
+trial, and I was, by Ellenborough, Grose, Le Blanc, and Bailey,
+sentenced to _two years' imprisonment_ in Newgate, to pay a fine to _the
+king_ of _a thousand pounds_, and to be held in heavy bail for _seven
+years_ after the expiration of the imprisonment! Every one regarded it
+as a sentence of _death_. I lived in the country at the time, seventy
+miles from London; I had a farm on my hands; I had a family of small
+children, amongst whom I had constantly lived; I had a most anxious and
+devoted wife, who was, too, in that state, which rendered the separation
+more painful ten-fold. I was put into a place amongst _felons_, from
+which I had to rescue myself at the price of _twelve guineas a week_ for
+the whole of the two years. The _King_, poor man! was, at the close of
+my imprisonment, not _in a condition_ to receive the _thousand pounds_;
+but his son, the present king, punctually received it _'in his name and
+behalf_;' and he keeps it still.
+
+169. The sentence, though it proved not to be one of _death_, was, in
+effect, one of _ruin_, as far as then-possessed property went. But this
+really appeared as nothing, compared with the circumstance, that I must
+now have _a child born in a felons' jail_, or be absent from the scene
+at the time of the birth. My wife, who had come to see me for the last
+time previous to her lying-in, perceiving my deep dejection at the
+approach of her departure for Botley, resolved not to go; and actually
+went and took a lodging as near to Newgate as she could find one, in
+order that the communication between us might be as speedy as possible;
+and in order that I might see the doctor, and receive assurances from
+him relative to her state. The nearest lodging that she could find was
+in Skinner-street, at the corner of a street leading to Smithfield. So
+that there she was, amidst the incessant rattle of coaches and butchers'
+carts, and the noise of cattle, dogs, and bawling men; instead of being
+in a quiet and commodious country-house, with neighbours and servants
+and every thing necessary about her. Yet, so great is the power of the
+mind in such cases, she, though the circumstances proved uncommonly
+perilous, and were attended with the loss of the child, bore her
+sufferings with the greatest composure, because, at any minute she could
+send a message to, and hear from, me. If she had gone to Botley, leaving
+me in that state of anxiety in which she saw me, I am satisfied that she
+would have died; and that event taking place at such a distance from me,
+how was I to contemplate her corpse, surrounded by her distracted
+children, and to have escaped death, or madness, myself? If such was not
+the effect of this merciless act of the government towards me, that
+amiable body may be well assured that I have _taken and recorded the
+will for the deed_, and that as such it will live in my memory as long
+as that memory shall last.
+
+170. I make no apology for this account of my own conduct, because
+example is better than precept, and because I believe that my example
+may have weight with many thousands, as it has had in respect to early
+rising, abstinence, sobriety, industry, and mercy towards the poor. It
+is not, then, dangling about after a wife; it is not the loading her
+with baubles and trinkets; it is not the jaunting of her about from show
+to show, and from what is called pleasure to pleasure. It is none of
+these that endears you to her: it is the adherence to that part of the
+promise you have made her: 'With my _body_ I thee _worship_;' that is to
+say, _respect_ and _honour_ by personal attention and acts of affection.
+And remember, that the greatest possible proof that you can give of real
+and solid affection is to give her your _time_, when not wanted in
+matters of business; when not wanted for the discharge of some _duty_,
+either towards the public or towards private persons. Amongst duties of
+this sort, we must, of course, in some ranks and circumstances of life,
+include the intercourse amongst friends and neighbours, which may
+frequently and reasonably call the husband from his home: but what are
+we to think of the husband who is in the habit of leaving his own
+fire-side, after the business of the day is over, and seeking
+promiscuous companions in the ale or the coffee house? I am told that,
+in France, it is rare to meet with a husband who does not spend every
+evening of his life in what is called a _caffe_; that is to say, a place
+for no other purpose than that of gossipping, drinking and gaming. And
+it is with great sorrow that I acknowledge that many English husbands
+indulge too much in a similar habit. Drinking clubs, smoking clubs,
+singing clubs, clubs of odd-fellows, whist clubs, sotting clubs: these
+are inexcusable, they are censurable, they are at once foolish and
+wicked, even in single men; what must they be, then, in _husbands_; and
+how are they to answer, not only to their wives, but to their children,
+for this profligate abandonment of their homes; this breach of their
+solemn vow made to the former, this evil example to the latter?
+
+171. Innumerable are the miseries that spring from this cause. The
+_expense_ is, in the first place, very considerable. I much question
+whether, amongst tradesmen, a _shilling_ a night pays the average score;
+and that, too, for that which is really _worth_ nothing at all, and
+cannot, even by possibility, be attended with any one single advantage,
+however small. Fifteen pounds a year thus thrown away, would amount, in
+the course of a tradesman's life, to a decent fortune for a child. Then
+there is the injury to _health_ from these night adventures; there are
+the _quarrels_, there is the vicious habit of loose and filthy talk;
+there are the slanders and the back-bitings; there is the admiration of
+contemptible wit, and there are the scoffings at all that is sober and
+serious.
+
+172. And does the husband who thus abandons his wife and children
+imagine that she will not, in some degree at least, follow his example?
+If he do, he is very much deceived. If she imitate him even in drinking,
+he has no great reason to complain; and then the cost may be _two
+shillings_ the night instead of one, equal in amount to the cost of all
+the bread wanted in the family, while the baker's bill is, perhaps,
+unpaid. Here are the slanderings, too, going on at home; for, while the
+husbands are assembled, it would be hard if the wives were not to do the
+same; and the very least that is to be expected is, that the _tea-pot_
+should keep pace with the porter-pot or grog-glass. Hence crowds of
+female acquaintances and intruders, and all the consequent and
+inevitable squabbles which form no small part of the torment of the life
+of man.
+
+173. If you have _servants_, they know to a moment the time of your
+absence; and they regulate their proceedings accordingly. 'Like master
+like man,' is an old and true proverb; and it is natural, if not just,
+that it should be thus; for it would be unjust if the careless and
+neglectful sot were served as faithfully as the vigilant, attentive and
+sober man. Late hours, cards and dice, are amongst the consequences of
+the master's absence; and why not, seeing that he is setting the
+example? Fire, candle, profligate visitants, expences, losses, children
+ruined in habits and morals, and, in short, a train of evils hardly to
+be enumerated, arise from this most vicious habit of the master spending
+his leisure time from home. But beyond all the rest is the
+_ill-treatment of the wife_. When left to ourselves we all seek the
+company that we _like best_; the company in which we _take the most
+delight_: and therefore every husband, be his state of life what it may,
+who spends his leisure time, or who, at least, is in the habit of doing
+it, in company other than that of his wife and family, tells her and
+them, as plainly by deeds as he could possibly do by words, that he
+_takes more delight in other company than in theirs_. Children repay
+this with _disregard_ for their father; but to a wife of any
+sensibility, it is either a dagger to her heart or an incitement to
+revenge, and revenge, too, of a species which a young woman will seldom
+be long in want of the means to gratify. In conclusion of these remarks
+respecting _absentee husbands_, I would recommend all those who are
+prone to, or likely to fall into, the practice, to remember the words of
+Mrs. SULLEN, in the BEAUX' STRATAGEM: 'My husband,' says she, addressing
+a footman whom she had taken as a paramour, 'comes reeling home at
+midnight, tumbles in beside me as a salmon flounces in a net, oversets
+the economy of my bed, belches the fumes of his drink in my face, then
+twists himself round, leaving me half naked, and listening till morning
+to that tuneful nightingale, his nose.' It is at least forty-three years
+since I read the BEAUX' STRATAGEM, and I now quote from memory; but the
+passage has always occurred to me whenever I have seen a sottish
+husband; and though that species of revenge, for the taking of which the
+lady made this apology, was carrying the thing too far, yet I am ready
+to confess, that if I had to sit in judgment on her for taking even this
+revenge, my sentence would be very lenient; for what right has such a
+husband to expect _fidelity_? He has broken his vow; and by what rule of
+right has she to be bound to hers? She thought that she was marrying _a
+man_; and she finds that she was married to a beast. He has, indeed,
+committed no offence that _the law of the land_ can reach; but he has
+violated the vow by which he obtained possession of her person; and, in
+the eye of justice, the compact between them is dissolved.
+
+174. The way to avoid the sad consequences of which I have been speaking
+is _to begin well_: many a man has become a sottish husband, and brought
+a family to ruin, without being sottishly _inclined_, and without
+_liking_ the gossip of the ale or coffee house. It is by slow degrees
+that the mischief is done. He is first inveigled, and, in time, he
+really likes the thing; and, when arrived at that point, he is
+incurable. Let him resolve, from the very first, _never to spend an hour
+from home_, unless business, or, at least, some necessary and rational
+purpose demand it. Where ought he to be, but with the person whom he
+himself hath chosen to be his partner for life, and the mother of his
+children? What _other company_ ought he to deem so good and so fitting
+as this? With whom else can he so pleasantly spend his hours of leisure
+and relaxation? Besides, if he quit her to seek company more agreeable,
+is not she set at large by that act of his? What justice is there in
+confining her at home without any company at all, while he rambles forth
+in search of company more gay than he finds at home?
+
+175. Let the young married man try the thing; let him resolve not to be
+seduced from his home; let him never go, in one single instance,
+unnecessarily from his own fire-side. _Habit_ is a powerful thing; and
+if he begin right, the pleasure that he will derive from it will induce
+him to continue right. This is not being '_tied to the apron-strings_,'
+which means quite another matter, as I shall show by-and-by. It is being
+at the husband's place, whether he have children or not. And is there
+any want of matter for conversation between a man and his wife? Why not
+talk of the daily occurrences to her, as well as to any body else; and
+especially to a company of tippling and noisy men? If you excuse
+yourself by saying that you go _to read the newspaper_, I answer, _buy
+the newspaper_, if you must read it: the cost is not half of what you
+spend per day at the pot-house; and then you have it your own, and may
+read it at your leisure, and your wife can read it as well as yourself,
+if read it you must. And, in short, what must that man be made of, who
+does not prefer sitting by his own fire-side with his wife and children,
+reading to them, or hearing them read, to hearing the gabble and
+balderdash of a club or a pot-house company!
+
+176. Men must frequently be from home at all hours of the day and night.
+Sailors, soldiers, merchants, all men out of the common track of labour,
+and even some in the very lowest walks, are sometimes compelled by their
+affairs, or by circumstances, to be from their homes. But what I protest
+against is, the _habit_ of spending _leisure_ hours from home, and near
+to it; and doing this without any necessity, and by _choice_: liking the
+next door, or any house in the same street, better than your own. When
+absent from _necessity_, there is no wound given to the heart of the
+wife; she concludes that you would be with her if you could, and that
+satisfies; she laments the absence, but submits to it without
+complaining. Yet, in these cases, her feelings ought to be consulted as
+much as possible; she ought to be fully apprised of the probable
+duration of the absence, and of the time of return; and if these be
+dependent on circumstances, those circumstances ought to be fully
+stated; for you have no right to keep her mind upon the rack, when you
+have it in your power to put it in a state of ease. Few men have been
+more frequently taken from home by business, or by a necessity of some
+sort, than I have; and I can positively assert, that, as to my return, I
+never once disappointed my wife in the whole course of our married life.
+If the time of return was contingent, I never failed to keep her
+informed _from day to day_: if the time was fixed, or when it became
+fixed, my arrival was as sure as my life. Going from London to Botley,
+once, with Mr. FINNERTY, whose name I can never pronounce without an
+expression of my regard for his memory, we stopped at ALTON, to dine
+with a friend, who, delighted with Finnerty's talk, as every body else
+was, kept us till ten or eleven o'clock, and was proceeding to _the
+other bottle_, when I put in my protest, saying, 'We must go, my wife
+will be frightened.' 'Blood, man,' said Finnerty, 'you do not mean to go
+home to-night!' I told him I did; and then sent my son, who was with us,
+to order out the post-chaise. We had twenty-three miles to go, during
+which we debated the question, whether Mrs. COBBETT would be up to
+receive us, I contending for the affirmative, and he for the negative.
+She was up, and had a nice fire for us to sit down at. She had not
+committed the matter to a servant: her servants and children were all in
+bed; and she was up, to perform the duty of receiving her husband and
+his friend. 'You did not expect him?' said Finnerty. 'To be sure I did,'
+said she; 'he never disappointed me in his life.'
+
+177. Now, if all young men knew how much value women set upon this
+species of fidelity, there would be fewer unhappy couples than there
+are. If men have appointments with _lords_, they never dream of breaking
+them; and I can assure them that wives are as sensitive in this respect
+as lords. I had seen many instances of conjugal unhappiness arising out
+of that carelessness which left wives in a state of uncertainty as to
+the movements of their husbands; and I took care, from the very outset,
+to guard against it. For no man has a right to sport with the feelings
+of any innocent person whatever, and particularly with those of one who
+has committed her happiness to his hands. The truth is, that men in
+general look upon women as having no feelings different from their own;
+and they know that they themselves would regard such disappointments as
+nothing. But this is a great mistake: women feel more acutely than men;
+their love is more ardent, more pure, more lasting, and they are more
+frank and sincere in the utterance of their feelings. They ought to be
+treated with due consideration had for all their amiable qualities and
+all their weaknesses, and nothing by which their minds are affected
+ought to be deemed a _trifle_.
+
+178. When we consider what a young woman gives up on her wedding day;
+she makes a surrender, an absolute surrender, of her liberty, for the
+joint lives of the parties; she gives the husband the absolute right of
+causing her to live in what place, and in what manner and what society,
+he pleases; she gives him the power to take from her, and to use, for
+his own purposes, all her goods, unless reserved by some legal
+instrument; and, above all, she surrenders to him _her person_. Then,
+when we consider the pains which they endure for us, and the large share
+of all the anxious parental cares that fall to their lot; when we
+consider their devotion to us, and how unshaken their affection remains
+in our ailments, even though the most tedious and disgusting; when we
+consider the offices that they perform, and cheerfully perform, for us,
+when, were we left to one another, we should perish from neglect; when
+we consider their devotion to their children, how evidently they love
+them better, in numerous instances, than their own lives; when we
+consider these things, how can a just man think any thing a trifle that
+affects their happiness? I was once going, in my gig, up the hill, in
+the village of FRANKFORD, near Philadelphia, when a little girl, about
+two years old, who had toddled away from a small house, was lying
+basking in the sun, in the middle of the road. About two hundred yards
+before I got to the child, the teams, five big horses in each, of three
+wagons, the drivers of which had stopped to drink at a tavern on the
+brow of the hill, started off, and came, nearly abreast, galloping down
+the road. I got my gig off the road as speedily as I could; but expected
+to see the poor child crushed to pieces. A young man, a journeyman
+carpenter, who was shingling a shed by the side of the road, seeing the
+child, and seeing the danger, though a stranger to the parents, jumped
+from the top of the shed, ran into the road, and snatched up the child,
+from scarcely an inch before the hoof of the leading horse. The horse's
+leg knocked him down; but he, catching the child by its clothes, flung
+it back, out of the way of the other horses, and saved himself by
+rolling back with surprising agility. The mother of the child, who had,
+apparently, been washing, seeing the teams coming, and seeing the
+situation of the child, rushed out, and catching up the child, just as
+the carpenter had flung it back, and hugging it in her arms, uttered _a
+shriek_ such as I never heard before, never heard since, and, I hope,
+shall never hear again; and then she dropped down, as if perfectly dead!
+By the application of the usual means, she was restored, however, in a
+little while; and I, being about to depart, asked the carpenter if he
+were a married man, and whether he were a relation of the parents of the
+child. He said he was neither: 'Well, then,' said I, 'you merit the
+gratitude of every father and mother in the world, and I will show mine,
+by giving you what I have,' pulling out the nine or ten dollars that I
+had in my pocket. 'No; I thank you, Sir,' said he: 'I have only done
+what it was my duty to do.'
+
+179. Bravery, disinterestedness, and maternal affection surpassing
+these, it is impossible to imagine. The mother was going right in
+amongst the feet of these powerful and wild horses, and amongst the
+wheels of the wagons. She had no thought for herself; no feeling of fear
+for her own life; her _shriek_ was the sound of inexpressible joy; joy
+too great for her to support herself under. Perhaps ninety-nine mothers
+out of every hundred would have acted the same part, under similar
+circumstances. There are, comparatively, very few women not replete with
+maternal love; and, by-the-by, take you care, if you meet with a girl
+who '_is not fond of children_,' not to marry her _by any means_. Some
+few there are who even make a boast that they 'cannot bear children,'
+that is, cannot _endure_ them. I never knew a man that was good for
+_much_ who had a dislike to little children; and I never knew a woman of
+that taste who was good for any thing at all. I have seen a few such in
+the course of my life, and I have never wished to see one of them a
+second time.
+
+180. Being fond of little children argues no _effeminacy_ in a man, but,
+as far as my observation has gone, the contrary. A regiment of soldiers
+presents no bad school wherein to study character. Soldiers have
+leisure, too, to play with children, as well as with 'women and dogs,'
+for which the proverb has made them famed. And I have never observed
+that effeminacy was at all the marked companion of fondness for little
+children. This fondness manifestly arises from a compassionate feeling
+towards creatures that are helpless, and that must be innocent. For my
+own part, how many days, how many months, all put together, have I spent
+with babies in my arms! My time, when at home, and when babies were
+going on, was chiefly divided between the pen and the baby. I have fed
+them and put them to sleep hundreds of times, though there were servants
+to whom the task might have been transferred. Yet, I have not been
+effeminate; I have not been idle; I have not been a waster of time; but
+I should have been all these if I had disliked babies, and had liked the
+porter pot and the grog glass.
+
+181. It is an old saying, 'Praise the child, and you make love to the
+mother;' and it is surprising how far this will go. To a fond mother you
+can do nothing so pleasing as to praise the baby, and, the younger it
+is, the more she values the compliment. Say fine things to her, and take
+no notice of her baby, and she will despise you. I have often beheld
+this, in many women, with great admiration; and it is a thing that no
+husband ought to overlook; for if the wife wish her child to be admired
+by others, what must be the ardour of her wishes with regard to _his_
+admiration. There was a drunken dog of a Norfolk man in our regiment,
+who came from Thetford, I recollect, who used to say, that his wife
+would forgive him for spending all the pay, and the washing money into
+the bargain, 'if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was
+pretty.' Now, though this was a very profligate fellow, he had
+_philosophy_ in him; and certain it is, that there is nothing worthy of
+the name of conjugal happiness, unless the husband clearly evince that
+he is fond of his children, and that, too, from their very birth.
+
+182. But though all the aforementioned considerations demand from us the
+kindest possible treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful
+deportment at her hands. He is not to be her slave; he is not to yield
+to her against the dictates of his own reason and judgment; it is her
+duty to obey all his lawful commands; and, if she have sense, she will
+perceive that it is a disgrace to herself to acknowledge, as a husband,
+a thing over which she has an absolute controul. It should always be
+recollected that _you_ are the party whose body must, if any do, lie in
+jail for debt, and for debts of her contracting, too, as well as of your
+own contracting. Over her _tongue_, too, you possess a clear right to
+exercise, if necessary, some controul; for if she use it in an
+unjustifiable manner, it is against _you_, and not against her, that the
+law enables, and justly enables, the slandered party to proceed; which
+would be monstrously unjust, if the law were not founded on the _right_
+which the husband has to control, if necessary, the tongue of the wife,
+to compel her to keep it within the limits prescribed by the law. A
+charming, a most enchanting, life, indeed, would be that of a husband,
+if he were bound to cohabit with and to maintain one for all the debts
+and all the slanders of whom he was answerable, and over whose conduct
+he possessed no compulsory controul.
+
+183. Of the _remedies_ in the case of _really bad_ wives, squanderers,
+drunkards, adultresses, I shall speak further on; it being the habit of
+us all to put off to the last possible moment the performance of
+disagreeable duties. But, far short of these vices, there are several
+faults in a wife that may, if not cured in time, lead to great
+unhappiness, great injury to the interests as well as character of her
+husband and children; and which faults it is, therefore, the husband's
+duty to correct. A wife may be chaste, sober in the full sense of the
+word, industrious, cleanly, frugal, and may be devoted to her husband
+and her children to a degree so enchanting as to make them all love her
+beyond the power of words to express. And yet she may, partly under the
+influence of her natural disposition, and partly encouraged by the great
+and constant homage paid to her virtues, and presuming, too, on the pain
+with which she knows her will would be thwarted; she may, with all her
+virtues, be thus led to _a bold interference in the affairs of her
+husband_; may attempt to dictate to him in matters quite out of her own
+sphere; and, in the pursuit of the gratification of her love of power
+and command, may wholly overlook the acts of folly or injustice which
+she would induce her husband to commit, and overlook, too, the
+contemptible thing that she is making the man whom it is her duty to
+honour and obey, and the abasement of whom cannot take place without
+some portion of degradation falling upon herself. At the time when 'THE
+BOOK' came out, relative to the late ill-treated QUEEN CAROLINE, I was
+talking upon the subject, one day, with _a parson_, who had not read the
+Book, but who, as was the fashion with all those who were looking up to
+the government, condemned the Queen unheard. 'Now,' said I, 'be not so
+shamefully unjust; but _get the book_, _read_ it, _and then_ give your
+judgment.'--'Indeed,' said his wife, who was sitting by, 'but HE
+SHA'N'T,' pronouncing the words _sha'n't_ with an emphasis and a voice
+tremendously masculine. 'Oh!' said I, 'if he SHA'N'T, that is another
+matter; but, if he sha'n't read, if he sha'n't hear the evidence, he
+sha'n't be looked upon, by me, as a just judge; and I sha'n't regard
+him, in future, as having any opinion of his own in any thing.' All
+which the husband, the poor henpecked thing, heard without a word
+escaping his lips.
+
+184. A husband thus under command, is the most contemptible of God's
+creatures. Nobody can place reliance on him for any thing; whether in
+the capacity of employer or employed, you are never sure of him. No
+bargain is firm, no engagement sacred, with such a man. Feeble as a reed
+before the boisterous she-commander, he is bold in injustice towards
+those whom it pleases her caprice to mark out for vengeance. In the eyes
+of neighbours, for _friends_ such a man cannot have, in the eyes of
+servants, in the eyes of even the beggars at his door, such a man is a
+mean and despicable creature, though he may roll in wealth and possess
+great talents into the bargain. Such a man has, in fact, no property; he
+has nothing that he can rightly call _his own_; he is a beggarly
+dependent under his own roof; and if he have any thing of the man left
+in him, and if there be rope or river near, the sooner he betakes him to
+the one or the other the better. How many men, how many families, have I
+known brought to utter ruin only by the husband suffering himself to be
+subdued, to be cowed down, to be held in fear, of even a virtuous wife!
+What, then, must be the lot of him who submits to a commander who, at
+the same time, sets all virtue at defiance!
+
+185. Women are a _sisterhood_. They make _common cause_ in behalf of the
+_sex_; and, indeed, this is natural enough, when we consider the vast
+power that the _law_ gives us over them. The law is for us, and they
+combine, wherever they can, to mitigate its effects. This is perfectly
+natural, and, to a certain extent, laudable, evincing fellow-feeling and
+public spirit: but when carried to the length of '_he sha'n't_,' it is
+despotism on the one side and slavery on the other. Watch, therefore,
+the incipient steps of encroachment; and they come on so slowly, so
+softly, that you must be sharp-sighted if you perceive them; but the
+moment you _do perceive them_: your love will blind for too long a time;
+but the moment you do perceive them, put at once an effectual stop to
+their progress. Never mind the pain that it may give you: a day of pain
+at this time will spare you years of pain in time to come. Many a man
+has been miserable, and made his wife miserable too, for a score or two
+of years, only for want of resolution to bear one day of pain: and it is
+a great deal to bear; it is a great deal to do to thwart the desire of
+one whom you so dearly love, and whose virtues daily render her more and
+more dear to you. But (and this is one of the most admirable of the
+mother's traits) as she herself will, while the tears stream from her
+eyes, force the nauseous medicine down the throat of her child, whose
+every cry is a dagger to her heart; as she herself has the courage to do
+this for the sake of her child, why should you flinch from the
+performance of a still more important and more sacred duty towards
+herself, as well as towards you and your children?
+
+186. Am I recommending _tyranny_? Am I recommending _disregard_ of the
+wife's opinions and wishes? Am I recommending a _reserve_ towards her
+that would seem to say that she was not trust-worthy, or not a party
+interested in her husband's affairs? By no means: on the contrary,
+though I would keep any thing disagreeable from her, I should not enjoy
+the prospect of good without making her a participator. But reason says,
+and God has said, that it is the duty of wives to be obedient to their
+husbands; and the very nature of things prescribes that there must be _a
+head_ of every house, and an _undivided_ authority. And then it is so
+clearly _just_ that the authority should rest with him on whose head
+rests the whole responsibility, that a woman, when patiently reasoned
+with on the subject, must be a virago in her very nature not to submit
+with docility to the terms of her marriage vow.
+
+187. There are, in almost every considerable neighbourhood, a little
+squadron of she-commanders, generally the youngish wives of old or
+weak-minded men, and generally without children. These are the
+tutoresses of the young wives of the vicinage; they, in virtue of their
+experience, not only school the wives, but scold the husbands; they
+teach the former how to encroach and the latter how to yield: so that if
+you suffer this to go quietly on, you are soon under the care of a
+_comite_ as completely as if you were insane. You want no _comite_:
+reason, law, religion, the marriage vow; all these have made you head,
+have given you full power to rule your family, and if you give up your
+right, you deserve the contempt that assuredly awaits you, and also the
+ruin that is, in all probability, your doom.
+
+188. Taking it for granted that you will not suffer more than a second
+or third session of the female _comite_, let me say a word or two about
+the conduct of men in deciding between the conflicting opinions of
+husbands and wives. When a wife has _a point to carry_, and finds
+herself hard pushed, or when she thinks it necessary to call to her aid
+all the force she can possibly muster, one of her resources is, the vote
+on her side of all her husband's visiting friends. 'My husband thinks so
+and so, and I think so and so; now, Mr. Tomkins, don't you think _I am
+right_?' To be sure he does; and so does Mr. Jenkins, and so does
+Wilkins, and so does Mr. Dickins, and you would swear that they were all
+her _kins_. Now this is very foolish, to say the least of it. None of
+these complaisant _kins_ would like this in their own case. It is the
+fashion to say _aye_ to all that a woman asserts, or contends for,
+especially in contradiction to her husband; and a very pernicious
+fashion it is. It is, in fact, not to pay her a compliment worthy of
+acceptance, but to treat her as an empty and conceited fool; and no
+sensible woman will, except from mere inadvertence, make the appeal.
+This fashion, however, foolish and contemptible as it is in itself, is
+attended, very frequently, with serious consequences. Backed by the
+opinions of her husband's friends, the wife returns to the charge with
+redoubled vigour and obstinacy; and if you do not yield, ten to one but
+a _quarrel_ is the result; or, at least, something approaching towards
+it. A gentleman at whose house I was, about five years ago, was about to
+take a farm for his eldest son, who was a very fine young man, about
+eighteen years old. The mother, who was as virtuous and as sensible a
+woman as I have ever known, wished him to be 'in the law.' There were
+six or eight intimate friends present, and all unhesitatingly joined the
+lady, thinking it a pity that HARRY, who had had 'such a good
+education,' should be _buried_ in a farm-house. 'And don't _you_ think
+so too, Mr. Cobbett,' said the lady, with great earnestness. 'Indeed,
+Ma'am,' said I, 'I should think it very great presumption in me to offer
+any opinion at all, and especially in opposition to the known decision
+of the father, who is the best judge, and the only rightful judge, in
+such a case.' This was a very sensible and well-behaved woman, and I
+still respect her very highly; but I could perceive that I instantly
+dropped out of her good graces. Harry, however, I was glad to hear, went
+'to be _buried_ in the farm-house.'
+
+189. 'A house divided against itself,' or, rather, _in_ itself, 'cannot
+stand;' and it _is_ divided against itself if there be a _divided
+authority_. The wife ought to be _heard_, and _patiently_ heard; she
+ought to be reasoned with, and, if possible, convinced; but if, after
+all endeavours in this way, she remain opposed to the husband's opinion,
+his will _must_ be obeyed; or he, at once, becomes nothing; she is, in
+fact, the _master_, and he is nothing but an insignificant inmate. As to
+matters of little comparative moment; as to what shall be for dinner; as
+to how the house shall be furnished; as to the management of the house
+and of menial servants; as to these matters, and many others, the wife
+may have her way without any danger; but when the questions are, what is
+to be the _calling_ to be pursued; what is to be the _place of
+residence_; what is to be the _style_ of living and _scale_ of expence;
+what is to be done with _property_; what the manner and place of
+educating children; what is to be their _calling_ or state of life; who
+are to be employed or entrusted by the husband; what are the principles
+that he is to adopt as to public matters; whom he is to have for
+coadjutors or friends; all these must be left solely to the husband; in
+all these he must have his will; or there never can be any harmony in
+the family.
+
+190. Nevertheless, in some of these concerns, wives should be heard with
+a great deal of attention, especially in the affairs of choosing your
+male acquaintances and friends and associates. Women are more
+quick-sighted than men; they are less disposed to confide in persons
+upon a first acquaintance; they are more suspicious as to motives; they
+are less liable to be deceived by professions and protestations; they
+watch words with a more scrutinizing ear, and looks with a keener eye;
+and, making due allowance for their prejudices in particular cases,
+their opinions and remonstrances, with regard to matters of this sort,
+ought not to be set at naught without great deliberation. LOUVET, one of
+the Brissotins, who fled for their lives in the time of ROBESPIERRE;
+this LOUVET, in his narrative, entitled '_Mes Perils_' and which I read,
+for the first time, to divert my mind from the perils of the
+yellow-fever, in Philadelphia, but with which I was so captivated as to
+have read it many times since; this writer, giving an account of his
+wonderful dangers and escapes, relates, that being on his way to Paris
+from the vicinity of Bordeaux, and having no regular _passport_, fell
+lame, but finally crept on to a miserable pot-house, in a small town in
+the Limosin. The landlord questioned him with regard to who and what he
+was and whence he came and was satisfied with his answers. But the
+landlady, who had looked sharply at him on his arrival, whispered a
+little boy, who ran away, and quickly returned with the mayor of the
+town. LOUVET soon discovered that there was no danger in the mayor, who
+could not decipher his forged passport, and who, being well plied with
+wine, wanted to hear no more of the matter. The landlady, perceiving
+this, slipped out and brought a couple of aldermen, who asked _to see
+the passport_. 'O, yes; but _drink first_.' Then there was a laughing
+story to tell over again, at the request of the half-drunken mayor; then
+a laughing and more drinking; the passport in LOUVET'S hand, but _never
+opened_, and, while another toast was drinking, the passport slid back
+quietly into the pocket; the woman looking furious all the while. At
+last, the mayor, the aldermen, and the landlord, all nearly drunk, shook
+hands with LOUVET, and wished him a good journey, swore he was a _true
+sans culotte_; but, he says, that the 'sharp-sighted woman, who was to
+be deceived by none of his stories or professions, saw him get off with
+deep and manifest disappointment and chagrin.' I have thought of this
+many times since, when I have had occasion to witness the
+quick-sightedness and penetration of women. The same quality that makes
+them, as they notoriously are, more quick in discovering expedients in
+cases of difficulty, makes them more apt to penetrate into motives and
+character.
+
+191. I now come to a matter of the greatest possible importance; namely,
+that great troubler of the married state, that great bane of families,
+JEALOUSY; and I shall first speak of _jealousy_ in the _wife_. This is
+always an unfortunate thing, and sometimes fatal. Yet, if there be a
+great propensity towards it, it is very difficult to be prevented. One
+thing, however, every husband can do in the way of prevention; and that
+is, _to give no ground for it_. And here, it is not sufficient that he
+strictly adhere to his marriage vow; he ought further to abstain from
+every art, however free from guilt, calculated to awaken the slightest
+degree of suspicion in a mind, the peace of which he is bound by every
+tie of justice and humanity not to disturb, or, if he can avoid it, to
+suffer it to be disturbed by others. A woman that is very fond of her
+husband, and this is the case with nine-tenths of English and American
+women, does not like to share with another any, even the smallest
+portion, not only of his affection, but of his assiduities and applause;
+and, as the bestowing of them on another, and receiving payment in kind,
+can serve no purpose other than of gratifying one's _vanity_, they ought
+to be abstained from, and especially if the gratification be to be
+purchased with even the chance of exciting uneasiness in her, whom it is
+your sacred duty to make as happy as you can.
+
+192. For about two or three years after I was married, I, retaining some
+of my military manners, used, both in France and America, to _romp_ most
+famously with the girls that came in my way; till one day, at
+Philadelphia, my wife said to me, in a very gentle manner, 'Don't do
+that: _I do not like it_.' That was quite enough: I had never _thought_
+on the subject before: one hair of her head was more dear to me than all
+the other women in the world, and this I knew that she knew; but I now
+saw that this was not all that she had a right to from me; I saw, that
+she had the further claim upon me that I should abstain from every thing
+that might induce others to believe that there was any other woman for
+whom, even if I were at liberty, I had any affection. I beseech young
+married men to bear this in mind; for, on some trifle of this sort, the
+happiness or misery of a long life frequently turns. If the mind of a
+wife be disturbed on this score, every possible means ought to be used
+to restore it to peace; and though her suspicions be perfectly
+groundless; though they be wild as the dreams of madmen; though they may
+present a mixture of the furious and the ridiculous, still they are to
+be treated with the greatest lenity and tenderness; and if, after all,
+you fail, the frailty is to be lamented as a misfortune, and not
+punished as a fault, seeing that it _must_ have its foundation in a
+feeling towards you, which it would be the basest of ingratitude, and
+the most ferocious of cruelty, to repay by harshness of any description.
+
+193. As to those husbands who make the _unjust_ suspicions of their
+wives a _justification_ for making those suspicions just; as to such as
+can make a sport of such suspicions, rather brag of them than otherwise,
+and endeavour to aggravate rather than assuage them; as to such I have
+nothing to say, they being far without the scope of any advice that I
+can offer. But to such as are not of this description, I have a remark
+or two to offer with respect to measures of _prevention_.
+
+194. And, first, I never could see the _sense_ of its being a piece of
+etiquette, a sort of mark of _good breeding_, to make it a rule that man
+and wife are not to sit side by side in a mixed company; that if a party
+walk out, the wife is to give her arm to some other than her husband;
+that if there be any other hand near, _his_ is not to help to a seat or
+into a carriage. I never could see the _sense_ of this; but I have
+always seen the _nonsense_ of it plainly enough; it is, in short,
+amongst many other foolish and mischievous things that we do in aping
+the manners of those whose riches (frequently ill-gotten) and whose
+power embolden them to set, with impunity, pernicious examples; and to
+their examples this nation owes more of its degradation in morals than
+to any other source. The truth is, that this is a piece _of false
+refinement_: it, being interpreted, means, that so free are the parties
+from a liability to suspicion, so innately virtuous and pure are they,
+that each man can safely trust his wife with another man, and each woman
+her husband with another woman. But this piece of false refinement, like
+all others, overshoots its mark; it says too much; for it says that the
+parties have _lewd thoughts in their minds_. This is not the _fact_,
+with regard to people in general; but it must have been the origin of
+this set of consummately ridiculous and contemptible rules.
+
+195. Now I would advise a young man, especially if he have a pretty
+wife, not to commit her unnecessarily to the care of any other man; not
+to be separated from her in this studious and ceremonious manner; and
+not to be ashamed to prefer her company and conversation to that of any
+other woman. I never could discover any _good-breeding_ in setting
+another man, almost expressly, to poke his nose up in the face of my
+wife, and talk nonsense to her; for, in such cases, nonsense it
+generally is. It is not a thing of much consequence, to be sure; but
+when the wife is young, especially, it is not seemly, at any rate, and
+it cannot possibly lead to any good, though it may not lead to any great
+evil. And, on the other hand, you may be quite sure that, whatever she
+may _seem_ to think of the matter, she will not like _you_ the better
+for your attentions of this sort to other women, especially if they be
+young and handsome: and as this species of fashionable nonsense can do
+you no good, why gratify your love of talk, or the vanity of any woman,
+at even the risk of exciting uneasiness in that mind of which it is your
+most sacred duty to preserve, if you can, the uninterrupted
+tranquillity.
+
+196. The truth is, that the greatest security of all against jealousy in
+a wife is to show, to _prove_, by your _acts_, by your words also, but
+more especially by your _acts_, that you prefer her to all the world;
+and, as I said before, I know of no act that is, in this respect, equal
+to spending in her company every moment of your _leisure_ time. Every
+body knows, and young wives better than any body else, that people, who
+can choose, will be where _they like best to be_, and that they will be
+along with those _whose company they best like_. The matter is very
+plain, then, and I do beseech you to bear it in mind. Nor do I see the
+use, or sense, of keeping a great deal of _company_, as it is called.
+What company can a young man and woman want more than their two selves,
+and their children, if they have any? If here be not company enough, it
+is but a sad affair. The pernicious _cards_ are brought forth by the
+company-keeping, the rival expenses, the sittings up late at night, the
+seeing of '_the ladies home_,' and a thousand squabbles and disagreeable
+consequences. But, the great thing of all is, that this hankering after
+company, proves, clearly proves, that _you want something beyond the
+society of your wife_; and that she is sure to feel most acutely: the
+bare fact contains an imputation against her, and it is pretty sure to
+lay the foundation of jealousy, or of something still worse.
+
+197. If acts of kindness in you are necessary in all cases, they are
+especially so in cases of her _illness_, from whatever cause arising. I
+will not suppose myself to be addressing any husband capable of being
+_unconcerned_ while his wife's life is in the most distant danger from
+illness, though it has been my very great mortification to know in my
+life time, two or three brutes of this description; but, far short of
+this degree of brutality, a great deal of fault may be committed. When
+men are ill, they feel every neglect with double anguish, and, what then
+must be in such cases the feelings of women, whose ordinary feelings are
+so much more acute than those of men; what must be their feelings in
+case of neglect in illness, and especially if the neglect come _from the
+husband_! Your own heart will, I hope, tell you what those feelings must
+be, and will spare me the vain attempt to describe them; and, if it do
+thus instruct you, you will want no arguments from me to induce you, at
+such a season, to prove the sincerity of your affection by every kind
+word and kind act that your mind can suggest. This is the time to try
+you; and, be you assured, that the impression left on her mind now will
+be the true and _lasting_ impression; and, if it be good, will be a
+better preservative against her being jealous, than ten thousand of your
+professions ten thousand times repeated. In such a case, you ought to
+spare no expense that you can possibly afford; you ought to neglect
+nothing that your means will enable you to do; for, what is the use of
+money if it be not to be expended in this case? But, more than all the
+rest, is your own _personal_ attention. This is the valuable thing; this
+is the great balm to the sufferer, and, it is efficacious in proportion
+as it is proved to be sincere. Leave nothing to other hands that you can
+do yourself; the mind has a great deal to do in all the ailments of the
+body, and, bear in mind, that, whatever be the event, you have a more
+than ample reward. I cannot press this point too strongly upon you; the
+bed of sickness presents no charms, no allurements, and women know this
+well; they watch, in such a case, your every word and every look: and
+now it is that their confidence is secured, or their suspicions excited,
+for life.
+
+198. In conclusion of these remarks, as to jealousy in a wife, I cannot
+help expressing my abhorrence of those husbands who treat it as a matter
+for ridicule. To be sure, infidelity in a man is less heinous than
+infidelity in the wife; but still, is the marriage vow nothing? Is a
+promise solemnly made before God, and in the face of the world, nothing?
+Is a violation of a contract, and that, too, with a feebler party,
+nothing of which a man ought to be ashamed? But, besides all these,
+there is the _cruelty_. First, you win, by great pains, perhaps, a
+woman's affections; then, in order to get possession of her person, you
+marry her; then, after enjoyment, you break your vow, you bring upon her
+the mixed pity and jeers of the world, and thus you leave her to weep
+out her life. Murder is more horrible than this, to be sure, and the
+criminal _law_, which punishes divers other crimes, does not reach this;
+but, in the eye of reason and of moral justice, it is surpassed by very
+few of those crimes. _Passion_ may be pleaded, and so it may, for almost
+every other crime of which man can be guilty. It is not a crime _against
+nature_; nor are any of these which men commit in consequence of their
+necessities. _The temptation is great_; and is not the temptation great
+when men thieve or rob? In short, there is no excuse for an act so
+unjust and so cruel, and the world is just as to this matter; for, I
+have always observed, that, however men are disposed to _laugh_ at these
+breaches of vows in men, the act seldom fails to produce injury to the
+whole character; it leaves, after all the joking, a stain, and, amongst
+those who depend on character for a livelihood, it often produces ruin.
+At the very least, it makes an unhappy and wrangling family; it makes
+children despise or hate their fathers, and it affords an example at the
+thought of the ultimate consequences of which a father ought to shudder.
+In such a case, children will take part, and they ought to take part,
+with the mother: she is the injured party; the shame brought upon her
+attaches, in part, to them: they feel the injustice done them; and, if
+such a man, when the grey hairs, and tottering knees, and piping voice
+come, look round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, be just, and
+acknowledge that he has now the due reward of his own wanton cruelty to
+one whom he had solemnly sworn to love and to cherish to the last hour
+of his or her life.
+
+199. But, bad as is conjugal infidelity in the _husband_, it is much
+worse in the _wife_: a proposition that it is necessary to maintain by
+the force of reason, because _the women_, as a sisterhood, are prone to
+deny the truth of it. They say that _adultery_ is _adultery_, in men as
+well as in them; and that, therefore, the offence is _as great_ in the
+one case as in the other. As a crime, abstractedly considered, it
+certainly is; but, as to the _consequences_, there is a wide difference.
+In both cases, there is the breach of a solemn vow, but, there is this
+great distinction, that the husband, by his breach of that vow, only
+brings _shame_ upon his wife and family; whereas the wife, by a breach
+of her vow, may bring the husband a spurious offspring to maintain, and
+may bring that spurious offspring to rob of their fortunes, and in some
+cases of their bread, her legitimate children. So that here is a great
+and evident wrong done to numerous parties, besides the deeper disgrace
+inflicted in this case than in the other.
+
+200. And why is the disgrace _deeper_? Because here is a total want of
+_delicacy_; here is, in fact, _prostitution_; here is grossness and
+filthiness of mind; here is every thing that argues baseness of
+character. Women should be, and they are, except in few instances, far
+more reserved and more delicate than men; nature bids them be such; the
+habits and manners of the world confirm this precept of nature; and
+therefore, when they commit this offence, they excite loathing, as well
+as call for reprobation. In the countries where a _plurality of wives_
+is permitted, there is no _plurality of husbands_. It is there thought
+not at all indelicate for a man to have several wives; but the bare
+thought of a woman having _two husbands_ would excite horror. The
+_widows_ of the Hindoos burn themselves in the pile that consumes their
+husbands; but the Hindoo _widowers_ do not dispose of themselves in this
+way. The widows devote their bodies to complete destruction, lest, even
+after the death of their husbands, they should be tempted to connect
+themselves with other men; and though this is carrying delicacy far
+indeed, it reads to Christian wives a lesson not unworthy of their
+attention; for, though it is not desirable that their bodies should be
+turned into handfuls of ashes, even that transmutation were preferable
+to that infidelity which fixes the brand of shame on the cheeks of their
+parents, their children, and on those of all who ever called them
+friend.
+
+201. For these plain and forcible reasons it is that this species of
+offence is far more heinous in the wife than in the husband; and the
+people of all civilized countries act upon this settled distinction. Men
+who have been guilty of the offence are not cut off from society, but
+women who have been guilty of it are; for, as we all know well, no
+woman, married or single, of _fair reputation_, will risk that
+reputation by being ever seen, if she can avoid it, with a woman who has
+ever, at any time, committed this offence, which contains in itself, and
+by universal award, a sentence of social excommunication for life.
+
+202. If, therefore, it be the duty of the husband to adhere strictly to
+his marriage vow: if his breach of that vow be naturally attended with
+the fatal consequences above described: how much more imperative is the
+duty on the wife to avoid, even the semblance of a deviation from that
+vow! If the man's misconduct, in this respect, bring shame on so many
+innocent parties, what shame, what dishonour, what misery follow such
+misconduct in the wife! Her parents, those of her husband, all her
+relations, and all her friends, share in her dishonour. And _her
+children_! how is she to make atonement to them! They are commanded to
+honour their father and their mother; but not such a mother as this,
+who, on the contrary, has no claim to any thing from them but hatred,
+abhorrence, and execration. It is she who has broken the ties of nature;
+she has dishonoured her own offspring; she has fixed a mark of reproach
+on those who once made a part of her own body; nature shuts her out of
+the pale of its influence, and condemns her to the just detestation of
+those whom it formerly bade love her as their own life.
+
+203. But as the crime is so much more heinous, and the punishment so
+much more severe, in the case of the wife than it is in the case of the
+husband, so the caution ought to be greater in making the accusation, or
+entertaining the suspicion. Men ought to be very slow in entertaining
+such suspicions: they ought to have clear _proof_ before they can
+_suspect_; a proneness to such suspicions is a very unfortunate turn of
+the mind; and, indeed, few characters are more despicable than that of a
+_jealous-headed husband_; rather than be tied to the whims of one of
+whom, an innocent woman of spirit would earn her bread over the
+washing-tub, or with a hay-fork, or a reap-hook. With such a man there
+can be no peace; and, as far as children are concerned, the false
+accusation is nearly equal to the reality. When a wife discovers her
+jealousy, she merely imputes to her husband inconstancy and breach of
+his marriage vow; but jealousy in him imputes to her a willingness to
+palm a spurious offspring upon him, and upon her legitimate children, as
+robbers of their birthright; and, besides this, grossness, filthiness,
+and prostitution. She imputes to him injustice and cruelty: but he
+imputes to her that which banishes her from society; that which cuts her
+off for life from every thing connected with female purity; that which
+brands her with infamy to her latest breath.
+
+204. Very slow, therefore, ought a husband to be in entertaining even
+the thought of this crime in his wife. He ought to be _quite sure_
+before he take the smallest step in the way of accusation; but if
+unhappily he have the proof, no consideration on earth ought to induce
+him to cohabit with her one moment longer. Jealous husbands are not
+despicable because they have _grounds_; but because they _have not
+grounds_; and this is generally the case. When they have grounds, their
+own honour commands them to cast off the object, as they would cut out a
+corn or a cancer. It is not the jealousy in itself, which is despicable;
+but the _continuing to live in that state_. It is no dishonour to be a
+slave in Algiers, for instance; the dishonour begins only where you
+remain a slave _voluntarily_; it begins the moment you can escape from
+slavery, and do not. It is despicable unjustly to be jealous of your
+wife; but it is infamy to cohabit with her if you _know_ her to be
+guilty.
+
+205. I shall be told that the _law_ compels you to live with her, unless
+you be _rich_ enough to disengage yourself from her; but the law does
+not compel you to remain _in the same country with her_; and, if a man
+have no other means of ridding himself of such a curse, what are
+mountains or seas or traverse? And what is the risk (if such there be)
+of exchanging a life of bodily ease for a life of labour? What are
+these, and numerous other ills (if they happen) superadded? Nay, what is
+death itself, compared with the baseness, the infamy, the never-ceasing
+shame and reproach of living under the same roof with a prostituted
+woman, and calling her your _wife_? But, there are _children_, and what
+are to become of these? To be taken away from the prostitute, to be
+sure; and this is a duty which you owe to them: the sooner they forget
+her the better, and the farther they are from her, the sooner that will
+be. There is no excuse for continuing to live with an adultress; no
+inconvenience, no loss, no suffering, ought to deter a man from
+delivering himself from such a state of filthy infamy; and to suffer his
+children to remain in such a state, is a crime that hardly admits of
+adequate description; a jail is paradise compared with such a life, and
+he who can endure this latter, from the fear of encountering hardship,
+is a wretch too despicable to go by the name of man.
+
+206. But, now, all this supposes, that the husband has _well and truly
+acted his part_! It supposes, not only that he has been faithful; but,
+that he has not, in any way, been the cause of temptation to the wife to
+be unfaithful. If he have been cold and neglectful; if he have led a
+life of irregularity; if he have proved to her that _home_ was not his
+delight; if he have made his house the place of resort for loose
+companions; if he have given rise to a taste for visiting, junketting,
+parties of pleasure and gaiety; if he have introduced the habit of
+indulging in what are called '_innocent freedoms_;' if these, or any of
+these, _the fault is his_, he must take the consequences, and he has _no
+right_ to inflict punishment on the offender, the offence being in fact
+of his own creating. The laws of God, as well as the laws of man, have
+given him all power in this respect: it is for him to use that power for
+the honour of his wife as well as for that of himself: if he neglect to
+use it, all the consequences ought to fall on him; and, as far as my
+observation has gone, in nineteen out of twenty cases of infidelity in
+wives, the crimes have been _fairly ascribable to the husbands_. Folly
+or misconduct in the husband, cannot, indeed, justify or even palliate
+infidelity in the wife, whose very nature ought to make her recoil at
+the thought of the offence; but it may, at the same time, deprive him of
+the right of inflicting punishment on her: her kindred, her children,
+and the world, will justly hold her in abhorrence; but the husband must
+hold his peace.
+
+207. '_Innocent freedoms!_' I know of none that a wife can indulge in.
+The words, as applied to the demeanour of a married woman, or even a
+single one, imply a contradiction. For _freedom_, thus used, means an
+exemption or departure from the _strict rules of female reserve_; and, I
+do not see how this can be _innocent_. It may not amount to _crime_,
+indeed; but, still it is not _innocent_; and the use of the phrase is
+dangerous. If it had been my fortune to be yoked to a person, who liked
+'innocent freedoms,' I should have unyoked myself in a very short time.
+But, to say the truth, it is all a man's own fault. If he have not sense
+and influence enough to prevent 'innocent freedoms,' even _before_
+marriage, he will do well to let the thing alone, and leave wives to be
+managed by those who have. But, men will talk to your wife, and natter
+her. To be sure they will, if she be young and pretty; and would you go
+and pull her away from them? O no, by no means; but you must have very
+little sense, or must have made very little use of it, if her manner do
+not soon convince them that they employ their flattery in vain.
+
+208. So much of a man's happiness and of his _efficiency_ through life
+depends upon his mind being quite free from all anxieties of this sort,
+that too much care cannot be taken to guard against them; and, I repeat,
+that the great preservation of all is, the young couple living as much
+as possible _at home_, and having as few visitors as possible. If they
+do not prefer the company of each other to that of all the world
+besides; if either of them be weary of the company of the other; if they
+do not, when separated by business or any other cause, think with
+pleasure of the time of meeting again, it is a bad omen. Pursue this
+course when young, and the very thought of jealousy will never come into
+your mind; and, if you do pursue it, and show by your _deeds_ that you
+value your wife as you do your own life, you must be pretty nearly an
+idiot, if she do not think you to be the wisest man in the world. The
+_best_ man she will be sure to think you, and she will never forgive any
+one that calls your talents or your wisdom in question.
+
+209. Now, will you say that, if to be happy, nay, if to avoid misery and
+ruin in the married state, requires all these precautions, all these
+cares, to fail to any extent in any of which is to bring down on a man's
+head such fearful consequences; will you say that, if this be the case,
+_it is better to remain single_? If you should say this, it is my
+business to show that you are in error. For, in the first place, it is
+against nature to suppose that children can cease to be born; they must
+and will come; and then it follows, that they must come by promiscuous
+intercourse, or by particular connexion. The former nobody will contend
+for, seeing that it would put us, in this respect, on a level with the
+brute creation. Then, as the connexion is to be _particular_, it must be
+_during pleasure_, or for the _joint lives of the parties_. The former
+would seldom hold for any length of time: the tie would seldom be
+durable, and it would be feeble on account of its uncertain duration.
+Therefore, to be a _father_, with all the lasting and delightful ties
+attached to the name, you must first be a husband; and there are very
+few men in the world who do not, first or last, desire to be _fathers_.
+If it be said, that marriage ought not to be for life, but that its
+duration ought to be subject to the will, the _mutual will_ at least, of
+the parties; the answer is, that it would seldom be of long duration.
+Every trifling dispute would lead to a separation; a hasty word would be
+enough. Knowing that the engagement is for life, prevents disputes too;
+it checks anger in its beginnings. Put a rigging horse into a field with
+a weak fence, and with captivating pasture on the other side, and he is
+continually trying to get out; but, let the field be walled round, he
+makes the best of his hard fare, and divides his time between grazing
+and sleeping. Besides, there could be no _families_, no assemblages of
+persons worthy of that name; all would be confusion and indescribable
+intermixture: the names of _brother_ and _sister_ would hardly have a
+meaning; and, therefore, there must be marriage, or there can be nothing
+worthy of the name of family or of father.
+
+210. The _cares_ and _troubles_ of the married life are many; but, are
+those of the single life few? Take the _farmer_, and it is nearly the
+same with the tradesman; but, take the farmer, for instance, and let
+him, at the age of twenty-five, go into business unmarried. See his maid
+servants, probably rivals for his smiles, but certainly rivals in the
+charitable distribution of his victuals and drink amongst those of their
+own rank: behold _their_ guardianship of his pork-tub, his bacon rack,
+his butter, cheese, milk, poultry, eggs, and all the rest of it: look at
+_their_ care of all his household stuff, his blankets, sheets,
+pillow-cases, towels, knives and forks, and particularly of his
+_crockery ware_, of which last they will hardly exceed a single
+cart-load of broken bits in the year. And, how nicely they will get up
+and take care of his linen and other wearing apparel, and always have it
+ready for him without his thinking about it! If absent at market, or
+especially at a distant fair, how scrupulously they will keep all their
+cronies out of his house, and what special care they will take of his
+_cellar_, more particularly that which holds the strong beer! And his
+groceries and his spirits and his _wine_ (for a bachelor can _afford_
+it), how safe these will all be! Bachelors have not, indeed, any more
+than married men, a security for _health_; but if our young farmer be
+sick, there are his couple of maids to take care of him, to administer
+his medicine, and to perform for him all other nameless offices, which
+in such a case are required; and what is more, take care of every thing
+down stairs at the same time, especially his desk with the money in it!
+Never will they, good-humoured girls as they are, scold him for coming
+home too late; but, on the contrary, like him the better for it; and if
+he have drunk a little too much, so much the better, for then he will
+sleep late in the morning, and when he comes out at last, he will find
+that his men have been _so hard_ at work, and that all his animals have
+been taken such good care of!
+
+211. Nonsense! a bare glance at the thing shows, that a farmer, above
+all men living, can never carry on his affairs with profit without a
+wife, or a mother, or a daughter, or some such person; and _mother_ and
+_daughter_ imply matrimony. To be sure, a wife would cause some
+_trouble_, perhaps, to this young man. There might be the midwife and
+nurse to gallop after at midnight; there might be, and there ought to
+be, if called for, a little complaining of late hours; but, good God!
+what are these, and all the other _troubles_ that could attend a married
+life; what are they, compared to the one single circumstance of the want
+of a wife at your bedside during one single night of illness! A nurse!
+what is a nurse to do for you? Will she do the things that a wife will
+do? Will she watch your looks and your half-uttered wishes? Will she use
+the urgent persuasions so often necessary to save life in such cases?
+Will she, by her acts, convince you that it is not a toil, but a
+delight, to break her rest for your sake? In short, now it is that you
+find that what the women themselves say is strictly true, namely, that
+without wives, _men are poor helpless mortals_.
+
+212. As to the _expense_, there is no comparison between that of a woman
+servant and a wife, in the house of a farmer or a tradesman. The wages
+of the former is not the expense; it is the want of a _common interest_
+with you, and this you can obtain in no one but a wife. But there are
+_the children_. I, for my part, firmly believe that a farmer, married at
+twenty-five, and having ten children during the first ten years, would
+be able to save more money during these years, than a bachelor, of the
+same age, would be able to save, on the same farm, in a like space of
+time, he keeping only one maid servant. One single fit of illness, of
+two months' duration, might sweep away more than all the children would
+cost in the whole ten years, to say nothing of the continual waste and
+pillage, and the idleness, going on from the first day of the ten years
+to the last.
+
+213. Besides, is the money _all_? What a life to lead!! No one to talk
+to without going from home, or without getting some one to come to you;
+no friend to sit and talk to: pleasant evenings to pass! Nobody to share
+with you your sorrows or your pleasures: no soul having a common
+interest with you: all around you taking care of themselves, and no care
+of you: no one to cheer you in moments of depression: to say all in a
+word, no one to _love_ you, and no prospect of ever seeing any such one
+to the end of your days. For, as to parents and brethren, if you have
+them, they have other and very different ties; and, however laudable
+your feelings as son and brother, those feelings are of a different
+character. Then as to gratifications, from which you will hardly abstain
+altogether, are they generally of little expense? and are they attended
+with no trouble, no vexation, no disappointment, no _jealousy_ even, and
+are they never followed by shame or remorse?
+
+214. It does very well in bantering songs, to say that the bachelor's
+life is '_devoid of care_.' My observation tells me the contrary, and
+reason concurs, in this regard, with experience. The bachelor has no one
+on whom he can in all cases rely. When he quits his home, he carries
+with him cares that are unknown to the married man. If, indeed, like the
+common soldier, he have merely a lodging-place, and a bundle of clothes,
+given in charge to some one, he may be at his ease; but if he possess
+any thing of a home, he is never sure of its safety; and this
+uncertainty is a great enemy to cheerfulness. And as to _efficiency_ in
+life, how is the bachelor to equal the married man? In the case of
+farmers and tradesmen, the latter have so clearly the advantage over the
+former, that one need hardly insist upon the point; but it is, and must
+be, the same in all the situations of life. To provide for a wife and
+children is the greatest of all possible spurs to exertion. Many a man,
+naturally prone to idleness, has become active and industrious when he
+saw children growing up about him; many a dull sluggard has become, if
+not a bright man, at least a bustling man, when roused to exertion by
+his love. Dryden's account of the change wrought in CYMON, is only a
+strong case of the kind. And, indeed, if a man will not exert himself
+for the sake of a wife and children, he can have no exertion in him; or
+he must be deaf to all the dictates of nature.
+
+215. Perhaps the world never exhibited a more striking proof of the
+truth of this doctrine than that which is exhibited in me; and I am sure
+that every one will say, without any hesitation, that a fourth part of
+the labours I have performed, never would have been performed, _if I had
+not been a married man_. In the first place, they could not; for I
+should, all the early part of my life, have been rambling and roving
+about as most bachelors are. I should have had _no home_ that I cared a
+straw about, and should have wasted the far greater part of my time. The
+great affair of home being _settled_, having the home secured, I had
+leisure to employ my mind on things which it delighted in. I got rid at
+once of all cares, all _anxieties_, and had only to provide for the very
+moderate wants of that home. But the children began to come. They
+sharpened my industry: they spurred me on. To be sure, I had other and
+strong motives: I wrote for fame, and was urged forward by
+ill-treatment, and by the desire to triumph over my enemies; but, after
+all, a very large part of my _nearly a hundred volumes_ may be fairly
+ascribed to the wife and children.
+
+216. I might have done _something_; but, perhaps, not a _thousandth_
+part of what I have done; not even a thousandth part: for the chances
+are, that I, being fond of a military life, should have ended my days
+ten or twenty years ago, in consequence of wounds, or fatigue, or, more
+likely, in consequence of the persecutions of some haughty and insolent
+fool, whom nature had formed to black my shoes, and whom a system of
+corruption had made my commander. _Love_ came and rescued me from this
+state of horrible slavery; placed the whole of my time at my own
+disposal; made me as free as air; removed every restraint upon the
+operations of my mind, naturally disposed to communicate its thoughts to
+others; and gave me, for my leisure hours, a companion, who, though
+deprived of all opportunity of acquiring what is _called learning_, had
+so much good sense, so much useful knowledge, was so innocent, so just
+in all her ways, so pure in thought, word and deed, so disinterested, so
+generous, so devoted to me and her children, so free from all disguise,
+and, withal, so beautiful and so talkative, and in a voice so sweet, so
+cheering, that I must, seeing the health and the capacity which it had
+pleased God to give me, have been a _criminal_, if I had done much less
+than that which I have done; and I have always said, that, if my country
+feel any gratitude for my labours, that gratitude is due to her full as
+much as to me.
+
+217. _'Care'!_ What _care_ have I known! I have been buffeted about by
+this powerful and vindictive Government; I have repeatedly had the fruit
+of my labour snatched away from me by it; but I had a partner that never
+frowned, that was never melancholy, that never was subdued in spirit,
+that never abated a smile, on these occasions, that fortified me, and
+sustained me by her courageous example, and that was just as busy and as
+zealous in taking care of the remnant as she had been in taking care of
+the whole; just as cheerful, and just as full of caresses, when brought
+down to a mean hired lodging, as when the mistress of a fine country
+house, with all its accompaniments; and, whether from her words or her
+looks, no one could gather that she regretted the change. What '_cares_'
+have I had, then? What have I had worthy of the name of '_cares_'?
+
+218. And, how is it _now_? How is it when the _sixty-fourth year_ has
+come? And how should I have been without this wife and these children? I
+_might_ have amassed a tolerable heap of _money_; but what would that
+have done for me? It might have _bought_ me plenty of _professions_ of
+attachment; plenty of persons impatient for my exit from the world; but
+not one single grain of sorrow, for any anguish that might have attended
+my approaching end. To me, no being in this world appears so wretched as
+an _Old Bachelor_. Those circumstances, those changes in his person and
+in his mind, which, in the husband, increase rather than diminish the
+attentions to him, produce all the want of feeling attendant on disgust;
+and he beholds, in the conduct of the mercenary crew that generally
+surround him, little besides an eager desire to profit from that event,
+the approach of which, nature makes a subject of sorrow with him.
+
+219. Before I quit this part of my work, I cannot refrain from offering
+my opinion with regard to what is due from husband to wife, when the
+_disposal of his property_ comes to be thought of. When marriage is an
+affair settled by deeds, contracts, and lawyers, the husband, being
+bound beforehand, has really no _will_ to make. But where he has _a
+will_ to make, and a faithful wife to leave behind him, it is his first
+duty to provide for her future well-being, to the utmost of his power.
+If she brought him _no money_, she brought him _her person_; and by
+delivering that up to him, she established a claim to his careful
+protection of her to the end of her life. Some men think, or act as if
+they thought, that, if a wife bring no money, and if the husband gain
+money by his business or profession, that money is _his_, and not hers,
+because she has not been doing any of those things for which the money
+has been received. But is this way of thinking _just_? By the marriage
+vow, the husband endows the wife _with all his worldly goods_; and not a
+bit too much is this, when she is giving him the command and possession
+of her person. But does she _not help to acquire the money_? Speaking,
+for instance, of the farmer or the merchant, the wife does not, indeed,
+go to plough, or to look after the ploughing and sowing; she does not
+purchase or sell the stock; she does not go to the fair or the market;
+but she enables him to do all these without injury to his affairs at
+home; she is the guardian of his property; she preserves what would
+otherwise be lost to him. The barn and the granary, though they _create_
+nothing, have, in the bringing of food to our mouths, as much merit as
+the fields themselves. The wife does not, indeed, assist in the
+merchant's counting-house; she does not go upon the exchange; she does
+not even know what he is doing; but she keeps his house in order; she
+rears up his children; she provides a scene of suitable resort for his
+friends; she insures him a constant retreat from the fatigues of his
+affairs; she makes his home pleasant, and she is the guardian of his
+income.
+
+220. In both these cases, the wife _helps to gain the money_; and in
+cases where there is no gain, where the income is by descent, or is
+fixed, she helps to prevent it from being squandered away. It is,
+therefore, as much _hers_ as it is the husband's; and though _the law_
+gives him, in many cases, the power of keeping her share from her, no
+just man will ever avail himself of that power. With regard to the
+_tying up_ of widows from marrying again, I will relate what took place
+in a case of this kind, in America. A merchant, who had, during his
+married state, risen from poverty to very great riches, and who had,
+nevertheless, died at about forty years of age, left the whole of his
+property to his wife for her life, and at her disposal at her death,
+_provided that she did not marry_. The consequence was, that she took a
+husband _without marrying_, and, at her death (she having no children),
+gave the whole of the property to the second husband! So much for
+_posthumous jealousy_!
+
+221. Where there are _children_, indeed, it is the duty of the husband
+to provide, in certain cases, against _step-fathers_, who are very prone
+not to be the most just and affectionate parents. It is an unhappy
+circumstance, when a dying father is compelled to have fears of this
+sort. There is seldom _an apology_ to be offered for a mother that will
+hazard the happiness of her children by a second marriage. The _law_
+allows it, to be sure; but there is, as Prior says, 'something beyond
+the letter of the law.' I know what ticklish ground I am treading on
+here; but, though it is _as lawful_ for a woman to take a second husband
+as for a man to take a second wife, the cases are different, and widely
+different, in the eye of morality and of reason; for, as adultery in the
+wife is a greater offence than adultery in the husband; as it is more
+gross, as it includes _prostitution_; so a second marriage in the woman
+is more gross than in the man, argues great deficiency in that
+_delicacy_, that _innate_ modesty, which, after all, is the _great
+charm_, the charm of charms, in the female sex. I do not _like_ to hear
+a man _talk_ of his _first wife_, especially in the presence of a
+second; but to hear a woman thus _talk_ of her _first husband_, has
+never, however beautiful and good she might be, failed to sink her in my
+estimation. I have, in such cases, never been able to keep out of my
+mind that _concatenation of ideas_, which, in spite of custom, in spite
+of the frequency of the occurrence, leave an impression deeply
+disadvantageous to the party; for, after the greatest of ingenuity has
+exhausted itself in the way of apology, it comes to this at last, that
+the person has _a second time_ undergone that surrender, to which
+nothing but the most ardent affection, could ever reconcile a chaste and
+delicate woman.
+
+222. The usual apologies, that 'a _lone woman_ wants a _protector_; that
+she cannot _manage her estate_; that she cannot _carry on her business_;
+that she wants a _home for her children_'; all these apologies are not
+worth a straw; for what is the amount of them? Why, that she _surrenders
+her person_ to secure these ends! And if we admit the validity of such
+apologies, are we far from apologising for the kept-mistress, and even
+the prostitute? Nay, the former of these _may_ (if she confine herself
+to _one man_) plead more boldly in her defence; and even the latter may
+plead that hunger, which knows no law, and no decorum, and no delicacy.
+These unhappy, but justly-reprobated and despised parties, are allowed
+no apology at all: though reduced to the begging of their bread, the
+world grants them no excuse. The sentence on them is: 'You shall suffer
+every hardship; you shall submit to hunger and nakedness; you shall
+perish by the way-side, rather than you shall _surrender your person_ to
+the _dishonour of the female sex_.' But can we, without crying
+injustice, pass this sentence upon them, and, at the same time hold it
+to be proper, decorous, and delicate, that widows shall _surrender their
+persons_ for _worldly gain_, for the sake of _ease_, or for any
+consideration whatsoever?
+
+223. It is disagreeable to contemplate the possibility of cases of
+_separation_; but amongst the evils of life, such have occurred, and
+will occur; and the injured parties, while they are sure to meet with
+the pity of all just persons, must console themselves that they have not
+merited their fate. In the making one's choice, no human foresight or
+prudence can, in all cases, guard against an unhappy result. There is
+one species of husbands to be occasionally met with in all countries,
+meriting particular reprobation, and causing us to lament, that there is
+no law to punish offenders so enormous. There was a man in Pennsylvania,
+apparently a very amiable young man, having a good estate of his own,
+and marrying a most beautiful woman of his own age, of rich parents, and
+of virtue perfectly spotless. He very soon took to both _gaming_ and
+_drinking_ (the last being the most fashionable vice of the country); he
+neglected his affairs and his family; in about four years spent his
+estate, and became a dependent on his wife's father, together with his
+wife and three children. Even this would have been of little
+consequence, as far as related to expense; but he led the most
+scandalous life, and was incessant in his demands of money for the
+purposes of that infamous life. All sorts of means were resorted to to
+reclaim him, and all in vain; and the wretch, availing himself of the
+pleading of his wife's affection, and of his _power over the children_
+more especially, continued for ten or twelve years to plunder the
+parents, and to disgrace those whom it was his bounden duty to assist in
+making happy. At last, going out in the dark, in a boat, and being
+partly drunk, he went to the bottom of the Delaware, and became food for
+otters or fishes, to the great joy of all who knew him, excepting only
+his amiable wife. I can form an idea of no baseness equal to this. There
+is more of _baseness_ in this character than in that of the robber. The
+man who obtains the means of indulging in vice, by robbery, exposes
+himself to the inflictions of the law; but though he merits punishment,
+he merits it less than the base miscreant who obtains his means by his
+_threats to disgrace his own wife, children_, and _the wife's parents_.
+The short way in such a case, is the best; set the wretch at _defiance_;
+resort to the strong arm of the law wherever it will avail you; drive
+him from your house like a mad dog; for, be assured, that a being so
+base and cruel is never to be reclaimed: all your efforts at persuasion
+are useless; his promises and vows are made but to be broken; all your
+endeavours to keep the thing from the knowledge of the world, only
+prolong his plundering of you; and many a tender father and mother have
+been ruined by such endeavours; the whole story _must come out at last_,
+and it is better to come out before you be ruined, than after your ruin
+is completed.
+
+224. However, let me hope, that those who read this work will always be
+secure against evils like these; let me hope, that the young men who
+read it will abstain from those vices which lead to such fatal results;
+that they will, before they utter the marriage vow, duly reflect on the
+great duties that that vow imposes on them; that they will repel, from
+the outset, every temptation to any thing tending to give pain to the
+defenceless persons whose love for them have placed them at their mercy;
+and that they will imprint on their own minds this truth, that a _bad
+husband_ was never yet _a happy man_.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V
+
+TO A FATHER
+
+225. 'Little children,' says the Scripture, 'are like arrows in the
+hands of the giant, and blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of
+them'; a beautiful figure to describe, in forcible terms, the support,
+the power, which a father derives from being surrounded by a family. And
+what father, thus blessed, is there who does not feel, in this sort of
+support, a _reliance_ which he feels in no other? In regard to this sort
+of support there is no uncertainty, no doubts, no misgivings; it is
+_yourself_ that you see in your children: their bosoms are the safe
+repository of even the whispers of your mind: they are the great and
+unspeakable delight of your youth, the pride of your prime of life, and
+the props of your old age. They proceed from that love, the pleasures of
+which no tongue or pen can adequately describe, and the various
+blessings which they bring are equally incapable of description.
+
+226. But, to make them blessings, you must act your part well; for they
+may, by your neglect, your ill-treatment, your evil example, be made to
+be the _contrary of blessings_; instead of pleasure, they may bring you
+pain; instead of making your heart glad, the sight of them may make it
+sorrowful; instead of being the staff of your old age, they may bring
+your gray hairs in grief to the grave.
+
+227. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance, that you here act
+well your part, omitting nothing, even from the very beginning, tending
+to give you great and unceasing influence over their minds; and, above
+all things, to ensure, if possible, _an ardent love of their mother_.
+Your first duty towards them is resolutely to prevent their drawing the
+means of life _from any breast but hers_. That is their _own_; it is
+their _birthright_; and if that fail from any natural cause, the place
+of it ought to be supplied by those means which are frequently resorted
+to without employing a _hireling breast_. I am aware of the too frequent
+practice of the contrary; I am well aware of the offence which I shall
+here give to many; but it is for me to do my duty, and to set, with
+regard to myself, consequences at defiance.
+
+228. In the first place, no food is so congenial to the child as the
+milk of its own mother; its quality is made by nature to suit the age of
+the child; it comes with the child, and is calculated precisely for its
+stomach. And, then, what sort of a mother must that be who can endure
+the thought of seeing her child at another breast! The suckling may be
+attended with great pain, and it is so attended in many cases; but this
+pain is a necessary consequence of pleasures foregone; and, besides, it
+has its accompanying pleasures too. No mother ever suffered more than my
+wife did from suckling her children. How many times have I seen her,
+when the child was beginning to draw, bite her lips while the tears ran
+down her cheeks! Yet, having endured this, the smiles came and dried up
+the tears; and the little thing that had caused the pain received
+abundant kisses as its punishment.
+
+229. Why, now, did I not love her _the more_ for this? Did not this tend
+to rivet her to my heart? She was enduring this _for me_; and would not
+this endearing thought have been wanting, if I had seen the baby at a
+breast that I had hired and _paid for_; if I had had _two women_, one to
+bear the child and another to give it milk? Of all the sights that this
+world affords, the most delightful in my eyes, even to an unconcerned
+spectator, is, a mother with her clean and fat baby lugging at her
+breast, leaving off now-and-then and smiling, and she, occasionally,
+half smothering it with kisses. What must that sight be, then, to the
+_father_ of the child?
+
+230. Besides, are we to overlook the great and wonderful effect that
+this has on the minds of children? As they succeed each other, they see
+with their own eyes, the pain, the care, the caresses, which their
+mother has endured for, or bestowed, on them; and nature bids them love
+her accordingly. To love her ardently becomes part of their very nature;
+and when the time comes that her advice to them is necessary as a guide
+for their conduct, this deep and early impression has all its natural
+weight, which must be wholly wanting if the child be banished to a
+hireling breast, and only brought at times into the presence of the
+mother, who is, in fact, no mother, or, at least, but half a one. The
+children who are thus banished, love (as is natural and just) the
+foster-mother better than the real mother as long as they are at the
+breast. When this ceases, they are _taught_ to love their own mother
+most; but this _teaching_ is of a cold and formal kind. They may, and
+generally do, in a short time, care little about the foster-mother; the
+_teaching_ weans all their affection from her, but it does not
+_transfer_ it to the other.
+
+231. I had the pleasure to know, in Hampshire, a lady who had brought up
+a family of ten children _by hand_, as they call it. Owing to some
+defect, she could not suckle her children; but she wisely and heroically
+resolved, that her children should hang upon no _other breast_, and that
+she would not participate in the crime of robbing another child of its
+birthright, and, as is mostly the case, of _its life_. Who has not seen
+these banished children, when brought and put into the arms of their
+mothers, screaming to get from them, and stretch out their little hands
+to get back into the arms of the nurse, and when safely got there,
+hugging the hireling as if her bosom were a place of _refuge_? Why, such
+a sight is, one would think, enough to strike a mother dead. And what
+sort of a husband and father, I want to know, must that be, who can
+endure the thought of his child loving another woman more than its own
+mother and his wife?
+
+232. And besides all these considerations, is there no crime in robbing
+the child of the nurse, and in exposing it to perish? It will not do to
+say that the child of the nurse may be dead, and thereby leave her
+breast for the use of some other. Such cases must happen too seldom to
+be at all relied on; and, indeed, every one must see, that, generally
+speaking, there must be a child _cast off_ for every one that is put to
+a hireling breast. Now, without supposing it possible, that the hireling
+will, in any case, contrive to _get rid_ of her own child, every man who
+employs such hireling, must know, that he is exposing such child to
+destruction; that he is assisting to rob it of the means of life; and,
+of course, assisting to procure its death, as completely as a man can,
+in any case, assist in causing death by starvation; a consideration
+which will make every just man in the world recoil at the thought of
+employing a hireling breast. For he is not to think of pacifying his
+conscience by saying, that _he_ knows nothing about the hireling's
+child. He does know; for he must know, that she _has_ a child, and that
+he is a principal in robbing it of the means of life. He does not cast
+it off and leave it to perish himself, but he causes the thing to be
+done; and to all intents and purposes, he is a principal in the cruel
+and cowardly crime.
+
+233. And if an argument could possibly be yet wanting to the husband; if
+his feelings were so stiff as still to remain unmoved, must not the wife
+be aware that whatever _face_ the world may put upon it, however custom
+may seem to bear her out; must she not be aware that every one must see
+the main _motive_ which induces her to banish from her arms that which
+has formed part of her own body? All the pretences about her sore
+breasts and her want of strength are vain: nature says that she is to
+endure the pains as well as the pleasures: whoever has heard the
+bleating of the ewe for her lamb, and has seen her _reconciled_, or at
+least pacified, by having presented to her the skin or some of the blood
+of her _dead_ lamb: whoever has witnessed the difficulty of inducing
+either ewe or cow to give her milk to an alien young one: whoever has
+seen the valour of the timid hen in defending her brood, and has
+observed that she never swallows a morsel that is fit for her young,
+until they be amply satisfied: whoever has seen the wild birds, though,
+at other times, shunning even the distant approach of man, flying and
+screaming round his head, and exposing themselves to almost certain
+death in defence of their nests: whoever has seen these things, or any
+one of them, must question the _motive_ that can induce a mother to
+banish a child from her own breast to that of one who has already been
+so unnatural as to banish hers. And, in seeking for a motive
+_sufficiently powerful_ to lead to such an act, women must excuse men,
+if they be not satisfied with the ordinary pretences; they must excuse
+_me_, at any rate, if I do not stop even at love of ease and want of
+maternal affection, and if I express my fear, that, superadded to the
+unjustifiable motives, there is one which is calculated to excite
+disgust; namely, a desire to be quickly freed from that restraint which
+the child imposes, and to _hasten back_, unbridled and undisfigured, to
+those enjoyments, to have an eagerness for which, or to wish to excite a
+desire for which, a really delicate woman will shudder at the thought of
+being suspected.
+
+234. I am well aware of the hostility that I have here been exciting;
+but there is another, and still more furious, bull to take by the horns,
+and which would have been encountered some pages back (that being the
+proper place), had I not hesitated between my duty and my desire to
+avoid giving offence; I mean the employing of _male-operators_, on those
+occasions where females used to be employed. And here I have _every
+thing_ against me; the now general custom, even amongst the most chaste
+and delicate women; the ridicule continually cast on old midwives; the
+interest of a profession, for the members of which I entertain more
+respect and regard than for those of any other; and, above all the rest,
+_my own example to the contrary_, and my knowledge that every husband
+has the same apology that I had. But because I acted wrong myself, it is
+not less, but rather more, my duty to endeavour to dissuade others from
+doing the same. My wife had suffered very severely with her second
+child, which, at last, was still-born. The next time I pleaded for _the
+doctor_; and, after every argument that I could think of, obtained a
+reluctant consent. Her _life_ was so dear to me, that every thing else
+appeared as nothing. Every husband has the same apology to make; and
+thus, from the good, and not from the bad, feelings of men, the practice
+has become far too general, for me to hope even to narrow it; but,
+nevertheless, I cannot refrain from giving my opinion on the subject.
+
+235. We are apt to talk in a very unceremonious style of our _rude_
+ancestors, of their _gross_ habits, their _want of delicacy_ in their
+language. No man shall ever make me believe, that those, who reared the
+cathedral of ELY (which I saw the other day), were _rude_, either in
+their manners or in their minds and words. No man shall make me believe,
+that our ancestors were a rude and beggarly race, when I read in an act
+of parliament, passed in the reign of Edward the Fourth, regulating the
+dresses of the different ranks of the people, and forbidding the
+LABOURERS to wear coats of cloth that cost _more_ than _two shillings a
+yard_ (equal to _forty shillings_ of our present money), and forbidding
+their wives and daughters to wear sashes, or girdles, _trimmed with gold
+or silver_. No man shall make me believe that this was a _rude_ and
+beggarly race, compared with those who now shirk and shiver about in
+canvass frocks and rotten cottons. Nor shall any man persuade me that
+that was a _rude_ and beggarly state of things, in which (reign of
+Edward the Third) an act was passed regulating the wages of labour, and
+ordering that a woman, for _weeding in the corn_, should receive a penny
+a day, while a _quart of red wine_ was sold for _a penny_, and a pair of
+men's shoes for _two-pence_. No man shall make me believe that
+_agriculture_ was in a _rude_ state, when an act like this was passed,
+or that our ancestors of that day were _rude_ in their minds, or in
+their thoughts. Indeed, there are a thousand proofs, that, whether in
+regard to domestic or foreign affairs, whether in regard to internal
+freedom and happiness, or to weight in the world, England was at her
+zenith about the reign of Edward the Third. The _Reformation_, as it is
+called, gave her a complete pull down. She revived again in the reigns
+of the Stuarts, as far as related to internal affairs; but the
+'_Glorious Revolution_' and its debt and its taxes, have, amidst the
+false glare of new palaces, roads, and canals, brought her down until
+she is become the land of domestic misery and of foreign impotence and
+contempt; and, until she, amidst all her boasted improvements and
+refinements, tremblingly awaits her fall.
+
+236. However, to return from this digression, _rude_ and _unrefined_ as
+our mothers might be, plain and unvarnished as they might be in their
+language, accustomed as they might be to call things by their names,
+though they were not so _very delicate_ as to use the word
+_small-clothes_; and to be quite unable, in speaking of horn-cattle,
+horses, sheep, the canine race, and poultry, to designate them by their
+sexual appellations; though they might not absolutely faint at hearing
+these appellations used by others; _rude_ and _unrefined_ and
+_indelicate_ as they might be, they did not suffer, in the cases alluded
+to, the approaches of _men_, which approaches are unceremoniously
+suffered, and even sought, by their polished and refined and delicate
+daughters; and of unmarried men too, in many cases; and of very young
+men.
+
+237. From all antiquity this office was allotted to _woman_. Moses's
+life was saved by the humanity of the Egyptian _midwife_; and to the
+employment of females in this memorable case, the world is probably
+indebted for that which has been left it by that greatest of all
+law-givers, whose institutes, _rude_ as they were, have been the
+foundation of all the wisest and most just laws in all the countries of
+Europe and America. It was the _fellow feeling_ of the midwife for the
+poor mother that saved Moses. And none but a _mother_ can, in such
+cases, feel to the full and effectual extent that which the operator
+ought to feel. She has been in the same state _herself_; she knows more
+about the matter, except in cases of very rare occurrence, than any
+_man_, however great his learning and experience, can ever know. She
+knows all the previous symptoms; she can judge more correctly than man
+can judge in such a case; she can put questions to the party, which a
+man cannot put; the communication between the two is wholly without
+reserve; the _person_ of the one is given up to the other, as completely
+as her own is under her command. This never can be the case with a
+man-operator; for, after all that can be said or done, the native
+feeling of women, in whatever rank of life, will, in these cases,
+restrain them from saying and doing, before a man, even before a
+_husband_, many things which they ought to say and do. So that, perhaps,
+even with regard to the bare question of comparative safety to life, the
+midwife is the preferable person.
+
+238. But safety to life is not ALL. The preservation of life is not to
+be preferred to EVERY THING. Ought not a man to prefer death to the
+commission of treason against his country? Ought not a man to die,
+rather than save his life by the prostitution of his wife to a tyrant,
+who insists upon the one or the other? Every man and every woman will
+answer in the affirmative to both these questions. There are, then,
+cases where people ought to submit to _certain death_. Surely, then, the
+mere _chance_, the mere _possibility_ of it, ought not to outweigh the
+mighty considerations on the other side; ought not to overcome that
+inborn modesty, that sacred reserve as to their _persons_, which, as I
+said before, is the charm of charms of the female sex, and which our
+mothers, _rude_ as they are called by us, took, we may be satisfied, the
+best and most effectual means of preserving.
+
+239. But is there, after all, any thing _real_ in this _greater
+security_ for the life of either mother or child? If, then, risk were so
+great as to call upon women to overcome this natural repugnance to
+suffer the approaches of a man, that risk must be _general_; it must
+apply to _all_ women; and, further, it must, ever since the creation of
+man, _always_ have so applied. Now, resorting to the employment of
+_men_-operators has not been in vogue in Europe more than about seventy
+years, and has not been _general_ in England more than about thirty or
+forty years. So that the _risk_ in employing midwives must, of late
+years, have become vastly greater than it was even when I was a boy,
+or the whole race must have been extinguished long ago. And, then, how
+puzzled we should be to account for the building of all the cathedrals,
+and all the churches, and the draining of all the marshes, and all the
+fens, more than a thousand years before the word '_accoucheur_' ever
+came from the lips of woman, and before the thought came into her mind?
+And here, even in the use of this _word_, we have a specimen of the
+_refined delicacy_ of the present age; here we have, varnish the matter
+over how we may, modesty in the _word_ and grossness in the _thought_.
+Farmers' wives, daughters, and maids, cannot now allude to, or hear
+named, without _blushing_, those affairs of the homestead, which they,
+within my memory, used to talk about as freely as of milking or
+spinning; but, have they become more _really modest_ than their mothers
+were? Has this _refinement_ made them more _continent_ than those _rude_
+mothers? A jury at Westminster gave, about six years ago, _damages_ to a
+man, calling himself a gentleman, against a farmer, because the latter,
+for the purpose for which such animals are kept, had a _bull_ in his
+yard, on which the windows of the gentleman looked! The plaintiff
+alleged, that this was _so offensive_ to his _wife_ and _daughters_,
+that, if the defendant were not compelled to desist, he should be
+obliged to _brick up his windows, or to quit the house_! If I had been
+the father of these, at once, _delicate_ and _curious_ daughters, I
+would not have been the herald of their purity of mind; and if I had
+been the suitor of one of them, I would have taken care to give up the
+suit with all convenient speed; for how could I reasonably have hoped
+ever to be able to prevail on delicacy, _so exquisite_, to commit itself
+to a pair of bridal sheets? In spite, however, of all this '_refinement_
+in the human mind,' which is everlastingly dinned in our ears; in spite
+of the '_small-clothes_,' and of all the other affected stuff, we have
+this conclusion, this indubitable _proof_, of the falling off in _real_
+delicacy; namely, that common prostitutes, formerly unknown, now swarm
+in our towns, and are seldom wanting even in our villages; and where
+there was _one_ illegitimate child (including those coming before the
+time) only fifty years ago, there are now _twenty_.
+
+240. And who can say how far the employment of _men_, in the cases
+alluded to, may have _assisted_ in producing this change, so disgraceful
+to the present age, and so injurious to the female sex? The prostitution
+and the swarms of illegitimate children have a natural and inevitable
+tendency to lessen that respect, and that kind and indulgent feeling,
+which is due from all men to virtuous women. It is well known that the
+unworthy members of any profession, calling, or rank in life, cause, by
+their acts, the whole body to sink in the general esteem; it is well
+known, that the habitual dishonesty of merchants trading abroad, the
+habitual profligate behaviour of travellers from home, the frequent
+proofs of abject submission to tyrants; it is well known, that these may
+give the character of dishonesty, profligacy, or cowardice, to a whole
+nation. There are, doubtless, many men in Switzerland, who abhor the
+infamous practices of men _selling themselves_, by whole regiments, to
+fight for any foreign state that will pay them, no matter in what cause,
+and no matter whether against their own parents or brethren; but the
+censure falls upon the _whole nation_: and '_no money, no Swiss_,' is a
+proverb throughout the world. It is, amidst those scenes of prostitution
+and bastardy, impossible for men in general to respect the female sex to
+the degree that they formerly did; while numbers will be apt to adopt
+the unjust sentiment of the old bachelor, POPE, that '_every woman is,
+at heart, a rake_.'
+
+241. Who knows, I say, in what degree the employment of _men_-operators
+may have tended to produce this change, so injurious to the female sex?
+Aye, and to encourage unfeeling and brutal men to propose that the dead
+bodies of females, if _poor_, should be _sold_ for the purpose of
+exhibition and dissection before an audience of men; a proposition that
+our '_rude_ ancestors' would have answered, not by words, but by blows!
+Alas! our women may talk of 'small-clothes' as long as they please; they
+may blush to scarlet at hearing animals designated by their sexual
+appellations; it may, to give the world a proof of our excessive modesty
+and delicacy, even pass a law (indeed we have done it) to punish 'an
+_exposure of the person_'; but as long as our streets swarm with
+prostitutes, our asylums and private houses with bastards; as long as we
+have _man_-operators in the delicate cases alluded to, and as long as
+the exhibiting of the dead body of a virtuous female before an audience
+of men shall not be punished by the law, and even with death; as long as
+we shall appear to be satisfied in this state of things, it becomes us,
+at any rate, to be silent about purity of mind, improvement of manners,
+and an increase of refinement and _delicacy_.
+
+242. This practice has brought the '_doctor_' into _every family_ in the
+kingdom, which is of itself no small evil. I am not thinking of the
+_expense_; for, in cases like these, nothing in that way ought to be
+spared. If necessary to the safety of his wife, a man ought not only to
+part with his last shilling, but to pledge his future labour. But we all
+know that there are _imaginary ailments_, many of which are absolutely
+created by the habit of talking with or about the '_doctor_.' Read the
+'DOMESTIC MEDICINE,' and by the time that you have done, you will
+imagine that you have, at times, all the diseases of which it treats.
+This practice has added to, has doubled, aye, has augmented, I verily
+believe, ten-fold the number of the gentlemen who are, in common
+parlance, called '_doctors_'; at which, indeed, I, on my own private
+account, ought to rejoice; for, _invariably_ I have, even in the worst
+of times, found them every where amongst my staunchest and kindest
+friends. But though these gentlemen are not to blame for this, any more
+than attorneys are for their increase in number; and amongst these
+gentlemen, too, I have, with very few exceptions, always found sensible
+men and zealous friends; though the parties pursuing these professions
+are not to blame; though the increase of attorneys has arisen from the
+endless number and the complexity of the laws, and from the ten-fold mass
+of crimes caused by poverty arising from oppressive taxation; and though
+the increase of 'doctors' has arisen from the diseases and the imaginary
+ailments arising from that effeminate luxury which has been created by
+the drawing of wealth from the many, and giving it to the few; and, as
+the lower classes will always endeavour to imitate the higher, so the
+'_accoucheur_' has, along with the '_small-clothes_,' descended from the
+loan-monger's palace down to the hovel of the pauper, there to take his
+fee out of the poor-rates; though these parties are not to blame, the
+thing is not less an evil. Both professions have lost in character, in
+proportion to the increase in the number of its members; peaches, if
+they grew on hedges, would rank but little above the berries of the
+bramble.
+
+243. But to return once more to the matter of _risk_ of life; can it be
+that _nature_ has so ordered it, that, as a _general thing_, the life of
+either mother or child shall be in _danger_, even if there were no
+attendant at all? _Can this be?_ Certainly it cannot: _safety_ must be
+the rule, and _danger_ the exception; this _must_ be the case, or the
+world never could have been peopled; and, perhaps, in ninety-nine cases
+out of every hundred, if nature were left _wholly to herself_, all would
+be right. The great doctor in these cases, is, comforting, consoling,
+cheering up. And who can perform this office like _women_? who have for
+these occasions a language and sentiments which seem to have been
+invented for the purpose; and be they what they may as to general
+demeanour and character, they have all, upon these occasions, one common
+feeling, and that so amiable, so excellent, as to admit of no adequate
+description. They completely forget, for the time, all rivalships, all
+squabbles, all animosities, all _hatred_ even; every one feels as if it
+were her own particular concern.
+
+244. These, we may be well assured, are the proper attendants on these
+occasions; the mother, the aunt, the sister, the cousin, and female
+neighbour; these are the suitable attendants, having some experienced
+woman to afford extraordinary aid, if such be necessary; and in the few
+cases where the preservation of life demands the surgeon's skill, he is
+always at hand. The contrary practice, which we got from the French, is
+not, however, _so general_ in France as in England. We have outstripped
+all the world in this, as we have in every thing which proceeds from
+luxury and effeminacy on the one hand, and from poverty on the other;
+the millions have been stripped of their means to heap wealth on the
+thousands, and have been corrupted in manners, as well as in morals, by
+vicious examples set them by the possessors of that wealth. As reason
+says that the practice of which I complain cannot be cured without a
+total change in society, it would be presumption in me to expect such
+cure from any efforts of mine. I therefore must content myself with
+hoping that such change will come, and with declaring, that if I had to
+live my life over again, I would act upon the opinions which I have
+thought it my bounden duty here to state and endeavour to maintain.
+
+245. Having gotten over these thorny places as quickly as possible, I
+gladly come back to the BABIES; with regard to whom I shall have no
+prejudices, no affectation, no false pride, no sham fears to encounter;
+every heart (except there be one made of flint) being with me here.
+'Then were there brought unto him _little children_, that he should put
+his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus
+said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me; for
+of such is the kingdom of heaven.' A figure most forcibly expressive of
+the character and beauty of innocence, and, at the same time, most aptly
+illustrative of the doctrine of regeneration. And where is the man; the
+_woman_ who is not fond of babies is not worthy the name; but where is
+the _man_ who does not feel his heart softened; who does not feel
+himself become gentler; who does not lose all the hardness of his
+temper; when, in any way, for any purpose, or by any body, an appeal is
+made to him in behalf of these so helpless and so perfectly innocent
+little creatures?
+
+246. SHAKSPEARE, who is cried up as the great interpreter of the human
+heart, has said, that the man in whose soul there is no _music_, or love
+of music, is 'fit for murders, treasons, stratagems, and spoils.' 'Our
+_immortal_ bard,' as the profligate SHERIDAN used to call him in public,
+while he laughed at him in private; our '_immortal_ bard' seems to have
+forgotten that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were flung into the
+fiery furnace (made seven times hotter than usual) amidst the sound of
+the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music;
+he seems to have forgotten that it was a music and a dance-loving damsel
+that chose, as a recompense for her elegant performance, the bloody head
+of John the Baptist, brought to her in a charger; he seems to have
+forgotten that, while Rome burned, Nero fiddled: he did not know,
+perhaps, that cannibals always dance and sing while their victims are
+roasting; but he might have known, and he must have known, that
+England's greatest tyrant, Henry VIII., had, as his agent in blood,
+Thomas Cromwell, expressed it, 'his _sweet soul_ enwrapped in the
+_celestial_ sounds of music;' and this was just at the time when the
+ferocious tyrant was ordering Catholics and Protestants to be tied back
+to back on the same hurdle, dragged to Smithfield on that hurdle, and
+there tied to, and burnt from, the same stake. Shakspeare must have
+known these things, for he lived immediately after their date; and if he
+had lived in our day, he would have seen instances enough of 'sweet
+souls' enwrapped in the same manner, and capable, if not of deeds
+equally bloody, of others, discovering a total want of feeling for
+sufferings not unfrequently occasioned by their own wanton waste, and
+waste arising, too, in part, from their taste for these 'celestial
+sounds.'
+
+247. O no! the heart of man is not to be known by this test: a _great_
+fondness for music is a mark of great weakness, great vacuity of mind:
+not of hardness of heart; not of vice; not of downright folly; but of a
+want of capacity, or inclination, for sober thought. This is not always
+the case: accidental circumstances almost force the taste upon people:
+but, generally speaking, it is a preference of sound to sense. But the
+man, and especially the _father_, who is not fond of _babies_; who does
+not feel his heart softened when he touches their almost boneless limbs;
+when he sees their little eyes first begin to discern; when he hears
+their tender accents; the man whose heart does not beat truly to this
+test, is, to say the best of him, an object of compassion.
+
+248. But the mother's feelings are here to be thought of too; for, of
+all gratifications, the very greatest that a mother can receive, is
+notice taken of, and praise bestowed on, her baby. The moment _that_
+gets into her arms, every thing else diminishes in value, the father
+only excepted. _Her own personal charms_, notwithstanding all that men
+say and have written on the subject, become, at most, a secondary object
+as soon as the baby arrives. A saying of the old, profligate King of
+Prussia is frequently quoted in proof of the truth of the maxim, that a
+woman will forgive any thing but _calling her ugly_; a very true maxim,
+perhaps, as applied to prostitutes, whether in high or low life; but a
+pretty long life of observation has told me, that a _mother_, worthy of
+the name, will care little about what you say of _her_ person, so that
+you will but extol the beauty of her baby. Her baby is always the very
+prettiest that ever was born! It is always an eighth wonder of the
+world! And thus it ought to be, or there would be a want of that
+wondrous attachment to it which is necessary to bear her up through all
+those cares and pains and toils inseparable from the preservation of its
+life and health.
+
+249. It is, however, of the part which the _husband_ has to act, in
+participating in these cares and toils, that I am now to speak. Let no
+man imagine that the world will despise him for helping to take care of
+his own child: thoughtless fools may attempt to ridicule; the unfeeling
+few may join in the attempt; but all, whose good opinion is worth
+having, will applaud his conduct, and will, in many cases, be disposed
+to repose confidence in him on that very account. To say of a man, that
+he is fond of his family, is, of itself, to say that, in private life at
+least, he is a good and trust-worthy man; aye, and in public life too,
+pretty much; for it is no easy matter to separate the two characters;
+and it is naturally concluded, that he who has been flagrantly wanting
+in feeling for his own flesh and blood, will not be very sensitive
+towards the rest of mankind. There is nothing more amiable, nothing more
+delightful to behold, than a _young_ man especially taking part in the
+work of nursing the children; and how often have I admired this in the
+labouring men in Hampshire! It is, indeed, _generally_ the same all over
+England; and as to America, it would be deemed brutal for a man not to
+take his full share of these cares and labours.
+
+250. The man who is to gain a living by his labour, must be drawn away
+from home, or, at least, from the cradle-side, in order to perform that
+labour; but this will not, if he be made of good stuff, prevent him from
+doing his share of the duty due to his children. There are still many
+hours in the twenty-four, that he will have to spare for this duty; and
+there ought to be no toils, no watchings, no breaking of rest, imposed
+by this duty, of which he ought not to perform his full share, and that,
+too, without grudging. This is strictly due from him in payment for the
+pleasures of the marriage state. What _right_ has he to the sole
+possession of a _woman's_ person; what right to a _husband's_ vast
+authority; what right to the honourable title and the boundless power of
+_father_: what _right_ has he to all, or any of these, unless he can
+found his claim on the faithful performance of all the duties which
+these titles imply?
+
+251. One great source of the unhappiness amongst mankind arises,
+however, from a neglect of these duties; but, as if by way of
+compensation for their privations, they are much more duly performed by
+the poor than by the rich. The fashion of the labouring people is this:
+the husband, when free from his toil in the fields, takes his share in
+the nursing, which he manifestly looks upon as a sort of reward for his
+labour. However distant from his cottage, his heart is always at that
+home towards which he is carried, at night, by limbs that feel not their
+weariness, being urged on by a heart anticipating the welcome of those
+who attend him there. Those who have, as I so many hundreds of times
+have, seen the labourers in the woodland parts of Hampshire and Sussex,
+coming, at night-fall, towards their cottage-wickets, laden with fuel
+for a day or two; whoever has seen three or four little creatures
+looking out for the father's approach, running in to announce the glad
+tidings, and then scampering out to meet him, clinging round his knees,
+or hanging on his skirts; whoever has witnessed scenes like this, to
+witness which has formed one of the greatest delights of my life, will
+hesitate long before he prefer a life of ease to a life of labour;
+before he prefer a communication with children intercepted by servants
+and teachers to that communication which is here direct, and which
+admits not of any division of affection.
+
+252. Then comes _the Sunday_; and, amongst all those who keep no
+servants, a great deal depends on the manner in which the father employs
+_that day_. When there are two or three children, or even one child, the
+first thing, after the breakfast (which is late on this day of rest), is
+to wash and dress the child or children. Then, while the mother is
+dressing the dinner, the father, being in his Sunday-clothes himself,
+takes care of the child or children. When dinner is over, the mother
+puts on her best; and then, all go to church, or, if that cannot be,
+whether from distance or other cause, _all pass the afternoon together_.
+This used to be the way of life amongst the labouring people; and from
+this way of life arose the most able and most moral people that the
+world ever saw, until grinding taxation took from them the means of
+obtaining a sufficiency of food and of raiment; plunged the whole, good
+and bad, into one indiscriminate mass, under the degrading and hateful
+name of paupers.
+
+253. The working man, in whatever line, and whether in town or country,
+who spends his _day of rest_, or any part of it, except in case of
+absolute necessity, away from his wife and children, is not worthy of
+the name of _father_, and is seldom worthy of the trust of any employer.
+Such absence argues a want of fatherly and of conjugal affection, which
+want is generally duly repaid by a similar want in the neglected
+parties; and, though stern authority may command and enforce obedience
+for a while, the time soon comes when it will be set at defiance; and
+when such a father, having no example, no proofs of love, to plead,
+complains of _filial ingratitude_, the silent indifference of his
+neighbours, and which is more poignant, his own heart, will tell him
+that his complaint is unjust.
+
+254. Thus far with regard to _working_ people; but much more necessary
+is it to inculcate these principles in the minds of young men in the
+middle rank of life, and to be more particular, in their case, with
+regard to the care due to very young children, for here _servants_ come
+in; and many are but too prone to think, that when they have handed
+their children over to well-paid and able servants, they have _done
+their duty by them_, than which there can hardly be a more mischievous
+error. The children of the poorer people are, in general, much fonder of
+their parents than those of the rich are of theirs: this fondness is
+reciprocal; and the cause is, that the children of the former have, from
+their very birth, had a greater share than those of the latter--of the
+_personal_ attention, and of the never-ceasing endearments of their
+parents.
+
+255. I have before urged upon young married men, in the middle walks of
+life, to _keep the servants out of the house as long as possible_; and
+when they must come at last, when they must be had even to assist in
+taking care of children, let them be _assistants_ in the most strict
+sense of the word; let them not be _confided in_; let children never be
+_left to them alone_; and the younger the child, the more necessary a
+rigid adherence to this rule. I shall be told, perhaps, by some careless
+father, or some play-haunting mother, that female servants are _women_,
+and have the tender feelings of women. Very true; and, in general, as
+good and kind in their _nature_ as the mother herself. But they are not
+the _mothers_ of your children, and it is not in nature that they should
+have the care and anxiety adequate to the necessity of the case. Out of
+the immediate care and personal superintendence of one or the other of
+the parents, or of some trusty _relation_, no young child ought to be
+suffered to be, if there be, at whatever sacrifice of ease or of
+property, any possibility of preventing it: because, to insure, if
+possible, the perfect form, the straight limbs, the sound body, and the
+sane mind of your children, is the very first of all your duties. To
+provide fortunes for them; to make provision for their future fame; to
+give them the learning necessary to the calling for which you destine
+them: all these may be duties, and the last is a duty; but a duty far
+greater than, and prior to, all these, is the duty of neglecting nothing
+within your power to insure them a _sane mind in a sound and undeformed
+body_. And, good God! how many are the instances of deformed bodies, of
+crooked limbs, of idiocy, or of deplorable imbecility, proceeding solely
+from young children being left to the care of servants! One would
+imagine, that one single sight of this kind to be seen, or heard of, in
+a whole nation, would be sufficient to deter parents from the practice.
+And what, then, must those parents feel, who have brought this life-long
+sorrowing on themselves! When once the thing is _done_, to repent is
+unavailing. And what is now the worth of all the ease and all the
+pleasures, to enjoy which the poor sufferer was abandoned to the care of
+servants!
+
+256. What! can I plead _example_, then, in support of this rigid
+precept? Did we, who have bred up a family of children, and have had
+servants during the greater part of the time, _never_ leave a young
+child to the care of servants? Never; no, not for _one single hour_.
+Were we, then, tied constantly to the house with them? No; for we
+sometimes took them out; but one or the other of us _was always with
+them_, until, in succession, they were able to take good care of
+themselves; or until the elder ones were able to take care of the
+younger, and then _they_ sometimes stood sentinel in our stead. How
+could we _visit_ then? Why, if both went, we bargained beforehand to
+take the children with us; and if this were a thing not to be proposed,
+one of us went, and the other stayed at home, the latter being very
+frequently my lot. From this we _never_ once deviated. We cast aside all
+consideration of convenience; all calculations of expense; all thoughts
+of pleasure of every sort. And, what could have equalled the reward that
+we have received for our care and for our unshaken resolution in this
+respect?
+
+257. In the rearing of children, there is _resolution_ wanting as well
+as _tenderness_. That parent is not _truly_ affectionate who wants the
+_courage_ to do that which is sure to give the child temporary pain. A
+great deal, in providing for the _health_ and _strength_ of children,
+depends upon their being duly and daily washed, when well, in cold water
+from head to foot. Their cries testify to what a degree they _dislike_
+this. They squall and kick and twist about at a fine rate; and many
+mothers, too many, neglect this, partly from reluctance to encounter the
+squalling, and partly, and _much too often_, from what I will not call
+_idleness_, but to which I cannot apply a milder term than _neglect_.
+Well and duly performed, it is an hour's good tight work; for, besides
+the bodily labour, which is not very slight when the child gets to be
+five or six months old, there is the _singing_ to _overpower the voice
+of the child_. The moment the stripping of the child used to begin, the
+singing used to begin, and the latter never ceased till the former had
+ceased. After having heard this go on with all my children, ROUSSEAU
+taught me the _philosophy_ of it. I happened, by accident, to look into
+his EMILE, and there I found him saying, that the nurse subdued the
+voice of the child and made it quiet, _by drowning its voice in hers_,
+and thereby making it perceive that it could _not be heard_, and that to
+continue to cry _was of no avail_. 'Here, Nancy,' said I (going to her
+with the book in my hand), 'you have been a great philosopher all your
+life, without either of us knowing it.' A _silent_ nurse is a poor soul.
+It is a great disadvantage to the child, if the mother be of a very
+silent, placid, quiet turn. The singing, the talking to, the tossing and
+rolling about, that mothers in general practise, are very beneficial to
+the children: they give them exercise, awaken their attention, animate
+them, and rouse them to action. It is very bad to have a child even
+carried about by a dull, inanimate, silent servant, who will never talk,
+sing or chirrup to it; who will but just carry it about, always kept in
+the same attitude, and seeing and hearing nothing to give it life and
+spirit. It requires nothing but a dull creature like this, and the
+washing and dressing left to her, to give a child the rickets, and make
+it, instead of being a strong straight person, tup-shinned, bow-kneed,
+or hump-backed; besides other ailments not visible to the eye.
+By-and-by, when the deformity begins to appear, the doctor is called in,
+but it is too late: the mischief is done; and a few months of neglect
+are punished by a life of mortification and sorrow, not wholly
+unaccompanied with shame.
+
+258. It is, therefore, a very spurious kind of _tenderness_ that
+prevents a mother from doing the things which, though disagreeable to
+the child, are so necessary to its lasting well-being. The washing daily
+in the morning is a great thing; cold water winter or summer, and _this
+never left to a servant_, who has not, in such a case, either the
+patience or the courage that is necessary for the task. When the washing
+is over, and the child dressed in its day-clothes, how gay and cheerful
+it looks! The exercise gives it appetite, and then disposes it to rest;
+and it sucks and sleeps and grows, the delight of all eyes, and
+particularly those of the parents. 'I can't bear _that squalling_!' I
+have heard men say; and to which I answer, that 'I can't bear _such
+men_!' There are, I thank God, very few of them; for, if they do not
+always _reason_ about the matter, honest nature teaches them to be
+considerate and indulgent towards little creatures so innocent and so
+helpless and so unconscious of what they do. And the _noise_: after all,
+why should it _disturb_ a man? He knows the exact cause of it: he knows
+that it is the unavoidable consequence of a great good to his child, and
+of course to him: it lasts but an hour, and the recompense instantly
+comes in the looks of the rosy child, and in the new hopes which every
+look excites. It never disturbed _me_, and my occupation was one of
+those most liable to disturbance by noise. Many a score papers have I
+written amidst the noise of children, and in my whole life never bade
+them be still. When they grew up to be big enough to gallop about the
+house, I have, in wet weather, when they could not go out, written the
+whole day amidst noise that would have made some authors half mad. It
+never annoyed me at all. But a Scotch piper, whom an old lady, who lived
+beside us at Brompton, used to pay to come and play _a long_ tune every
+day, I was obliged to bribe into a breach of contract. That which you
+are _pleased with_, however noisy, does not disturb you. That which is
+indifferent to you has not more effect. The rattle of coaches, the
+clapper of a mill, the fall of water, leave your mind undisturbed. But
+the sound of the _pipe_, awakening the idea of the lazy life of the
+piper, better paid than the labouring man, drew the mind aside from its
+pursuit; and, as it really was a _nuisance_, occasioned by the money of
+my neighbour, I thought myself justified in abating it by the same sort
+of means.
+
+259. The _cradle_ is in poor families necessary; because necessity
+compels the mother to get as much time as she can for her work, and a
+child can rock the cradle. At first we had a cradle; and I rocked the
+cradle, in great part, during the time that I was writing my first work,
+that famous MAITRE D'ANGLAIS, which has long been the first book in
+Europe, as well as in America, for teaching of French people the English
+language. But we left off the use of the cradle as soon as possible. It
+causes sleep more, and oftener, than necessary: it saves trouble; but to
+take trouble was our duty. After the second child, we had no cradle,
+however difficult at first to do without it. When I was not at my
+business, it was generally my affair to put the child to sleep:
+sometimes by sitting with it in my arms, and sometimes by lying down on
+a bed with it, till it fell asleep. We soon found the good of this
+method. The children did not sleep so much, but they slept more soundly.
+The cradle produces a sort of _dosing_, or dreaming sleep. This is a
+matter of great importance, as every thing must be that has any
+influence on the health of children. The poor must use the cradle, at
+least until they have other children big enough to hold the baby, and to
+put it to sleep; and it is truly wonderful at how early an age they,
+either girls or boys, will do this business faithfully and well. You see
+them in the lanes, and on the skirts of woods and commons, lugging a
+baby about, when it sometimes weighs half as much as the nurse. The poor
+mother is frequently compelled, in order to help to get bread for her
+children, to go to a distance from home, and leave the group, baby and
+all, to take care of the house and of themselves, the eldest of four or
+five, not, perhaps, above six or seven years old; and it is quite
+surprising, that, considering the millions of instances in which this is
+done in England, in the course of a year, so very, very few accidents or
+injuries arise from the practice; and not a hundredth part so many as
+arise in the comparatively few instances in which children are left to
+the care of servants. In summer time you see these little groups rolling
+about up the green, or amongst the heath, not far from the cottage, and
+at a mile, perhaps, from any other dwelling, the dog their only
+protector. And what fine and straight and healthy and fearless and acute
+persons they become! It used to be remarked in Philadelphia, when I
+lived there, that there was not a single man of any eminence, whether
+doctor, lawyer, merchant, trader, or any thing else, that had not been
+born and bred in the country, and of parents in a low state of life.
+Examine London, and you will find it much about the same. From this very
+childhood they are from necessity _entrusted with the care of something
+valuable_. They practically learn to think, and to calculate as to
+consequences. They are thus taught to remember things; and it is quite
+surprising what memories they have, and how scrupulously a little
+carter-boy will deliver half-a-dozen messages, each of a different
+purport from the rest, to as many persons, all the messages committed to
+him at one and the same time, and he not knowing one letter of the
+alphabet from another. When I want to _remember_ something, and am out
+in the field, and cannot write it down, I say to one of the men, or
+boys, come to me at such a time, and tell me so and so. He is _sure_ to
+do it; and I therefore look upon the _memorandum_ as written down. One
+of these children, boy or girl, is much more worthy of being entrusted
+with the care of a baby, any body's baby, than a servant-maid with
+curled locks and with eyes rolling about for admirers. The locks and the
+rolling eyes, very nice, and, for aught I know, very proper things in
+themselves; but incompatible with the care of _your_ baby, Ma'am; her
+mind being absorbed in contemplating the interesting circumstances which
+are to precede her having a sweet baby of her own; and a _sweeter_ than
+yours, if you please, Ma'am; or, at least, such will be her
+anticipations. And this is all right enough; it is natural that she
+should think and feel thus; and knowing this, you are admonished that it
+is your bounden duty not to delegate this sacred trust to any body.
+
+260. The _courage_, of which I have spoken, so necessary in the case of
+washing the children in spite of their screaming remonstrances, is, if
+possible, more necessary in cases of illness, requiring the application
+of _medicine_, or of _surgical_ means of cure. Here the heart is put to
+the test indeed! Here is anguish to be endured by a mother, who has to
+force down the nauseous physic, or to apply the tormenting plaster! Yet
+it is the mother, or the father, and more properly the former, who is to
+perform this duty of exquisite pain. To no nurse, to no hireling, to no
+alien hand, ought, if possible to avoid it, this task to be committed. I
+do not admire those mothers who are _too tender-hearted_ to inflict this
+pain on their children, and who, therefore, leave it to be inflicted by
+others. Give me the mother who, while the tears stream down her face,
+has the resolution scrupulously to execute, with her own hands, the
+doctor's commands. Will a servant, will any hireling, do this? Committed
+to such hands, the _least trouble_ will be preferred to the greater: the
+thing will, in general, not be half done; and if done, the suffering
+from such hands is far greater in the mind of the child than if it came
+from the hands of the mother. In this case, above all others, there
+ought to be no delegation of the parental office. Here life or limb is
+at stake; and the parent, man or woman, who, in any one point, can
+neglect his or her duty here, is unworthy of the name of parent. And
+here, as in all the other instances, where goodness in the parents
+towards the children gives such weight to their advice when the children
+grow up, what a motive to filial gratitude! The children who are old
+enough to deserve and remember, will witness this proof of love and
+self-devotion in their mother. Each of them feels that she has done the
+same towards them all; and they love her and admire and revere her
+accordingly.
+
+261. This is the place to state my opinions, and the result of my
+experience, with regard to that fearful disease the SMALL-POX; a
+subject, too, to which I have paid great attention. I was always, from
+the very first mention of the thing, opposed to the Cow-Pox scheme. If
+efficacious in preventing the Small-Pox, I objected to it merely on the
+score of its _beastliness_. There are some things, surely, more hideous
+than death, and more resolutely to be avoided; at any rate, more to be
+avoided than the mere _risk_ of suffering death. And, amongst other
+things, I always reckoned that of a parent causing the blood, and the
+diseased blood too, of a beast to be put into the veins of human beings,
+and those beings the children of that parent. I, therefore, as will be
+seen in the pages of the Register of that day, most strenuously opposed
+the giving _of twenty thousand pounds_ to JENNER _out of the taxes_,
+paid in great part by the working people, which I deemed and asserted to
+be a scandalous waste of the public money.
+
+262. I contended, that this beastly application _could not, in nature,
+be efficacious in preventing the Small-Pox_; and that, even if
+efficacious for that purpose, _it was wholly unnecessary_. The truth of
+the former of these assertions has now been proved _in thousands upon
+thousands of instances_. For a long time, for _ten years_, the contrary
+was boldly and brazenly asserted. This nation is fond of quackery of all
+sorts; and this particular quackery having been sanctioned by King,
+Lords and Commons, it spread over the country like a pestilence borne by
+the winds. Speedily sprang up the 'ROYAL _Jennerian Institution_,' and
+Branch Institutions, issuing from the parent trunk, set instantly to
+work, impregnating the veins of the rising and enlightened generation
+with the beastly matter. 'Gentlemen and Ladies' made the commodity a
+pocket-companion; and if a cottager's child (in Hampshire at least),
+even seen by them, on a common, were not pretty quick in taking to its
+heels, it had to carry off more or less of the disease of the cow. One
+would have thought, that one-half of the cows in England must have been
+_tapped_ to get at such a quantity of the stuff.
+
+263. In the midst of all this mad work, to which the doctors, after
+having found it in vain to resist, had yielded, the _real small-pox_, in
+its worst form, broke out in the town of RINGWOOD, in HAMPSHIRE, and
+carried off, I believe (I have not the account at hand), _more than a
+hundred persons_, young and old, _every one of whom had had the cow-pox
+'so nicely_!' And what was now said? Was the quackery exploded, and were
+the granters of the twenty thousand pounds ashamed of what they had
+done? Not at all: the failure was imputed to _unskilful operators_; to
+the _staleness of the matter_; to its not being of the _genuine
+quality_. Admitting all this, the scheme stood condemned; for the great
+advantages held forth were, that _any body_ might perform the operation,
+and that the _matter_ was _every where abundant_ and cost-free. But
+these were paltry excuses; the mere shuffles of quackery; for what do we
+know now? Why, that in _hundreds_ of instances, persons cow-poxed by
+JENNER HIMSELF, have taken the real small-pox afterwards, and have
+either died from the disorder, or narrowly escaped with their lives! I
+will mention two instances, the parties concerned being living and
+well-known, one of them to the whole nation, and the other to a very
+numerous circle in the higher walks of life. The first is Sir RICHARD
+PHILLIPS, so well known by his able writings, and equally well known by
+his exemplary conduct as Sheriff of London, and by his life-long labours
+in the cause of real charity and humanity. Sir Richard had, I think, two
+sons, whose veins were impregnated by the _grantee himself_. At any rate
+he had one, who had, several years after Jenner had given him the
+insuring matter, a very hard struggle for his life, under the hands of
+the good, old-fashioned, seam-giving, and dimple-dipping small-pox. The
+second is PHILIP CODD, Esq., formerly of Kensington, and now of Rumsted
+Court, near Maidstone, in Kent, who has a son that had a very narrow
+escape under the real small-pox, about four years ago, and who also had
+been cow-poxed _by Jenner himself_. This last-mentioned gentleman I have
+known, and most sincerely respected, from the time of our both being
+about eighteen years of age. When the young gentleman, of whom I am now
+speaking, was very young, I having him upon my knee one day, asked his
+kind and excellent mother, whether he had been _inoculated_. 'Oh, no!'
+said she, 'we are going to have him _vaccinated_.' Whereupon I, going
+into the garden to the father, said, 'I do hope, Codd, that you are not
+going to have that beastly cow-stuff put into that fine boy.' 'Why,'
+said he, 'you see, Cobbett, it is to be done by _Jenner himself_.' What
+answer I gave, what names and epithets I bestowed upon Jenner and his
+quackery, I will leave the reader to imagine.
+
+264. Now, here are instances enough; but, every reader has heard of, if
+not seen, scores of others. Young Mr. Codd caught the small-pox at a
+_school_; and if I recollect rightly, there were several other
+'vaccinated' youths who did the same, at the same time. Quackery,
+however, has always a shuffle left. Now that the cow-pox has been
+_proved_ to be no _guarantee_ against the small-pox, it makes it'
+_milder_' when it comes! A pretty shuffle, indeed, this! You are to be
+_all your life in fear of it_, having as your sole consolation, that
+when it comes (and it may overtake you in a _camp_, or on the _seas_),
+it will be '_milder_!' It was not too mild to _kill_ at RINGWOOD; and
+its _mildness_, in case of young Mr. Codd, did not restrain it from
+_blinding him_ for a suitable number of days. I shall not easily forget
+the alarm and anxiety of the father and mother upon this occasion; both
+of them the best of parents, and both of them now punished for having
+yielded to this fashionable quackery. I will not say, _justly_ punished;
+for affection for their children, in which respect they were never
+surpassed by any parents on earth, was the cause of their listening to
+the danger-obviating quackery. This, too, is the case with other
+parents; but parents should be under the influence of _reason_ and
+_experience_, as well as under that of affection; and _now_, at any
+rate, they ought to set this really dangerous quackery at nought.
+
+265. And, what does _my own experience_ say on the other side? There are
+my seven children, the sons as tall, or nearly so, as their father, and
+the daughters as tall as their mother; all, in due succession,
+inoculated with the good old-fashioned face-tearing small-pox; neither
+of them with a single mark of that disease on their skins; neither of
+them having been, that we could perceive, _ill for a single hour_, in
+consequence of the inoculation. When we were in the United States, we
+observed that the Americans were _never marked_ with the small-pox; or,
+if such a thing were seen, it was very rarely. The cause we found to be,
+the universal practice of having the children inoculated _at the
+breast_, and, generally, at _a month_ or _six weeks old_. When we came
+to have children, we did the same. I believe that some of ours have been
+a few months old when the operation has been performed, but always while
+_at the breast_, and as early as possible after the expiration of six
+weeks from the birth; sometimes put off a little while by some slight
+disorder in the child, or on account of some circumstance or other; but,
+with these exceptions, done at, or before, the end of six weeks from the
+birth, and _always at the breast_. All is then _pure_: there is nothing
+in either body or mind to favour the natural fury of the disease. We
+always took particular care about the _source_ from which the infectious
+matter came. We employed medical men, in whom we could place perfect
+confidence: we had their _solemn word_ for the matter coming from some
+_healthy child_; and, at last, we had sometimes to _wait_ for this, the
+cow-affair having rendered patients of this sort rather rare.
+
+266. While the child has the small-pox, the mother should abstain from
+food and drink, which she may require at other times, but which might be
+too gross just now. To suckle a hearty child requires good living; for,
+besides that this is necessary to the mother, it is also necessary to
+the child. A little forbearance, just at this time, is prudent; making
+the diet as simple as possible, and avoiding all violent agitation
+either of the body or the spirits; avoiding too, if you can, _very hot_
+or _very cold_ weather.
+
+267. There is now, however, this inconvenience, that the far greater
+part of the present young women have been _be-Jennered_; so that they
+may _catch the beauty-killing disease from their babies_! To hearten
+them up, however, and more especially, I confess, to record a trait of
+maternal affection and of female heroism, which I have never heard of
+any thing to surpass, I have the pride to say, that my wife had eight
+children inoculated at her breast, and _never had the small-pox in her
+life_. I, at first, objected to the inoculating of the child, but she
+insisted upon it, and with so much pertinacity that I gave way, on
+condition that she would be inoculated too. This was done with three or
+four of the children, I think, she always being reluctant to have it
+done, saying that it looked like distrusting the goodness of God. There
+was, to be sure, very little in this argument; but the long experience
+wore away the alarm; and there she is now, having had eight children
+hanging at her breast with that desolating disease in them, and she
+never having been affected by it from first to last. All her children
+knew, of course, the risk that she voluntarily incurred for them. They
+all have this indubitable proof, that she valued their lives above her
+own; and is it in nature, that they should ever wilfully do any thing to
+wound the heart of that mother; and must not her bright example have
+great effect on their character and conduct! Now, my opinion is, that
+the far greater part of English or American women, if placed in the
+above circumstances, would do just the same thing; and I do hope, that
+those, who have yet to be mothers, will seriously think of putting an
+end, as they have the power to do, to the disgraceful and dangerous
+quackery, the evils of which I have so fully proved.
+
+268. But there is, in the management of babies, something besides life,
+health, strength and beauty; and something too, without which all these
+put together are nothing worth; and that is _sanity of mind_. There are,
+owing to various causes, some who are _born_ ideots; but a great many
+more become insane from the misconduct, or neglect, of parents; and,
+generally, from the children being committed to the care of _servants_.
+I knew, in Pennsylvania, a child, as fine, and as sprightly, and as
+intelligent a child as ever was born, made an ideot for life by being,
+when about three years old, shut into a dark closet, by a maid servant,
+in order to terrify it into silence. The thoughtless creature first
+menaced it with sending it to '_the bad place_,' as the phrase is there;
+and, at last, to reduce it to silence, put it into the closet, shut the
+door, and went out of the room. She went back, in a few minutes, and
+found the child in _a fit_. It recovered from that, but was for life an
+ideot. When the parents, who had been out two days and two nights on a
+visit of pleasure, came home, they were told that the child had had _a
+fit_; but, they were not told the cause. The girl, however, who was a
+neighbour's daughter, being on her death-bed about ten years afterwards,
+could not die in peace without sending for the mother of the child (now
+become a young man) and asking forgiveness of her. The mother herself
+was, however, the greatest offender of the two: a whole lifetime of
+sorrow and of mortification was a punishment too light for her and her
+husband. Thousands upon thousands of human beings have been deprived of
+their senses by these and similar means.
+
+269. It is not long since that we read, in the newspapers, of a child
+being absolutely _killed_, at Birmingham, I think it was, by being thus
+frightened. The parents had gone out into what is called an evening
+party. The servants, naturally enough, had their party at home; and the
+mistress, who, by some unexpected accident, had been brought home at an
+early hour, finding the parlour full of company, ran up stairs to see
+about her child, about two or three years old. She found it with its
+eyes open, but _fixed_; touching it, she found it inanimate. The doctor
+was sent for in vain: it was quite dead. The maid affected to know
+nothing of the cause; but some one of the parties assembled discovered,
+pinned up to the curtains of the bed, _a horrid figure_, made up partly
+of a frightful mask! This, as the wretched girl confessed, had been done
+to keep the child _quiet_, while she was with her company below. When
+one reflects on the anguish that the poor little thing must have
+endured, before the life was quite frightened out of it, one can find no
+terms sufficiently strong to express the abhorrence due to the
+perpetrator of this crime, which was, in fact, a cruel murder; and, if
+it was beyond the reach of the law, it was so and is so, because, as in
+the cases of parricide, the law, in making no provision for punishment
+peculiarly severe, has, out of respect to human nature, supposed such
+crimes to be _impossible_. But if the girl was criminal; if death, or a
+life of remorse, was her due, what was the due of her parents, and
+especially of the mother! And what was the due of the _father_, who
+suffered that mother, and who, perhaps, tempted her to neglect her most
+sacred duty!
+
+270. If this poor child had been deprived of its mental faculties,
+instead of being deprived of its life, the cause would, in all
+likelihood, never have been discovered. The insanity would have been
+ascribed to '_brain-fever_,' or to some other of the usual causes of
+insanity; or, as in thousands upon thousands of instances, to some
+unaccountable cause. When I was, in No. IX., paragraphs from 227 to 233,
+both inclusive, maintaining with all my might, the unalienable right of
+the child to the milk of its mother, I omitted, amongst the evils
+arising from banishing the child from the mother's breast, to mention,
+or, rather, it had never occurred to me to mention, the _loss of reason_
+to the poor, innocent creatures, thus banished. And now, as connected
+with this measure, I have an argument of _experience_, enough to terrify
+every young man and woman upon earth from the thought of committing this
+offence against nature. I wrote No. IX. at CAMBRIDGE, on Sunday, the
+28th of March; and before I quitted SHREWSBURY, on the 14th of May, the
+following facts reached my ears. A very respectable tradesman, who, with
+his wife, have led a most industrious life, in a town that it is not
+necessary to name, said to a gentleman that told it to me: 'I wish to
+God I had read No. IX. of Mr. Cobbett's ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN fifteen
+years ago!' He then related, that he had had ten children, _all put out
+to be suckled_, in consequence of the necessity of his having the
+mother's assistance to carry on his business; and that _two out of the
+ten_ had come home _ideots_; though the rest were all sane, and though
+insanity had never been known in the family of either father or mother!
+These parents, whom I myself saw, are very clever people, and the wife
+singularly industrious and expert in her affairs.
+
+271. Now the _motive_, in this case, unquestionably was good; it was
+that the mother's valuable time might, as much as possible, be devoted
+to the earning of a competence for her children. But, alas! what is this
+competence to these two unfortunate beings! And what is the competence
+to the rest, when put in the scale against the mortification that they
+must, all their lives, suffer on account of the insanity of their
+brother and sister, exciting, as it must, in all their circle, and even
+in _themselves_, suspicions of their own perfect soundness of mind! When
+weighed against this consideration, what is all the wealth in the world!
+And as to the parents, where are they to find compensation for such a
+calamity, embittered additionally, too, by the reflection, that it was
+in their power to prevent it, and that nature, with loud voice, cried
+out to them to prevent it! MONEY! Wealth acquired in consequence of this
+banishment of these poor children; these victims of this, I will not
+call it avarice, but over-eager love of gain! wealth, thus acquired!
+What wealth can console these parents for the loss of reason in these
+children! Where is the father and the mother, who would not rather see
+their children ploughing in other men's fields, and sweeping other men's
+houses, than led about parks or houses of their own, objects of pity
+even of the menials procured by their wealth?
+
+272. If what I have now said be not sufficient to deter a man from
+suffering _any_ consideration, _no matter what_, to induce him to
+_delegate_ the care of his children, when very young, to _any body
+whomsoever_, nothing that I can say can possibly have that effect; and I
+will, therefore, now proceed to offer my advice with regard to the
+management of children when they get beyond the danger of being crazed
+or killed by nurses or servants.
+
+273. We here come to the subject of _education_ in the _true sense_ of
+that word, which is _rearing up_, seeing that the word comes from the
+Latin _educo_, which means to _breed up_, or to _rear up_. I shall,
+afterwards, have to speak of _education_ in the now common acceptation
+of the word, which makes it mean, _book-learning_. At present, I am to
+speak of _education_ in its true sense, as the French (who, as well as
+we, take the word from the Latin) always use it. They, in their
+agricultural works, talk of the 'education du Cochon, de l'Alouette,
+&c.,' that is of the _hog_, the _lark_, and so of other animals; that is
+to say, of the manner of breeding them, or rearing them up, from their
+being little things till they be of full size.
+
+274. The first thing, in the rearing of children, who have passed from
+the baby-state, is, as to the _body_, plenty of _good food_; and, as to
+the _mind_, constant _good example in the parents_. Of the latter I
+shall speak more by-and-by. With regard to the former, it is of the
+greatest importance, that children be well fed; and there never was a
+greater error than to believe that they do not need good food. Every one
+knows, that to have fine horses, the _colts_ must be kept well, and that
+it is the same with regard to all animals of every sort and kind. The
+fine horses and cattle and sheep all come from the _rich pastures_. To
+have them fine, it is not sufficient that they have _plenty of food_
+when young, but that they have _rich food_. Were there no land, no
+pasture, in England, but such as is found in Middlesex, Essex, and
+Surrey, we should see none of those coach-horses and dray-horses, whose
+height and size make us stare. It is the _keep when young_ that makes
+the fine animal.
+
+275. There is no other reason for the people in the American States
+being generally so much taller and stronger than the people in England
+are. Their forefathers went, for the greater part, from England. In the
+four Northern States they went wholly from England, and then, on their
+landing, they founded a new London, a new Falmouth, a new Plymouth, a
+new Portsmouth, a new Dover, a new Yarmouth, a new Lynn, a new Boston,
+and a new Hull, and the country itself they called, and their
+descendants still call, NEW ENGLAND. This country of the best and
+boldest seamen, and of the most moral and happy people in the world, is
+also the country of the tallest and ablest-bodied men in the world. And
+why? Because, from their very birth, they have an _abundance_ of _good_
+food; not only of _food_, but of _rich_ food. Even when the child is at
+the breast, a strip of _beef-stake_, or something of that description,
+as big and as long as one's finger, is put into its hand. When a baby
+gets a thing in its hand, the first thing it does is to poke some part
+of it into its mouth. It cannot _bite_ the meat, but its gums squeeze
+out the juice. When it has done with the breast, it eats meat constantly
+twice, if not thrice, a day. And this abundance of _good_ food is the
+cause, to be sure, of the superior size and strength of the people of
+that country.
+
+276. Nor is this, in any point of view, an unimportant matter. A tall
+man is, whether as labourer, carpenter, bricklayer, soldier or sailor,
+or almost anything else, _worth more_ than a short man: he can look over
+a higher thing; he can reach higher and wider; he can move on from place
+to place faster; in mowing grass or corn he takes a wider swarth, in
+pitching he wants a shorter prong; in making buildings he does not so
+soon want a ladder or a scaffold; in fighting he keeps his body farther
+from the point of his sword. To be sure, a man _may_ be tall and _weak_;
+but, this is the exception and not the rule: _height_ and _weight_ and
+_strength_, in men as in speechless animals, generally go together. Aye,
+and in enterprise and courage too, the powers of the body have a great
+deal to do. Doubtless there are, have been, and always will be, great
+numbers of small and enterprizing and brave men; but it is _not in
+nature_, that, _generally speaking_, those who are conscious of their
+inferiority in point of bodily strength, should possess the boldness of
+those who have a contrary description.
+
+277. To what but this difference in the _size_ and _strength_ of the
+opposing combatants are we to ascribe the ever-to-be-blushed-at events
+of our last war against the United States! The _hearts_ of our seamen
+and soldiers were as good as those of the Yankees: on both sides they
+had sprung from the same stock: on both sides equally well supplied with
+all the materials of war: if on either side, the superior skill was on
+ours: French, Dutch, Spaniards, all had confessed our superior prowess:
+yet, when, with our whole undivided strength, and to that strength
+adding the flush and pride of victory and conquest, crowned even in the
+capital of France; when, with all these tremendous advantages, and with
+all the nations of the earth looking on, we came foot to foot and
+yard-arm to yard-arm with the Americans, the result was such as an
+English pen refuses to describe. What, then, was the _great cause_ of
+this result, which filled us with shame and the world with astonishment?
+Not the want of _courage_ in our men. There were, indeed, _some moral
+causes at work_; but the main cause was, the great superiority of size
+and of bodily strength on the part of the enemy's soldiers and sailors.
+It was _so many men_ on each side; but it was men of a different size
+and strength; and, on the side of the foe, men accustomed to daring
+enterprise from a consciousness of that strength.
+
+278. Why are abstinence and fasting enjoined by the Catholic Church?
+Why, to make men _humble_, _meek_, and _tame_; and they have this effect
+too: this is visible in whole nations as well as in individuals. So that
+good food, and plenty of it, is not more necessary to the forming of a
+stout and able body than to the forming of an active and enterprizing
+spirit. Poor food, short allowance, while they check the growth of the
+child's body, check also the daring of the mind; and, therefore, the
+starving or pinching system ought to be avoided by all means. Children
+should eat _often_, and as much as they like at a time. They will, if at
+full heap, never take, of _plain food_, more than it is good for them to
+take. They may, indeed, be stuffed with _cakes_ and _sweet things_ till
+they be ill, and, indeed, until they bring on dangerous disorders: but,
+of _meat plainly_ and _well cooked_, and of _bread_, they will never
+swallow the tenth part of an ounce more than it is necessary for them to
+swallow. Ripe fruit, or cooked fruit, if no _sweetening_ take place,
+will never hurt them; but, when they once get a taste for sugary stuff,
+and to cram down loads of garden vegetables; when ices, creams, tarts,
+raisins, almonds, all the endless pamperings come, the _doctor_ must
+soon follow with his drugs. The blowing out of the bodies of children
+with tea, coffee, soup, or warm liquids of any kind, is very bad: these
+have an effect precisely like that which is produced by feeding young
+rabbits, or pigs, or other young animals upon watery vegetables: it
+makes them big-bellied and bare-boned at the same time; and it
+effectually prevents the frame from becoming strong. Children in health
+want no drink other than skim milk, or butter-milk, or whey; and, if
+none of those be at hand, water will do very well, provided they have
+plenty of _good meat_. Cheese and butter do very well for part of the
+day. Puddings and pies; but always _without sugar_, which, say what
+people will about the _wholesomeness_ of it, is not only of _no use_ in
+the rearing of children, but injurious: it forces an appetite: like
+strong drink, it makes daily encroachments on the taste: it wheedles
+down that which the stomach does not want: it finally produces illness:
+it is one of the curses of the country; for it, by taking off the bitter
+of the tea and coffee, is the great cause of sending down into the
+stomach those quantities of warm water by which the body is debilitated
+and deformed and the mind enfeebled. I am addressing myself to persons
+in the middle walk of life; but no parent can be _sure_ that his child
+will not be compelled to labour hard for its daily bread: and then, how
+vast is the difference between one who has been pampered with sweets and
+one who has been reared on plain food and simple drink!
+
+279. The next thing after good and plentiful and plain food is _good
+air_. This is not within the reach of every one; but, to obtain it is
+worth great sacrifices in other respects. We know that there are
+_smells_ which will cause _instant death_; we know, that there are
+others which will cause death _in a few years_; and, therefore, we know
+that it is the duty of parents to provide, if possible, against this
+danger to the health of their offspring. To be sure, when a man is so
+situated that he cannot give his children sweet air without putting
+himself into a jail for debt: when, in short, he has the dire choice of
+sickly children, children with big heads, small limbs, and ricketty
+joints: or children sent to the poor-house: when this is his hard lot,
+he must decide for the former sad alternative: but before he will
+convince me that this _is_ his lot, he must prove to me, that he and his
+wife expend not a penny in the _decoration_ of their persons; that on
+his table, morning, noon, or night, _nothing_ ever comes that is not the
+produce of _English soil_; that of his time not one hour is wasted in
+what is called pleasure; that down his throat not one drop or morsel
+ever goes, unless necessary to sustain life and health. How many scores
+and how many hundreds of men have I seen; how many thousands could I go
+and point out, to-morrow, in London, the money expended on whose
+guzzlings in porter, grog and wine, would keep, and keep well, in the
+country, a considerable part of the year, a wife surrounded by healthy
+children, instead of being stewed up in some alley, or back room, with a
+parcel of poor creatures about her, whom she, though their fond mother,
+is almost ashamed to call hers! Compared with the life of such a woman,
+that of the labourer, however poor, is paradise. Tell me not of the
+necessity of _providing money for them_, even if you waste not a
+farthing: you can provide them with no money equal in value to health
+and straight limbs and good looks: these it is, if within your power,
+your _bounden duty_ to provide for them: as to providing them with
+money, you deceive yourself; it is your own avarice, or vanity, that you
+are seeking to gratify, and not to ensure the good of your children.
+Their most precious possession is _health_ and _strength_; and you have
+_no right_ to run the risk of depriving them of these for the sake of
+heaping together money to bestow on them: you have the desire to see
+them rich: it is to gratify _yourself_ that you act in such a case; and
+you, however you may deceive yourself, are guilty of _injustice_ towards
+them. You would be ashamed to see them _without fortune_; but not at all
+ashamed to see them without straight limbs, without colour in their
+cheeks, without strength, without activity, and with only half their due
+portion of reason.
+
+280. Besides _sweet air_, children want _exercise_. Even when they are
+babies in arms, they want tossing and pulling about, and want talking
+and singing to. They should be put upon their feet by slow degrees,
+according to the strength of their legs; and this is a matter which a
+good mother will attend to with incessant care. If they appear to be
+likely to _squint_, she will, always when they wake up, and frequently
+in the day, take care to present some pleasing object _right before_,
+and _never on the side_ of their face. If they appear, when they begin
+to talk, to indicate a propensity to _stammer_, she will stop them,
+repeat the word or words slowly herself, and get them to do the same.
+These precautions are amongst the most sacred of the duties of parents;
+for, remember, the deformity is _for life_; a thought which will fill
+every good parent's heart with solicitude. All _swaddling_ and _tight
+covering_ are mischievous. They produce distortions of some sort or
+other. To let children creep and roll about till they get upon their
+legs of themselves is a very good way. I never saw a _native American_
+with crooked limbs or hump-back, and never heard any man say that he had
+seen one. And the reason is, doubtless, the loose dress in which
+children, from the moment of their birth, are kept, the good food that
+they always have, and the sweet air that they breathe in consequence of
+the absence of all dread of poverty on the part of the parents.
+
+281. As to bodily exercise, they will, when they begin to get about,
+take, if you let them alone, just as much of it as nature bids them, and
+no more. That is a pretty deal, indeed, if they be in health; and, it is
+your duty, now, to provide for their taking of that exercise, when they
+begin to be what are called _boys_ and _girls_, in a way that shall tend
+to give them the greatest degree of pleasure, accompanied with the
+smallest risk of pain: in other words, to _make their lives as pleasant
+as you possibly can_. I have always admired the sentiment of ROUSSEAU
+upon this subject. 'The boy dies, perhaps, at the age of ten or twelve.
+Of what _use_, then, all the restraints, all the privations, all the
+pain, that you have inflicted upon him? He falls, and leaves your mind
+to brood over the possibility of your having abridged a life so dear to
+you.' I do not recollect the very words; but the passage made a deep
+impression upon my mind, just at the time, too, when I was about to
+become a father; and I was resolved never to bring upon myself remorse
+from such a cause; a resolution from which no importunities, coming from
+what quarter they might, ever induced me, in one single instance, or for
+one single moment, to depart. I was resolved to forego all the means of
+making money, all the means of living in any thing like fashion, all the
+means of obtaining fame or distinction, to give up every thing, to
+become a common labourer, rather than make my children lead a life of
+restraint and rebuke; I could not be _sure_ that my children would love
+me as they loved their own lives; but I was, at any rate, resolved to
+deserve such love at their hands; and, in possession of that, I felt
+that I could set calamity, of whatever description, at defiance.
+
+282. Now, proceeding to relate what was, in this respect, my line of
+conduct, I am not pretending that _every_ man, and particularly every
+man living in _a town_, can, in all respects, do as I did in the rearing
+up of children. But, in many respects, any man may, whatever may be his
+state of life. For I did not lead an idle life; I had to work constantly
+for the means of living; my occupation required unremitted attention; I
+had nothing but my labour to rely on; and I had no friend, to whom, in
+case of need, I could fly for assistance: I always saw the possibility,
+and even the probability, of being totally ruined by the hand of power;
+but, happen what would, I was resolved, that, as long as I could cause
+them to do it, my children should lead happy lives; and happy lives they
+did lead, if ever children did in this whole world.
+
+283. The first thing that I did, when the fourth child had come, was to
+_get into the country_, and so far as to render a going backward and
+forward to London, at short intervals, quite out of the question. Thus
+was _health_, the greatest of all things, provided for, as far as I was
+able to make the provision. Next, my being _always at home_ was secured
+as far as possible; always with them to set an example of early rising,
+sobriety, and application to something or other. Children, and
+especially boys, will have some out-of-door pursuits; and it was my duty
+to lead them to choose such pursuits as combined future utility with
+present innocence. Each his flower-bed, little garden, plantation of
+trees; rabbits, dogs, asses, horses, pheasants and hares; hoes, spades,
+whips, guns; always some object of lively interest, and as much
+_earnestness_ and _bustle_ about the various objects as if our living
+had solely depended upon them. I made everything give way to the great
+object of making their lives happy and innocent. I did not know what
+they might be in time, or what might be my lot; but I was resolved not
+to be the cause of their being unhappy _then_, let what might become of
+us afterwards. I was, as I am, of opinion, that it is injurious to the
+mind to press _book-learning_ upon it at an _early age_: I always felt
+pain for poor little things, set up, before 'company,' to repeat verses,
+or bits of plays, at six or eight years old. I have sometimes not known
+which way to look, when a mother (and, too often, a father), whom I
+could not but respect on account of her fondness for her child, has
+forced the feeble-voiced eighth wonder of the world, to stand with its
+little hand stretched out, spouting the _soliloquy of Hamlet_, or some
+such thing. I remember, on one occasion, a little pale-faced creature,
+only five years old, was brought in, after the _feeding_ part of the
+dinner was over, first to take his regular half-glass of vintner's
+brewings, commonly called wine, and then to treat us to a display of his
+wonderful genius. The subject was a speech of a robust and bold youth,
+in a Scotch play, the title of which I have forgotten, but the speech
+began with, 'My name is Norval: on the Grampian Hills my father fed his
+flocks...' And this in a voice so weak and distressing as to put me in
+mind of the plaintive squeaking of little pigs when the sow is lying on
+them. As we were going home (one of my boys and I) he, after a silence
+of half a mile perhaps, rode up close to the side of my horse, and said,
+'Papa, where _be_ the _Grampian Hills_?' 'Oh,' said I, 'they are in
+Scotland; poor, barren, beggarly places, covered with heath and rushes,
+ten times as barren as Sherril Heath.' 'But,' said he, 'how could that
+little boy's father feed _his flocks_ there, then?' I was ready to
+tumble off the horse with laughing.
+
+284. I do not know any thing much more distressing to the spectators
+than exhibitions of this sort. Every one feels, not for the child, for
+it is insensible to the uneasiness it excites, but for the parents,
+whose amiable fondness displays itself in this ridiculous manner. Upon
+these occasions, no one knows what to say, or whither to direct his
+looks. The parents, and especially the fond mother, looks sharply round
+for the so-evidently merited applause, as an actor of the name of
+MUNDEN, whom I recollect thirty years ago, used, when he had treated us
+to a witty shrug of his shoulders, or twist of his chin, to turn his
+face up to the gallery for the clap. If I had to declare on my oath
+which have been the most disagreeable moments of my life, I verily
+believe, that, after due consideration, I should fix upon those, in
+which parents, whom I have respected, have made me endure exhibitions
+like these; for, this is your choice, to be _insincere_, or to _give
+offence_.
+
+285. And, as towards the child, it is to be _unjust_, thus to teach it
+to set a high value on trifling, not to say mischievous, attainments; to
+make it, whether it be in its natural disposition or not, vain and
+conceited. The plaudits which it receives, in such cases, puffs it up in
+its own thoughts, sends it out into the world stuffed with pride and
+insolence, which must and will be extracted out of it by one means or
+another; and none but those who have had to endure the drawing of
+firmly-fixed teeth, can, I take it, have an adequate idea of the
+painfulness of this operation. Now, parents have _no right_ thus to
+indulge their own feelings at the risk of the happiness of their
+children.
+
+286. The great matter is, however, the _spoiling of the mind_ by forcing
+on it thoughts which it is not fit to receive. We know well, we daily
+see, that in men, as well as in other animals, the body is rendered
+comparatively small and feeble by being heavily loaded, or hard worked,
+before it arrive at size and strength proportioned to such load and such
+work. It is just so with the mind: the attempt to put old heads upon
+young shoulders is just as unreasonable as it would be to expect a colt
+six months old to be able to carry a man. The mind, as well as the body,
+requires time to come to its strength; and the way to have it possess,
+at last, its natural strength, is not to attempt to load it too soon;
+and to favour it in its progress by giving to the body good and
+plentiful food, sweet air, and abundant exercise, accompanied with as
+little discontent or uneasiness as possible. It is universally known,
+that ailments of the body are, in many cases, sufficient to _destroy_
+the mind, and to debilitate it in innumerable instances. It is equally
+well known, that the torments of the mind are, in many cases, sufficient
+to _destroy_ the body. This, then, being so well known, is it not the
+first duty of a father to secure to his children, if possible, sound and
+strong bodies? LORD BACON says, that 'a sound mind in a sound body is
+the greatest of God's blessings.' To see his children possess these,
+therefore, ought to be the first object with every father; an object
+which I cannot too often endeavour to fix in his mind.
+
+287. I am to speak presently of that sort of _learning_ which is derived
+from _books_, and which is a matter by no means to be neglected, or to
+be thought little of, seeing that it is the road, not only to fame, but
+to the means of doing great good to one's neighbours and to one's
+country, and, thereby, of adding to those pleasant feelings which are,
+in other words, our happiness. But, notwithstanding this, I must here
+insist, and endeavour to impress my opinion upon the mind of every
+father, that his children's _happiness_ ought to be _first_ object; that
+_book-learning_, if it tend to militate against this, ought to be
+disregarded; and that, as to money, as to fortune, as to rank and title,
+that father who can, in the destination of his children, think of them
+more than of the _happiness_ of those children, is, if he be of sane
+mind, a great criminal. Who is there, having lived to the age of thirty,
+or even twenty, years, and having the ordinary capacity for observation;
+who is there, being of this description, who must not be convinced of
+the inadequacy of _riches_ and what are called _honours_ to insure
+_happiness_? Who, amongst all the classes of men, experience, on an
+average, so little of _real_ pleasure, and so much of _real_ pain as the
+rich and the lofty? Pope gives us, as the materials for happiness,
+'_health_, _peace_, and _competence_.' Aye, but what _is_ peace, and
+what _is_ competence? If, by _peace_, he mean that tranquillity of mind
+which innocence and good deeds produce, he is right and clear so far;
+for we all know that, without _health_, which has a well-known positive
+meaning, there can be no happiness. But _competence_ is a word of
+unfixed meaning. It may, with some, mean enough to eat, drink, wear and
+be lodged and warmed with; but, with others, it may include horses,
+carriages, and footmen laced over from top to toe. So that, here, we
+have no guide; no standard; and, indeed, there can be none. But as every
+sensible father must know that the possession of riches do not, never
+did, and never can, afford even a chance of additional happiness, it is
+his duty to inculcate in the minds of his children to make no sacrifice
+of principle, of moral obligation of any sort, in order to obtain
+riches, or distinction; and it is a duty still more imperative on him,
+not to expose them to the risk of loss of health, or diminution of
+strength, for purposes which have, either directly or indirectly, the
+acquiring of riches in view, whether for himself or for them.
+
+288. With these principles immoveably implanted in my mind, I became the
+father of a family, and on these principles I have reared that family.
+Being myself fond of _book-learning_, and knowing well its powers, I
+naturally wished them to possess it too; but never did I _impose it_
+upon any one of them. My first duty was to make them _healthy_ and
+_strong_ if I could, and to give them as much enjoyment of life as
+possible. Born and bred up in the sweet air myself, I was resolved that
+they should be bred up in it too. Enjoying rural scenes and sports, as I
+had done, when a boy, as much as any one that ever was born, I was
+resolved, that they should have the same enjoyments tendered to them.
+When I was a very little boy, I was, in the barley-sowing season, going
+along by the side of a field, near WAVERLY ABBEY; the primroses and
+blue-bells bespangling the banks on both sides of me; a thousand linnets
+singing in a spreading oak over my head; while the jingle of the traces
+and the whistling of the ploughboys saluted my ear from over the hedge;
+and, as it were to snatch me from the enchantment, the hounds, at that
+instant, having started a hare in the hanger on the other side of the
+field, came up scampering over it in full cry, taking me after them many
+a mile. I was not more than eight years old; but this particular scene
+has presented itself to my mind many times every year from that day to
+this. I always enjoy it over again; and I was resolved to give, if
+possible, the same enjoyments to my children.
+
+289. Men's circumstances are so various; there is such a great variety
+in their situations in life, their business, the extent of their
+pecuniary means, the local state in which they are placed, their
+internal resources; the variety in all these respects is so great, that,
+as applicable to _every_ family, it would be impossible to lay down any
+set of rules, or maxims, touching _every_ matter relating to the
+management and rearing up of children. In giving an account, therefore,
+of _my own_ conduct, in this respect, I am not to be understood as
+supposing, that _every_ father _can_, or ought, to attempt to do _the
+same_; but while it will be seen, that there are _many_, and these the
+most important parts of that conduct, that _all_ fathers may imitate, if
+they choose, there is no part of it which thousands and thousands of
+fathers might not adopt and pursue, and adhere to, to the very letter.
+
+290. I effected every thing without scolding, and even without
+_command_. My children are a family of _scholars_, each sex its
+appropriate species of learning; and, I could safely take my oath, that
+I never _ordered_ a child of mine, son or daughter, _to look into a
+book_, in my life. My two eldest sons, when about eight years old, were,
+for the sake of their health, placed for a very short time, at a
+Clergyman's at MICHELDEVER, and my eldest daughter, a little older, at a
+school a few miles from Botley, to avoid taking them to London in the
+winter. But, with these exceptions, never had they, while children,
+_teacher_ of any description; and I never, and nobody else ever, taught
+any one of them to read, write, or any thing else, except in
+_conversation_; and, yet, no man was ever more anxious to be the father
+of a family of clever and learned persons.
+
+291. I accomplished my purpose _indirectly_. The first thing of all was
+_health_, which was secured by the deeply-interesting and never-ending
+_sports of the field_ and _pleasures of the garden_. Luckily these
+things were treated of in _books_ and _pictures_ of endless variety; so
+that on _wet days_, in _long evenings_, these came into play. A large,
+strong table, in the middle of the room, their mother sitting at her
+work, used to be surrounded with them, the baby, if big enough, set up
+in a high chair. Here were ink-stands, pens, pencils, India rubber, and
+paper, all in abundance, and every one scrabbled about as he or she
+pleased. There were prints of animals of all sorts; books treating of
+them: others treating of gardening, of flowers, of husbandry, of
+hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing, planting, and, in short, of every
+thing, with regard to which _we had something to do_. One would be
+trying to imitate a bit of my writing, another _drawing_ the pictures of
+some of our dogs or horses, a third poking over _Bewick's Quadrupeds_
+and picking out what he said about them; but our book of never-failing
+resource was the _French_ MAISON RUSTIQUE, or FARM-HOUSE, which, it is
+said, was the book that first tempted DUQUESNOIS (I think that was the
+name), the famous physician, in the reign of Louis XIV., _to learn to
+read_. Here are all the _four-legged animals_, from the horse down to
+the mouse, _portraits_ and all; all the _birds_, _reptiles_, _insects_;
+all the modes of rearing, managing, and using the tame ones; all the
+modes of taking the wild ones, and of destroying those that are
+mischievous; all the various traps, springs, nets; all the implements of
+husbandry and gardening; all the labours of the field and the garden
+exhibited, as well as the rest, in plates; and, there was I, in my
+leisure moments, to join this inquisitive group, to read the _French_,
+and tell them what it meaned in _English_, when the picture did not
+sufficiently explain itself. I never have been without a copy of this
+book for forty years, except during the time that I was fleeing from the
+dungeons of CASTLEREAGH and SIDMOUTH, in 1817; and, when I got to Long
+Island, the _first book I bought_ was another MAISON RUSTIQUE.
+
+292. What need had we of _schools_? What need of _teachers_? What need
+of _scolding_ and _force_, to induce children to read, write, and love
+books? What need of _cards, dice_, or of any _games_, to '_kill time_;'
+but, in fact, to implant in the infant heart a love of _gaming_, one of
+the most destructive of all human vices? We did not want to _'kill
+time_;' we were always _busy_, wet weather or dry weather, winter or
+summer. There was _no force_ in any case; no _command_; no _authority_;
+none of these was ever wanted. To teach the children the habit of _early
+rising_ was a great object; and every one knows how young people cling
+to their beds, and how loth they are to go to those beds. This was a
+capital matter; because, here were _industry_ and _health_ both at
+stake. Yet, I avoided _command_ even here; and merely offered a
+_reward_. The child that was _down stairs_ first, was called the LARK
+_for that day_; and, further, _sat at my right hand at dinner_. They
+soon discovered, that to rise early, they must _go to bed early_; and
+thus was this most important object secured, with regard to girls as
+well as boys. Nothing more inconvenient, and, indeed, more disgusting,
+than to have to do with girls, or young women, who lounge in bed: 'A
+little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the
+hands to sleep.' SOLOMON knew them well: he had, I dare say, seen the
+breakfast cooling, carriages and horses and servants waiting, the sun
+coming burning on, the day wasting, the night growing dark too early,
+appointments broken, and the objects of journeys defeated; and all this
+from the lolloping in bed of persons who ought to have risen with the
+sun. No beauty, no modesty, no accomplishments, are a compensation for
+the effects of laziness in women; and, of all the proofs of laziness,
+none is so unequivocal as that of lying late in bed. Love makes men
+overlook this vice (for it is a _vice_), for _a while_; but, this does
+not last for life. Besides, _health_ demands early rising: the
+management of a house imperiously demands it; but _health_, that most
+precious possession, without which there is nothing else worth
+possessing, demands it too. The _morning air_ is the most wholesome and
+strengthening: even in crowded cities, men might do pretty well with the
+aid of the morning air; but, how are they to _rise_ early, if they go to
+bed _late_?
+
+293. But, to do the things I did, you must _love home_ yourself; to rear
+up children in this manner, you must _live with them_; you must make
+them, too, _feel_, by your conduct, that you _prefer_ this to any other
+mode of passing your time. All men cannot lead this sort of life, but
+many may; and all much more than many do. My occupation, to be sure, was
+chiefly carried on _at home_; but, I had always enough to do; I never
+spent an idle week, or even day, in my whole life. Yet I found time to
+talk with them, to walk, or ride, about _with them_; and when forced to
+go from home, always took one or more with me. You must be good-tempered
+too with them; they must like _your_ company better than any other
+person's; they must not wish you away, not fear your coming back, not
+look upon your departure as a _holiday_. When my business kept me away
+from the _scrabbling_-table, a petition often came, that I would go and
+_talk_ with the group, and the bearer generally was the youngest, being
+the most likely to succeed. When I went from home, all followed me to
+the outer-gate, and looked after me, till the carriage, or horse, was
+out of sight. At the time appointed for my return, all were prepared to
+meet me; and if it were late at night, they sat up as long as they were
+able to keep their eyes open. This love of parents, and this constant
+pleasure _at home_, made them not even think of seeking pleasure abroad;
+and they, thus, were kept from vicious playmates and early corruption.
+
+294. This is the age, too, to teach children to be _trust-worthy_, and
+to be _merciful_ and _humane_. We lived _in a garden_ of about two
+acres, partly kitchen-garden with walls, partly shrubbery and trees, and
+partly grass. There were the _peaches_, as tempting as any that ever
+grew, and yet as safe from fingers as if no child were ever in the
+garden. It was not necessary to _forbid_. The blackbirds, the thrushes,
+the whitethroats, and even that very shy bird the goldfinch, had their
+nests and bred up their young-ones, in great abundance, all about this
+little spot, constantly the play-place of six children; and one of the
+latter had its nest, and brought up its young-ones, in a
+_raspberry-bush_, within two yards of a walk, and at the time that we
+were gathering the ripe raspberries. We give _dogs_, and justly, great
+credit for sagacity and memory; but the following two most curious
+instances, which I should not venture to state, if there were not so
+many witnesses to the facts, in my neighbours at Botley, as well as in
+my own family, will show, that _birds_ are not, in this respect,
+inferior to the canine race. All country people know that the _skylark_
+is a very shy bird; that its abode is the open fields: that it settles
+on the ground only; that it seeks safety in the wideness of space; that
+it avoids enclosures, and is never seen in gardens. A part of our ground
+was a grass-plat of about _forty rods_, or a quarter of an acre, which,
+one year, was left to be mowed for hay. A pair of larks, coming out of
+the fields into the middle of a pretty populous village, chose to make
+their nest in the middle of this little spot, and at not more than about
+_thirty-five yards_ from one of the doors of the house, in which there
+were about twelve persons living, and six of those children, who had
+constant access to all parts of the ground. There we saw the cock rising
+up and singing, then taking his turn upon the eggs; and by-and-by, we
+observed him cease to sing, and saw them both _constantly engaged in
+bringing food to the young ones_. No unintelligible hint to fathers and
+mothers of the human race, who have, before marriage, taken delight in
+_music_. But the time came for _mowing the grass_! I waited a good many
+days for the brood to get away; but, at last, I determined on the day;
+and if the larks were there still, to leave a patch of grass standing
+round them. In order not to keep them in dread longer than necessary, I
+brought three able mowers, who would cut the whole in about an hour; and
+as the plat was nearly circular, set them to mow _round_, beginning at
+the outside. And now for sagacity indeed! The moment the men began to
+whet their scythes, the two old larks began to flutter over the nest,
+and to make a great clamour. When the men began to mow, they flew round
+and round, stooping so low, when near the men, as almost to touch their
+bodies, making a great chattering at the same time; but before the men
+had got round with the second swarth, they flew to the nest, and away
+they went, young ones and all, across the river, at the foot of the
+ground, and settled in the long grass in my neighbour's orchard.
+
+295. The other instance relates to a HOUSE-MARTEN. It is well known that
+these birds build their nests under the eaves of inhabited houses, and
+sometimes under those of door porches; but we had one that built its
+nest _in the house_, and upon the top of a common doorcase, the door of
+which opened into a room out of the main passage into the house.
+Perceiving the marten had begun to build its nest here, we kept the
+front-door open in the daytime; but were obliged to fasten it at night.
+It went on, had eggs, young ones, and the young ones flew. I used to
+open the door in the morning early, and then the birds carried on their
+affairs till night. The next _year_ the MARTEN came again, and had
+_another brood in the same place_. It found its _old nest_; and having
+repaired it, and put it in order, went on again in the former way; and
+it would, I dare say, have continued to come to the end of its life, if
+we had remained there so long, notwithstanding there were six healthy
+children in the house, making just as much noise as they pleased.
+
+296. Now, what _sagacity_ in these birds, to discover that those were
+places of safety! And how happy must it have made us, the parents, to be
+_sure_ that our children had thus deeply imbibed habits the contrary of
+cruelty! For, be it engraven on your heart, YOUNG MAN, that, whatever
+appearances may say to the contrary, _cruelty_ is always accompanied
+with _cowardice_, and also with _perfidy_, when that is called for by
+the circumstances of the case; and that _habitual_ acts of cruelty to
+other creatures, will, nine times out of ten, produce, when the power is
+possessed, cruelty to human beings. The ill-usage of _horses_, and
+particularly _asses_, is a grave and a just charge against this nation.
+No other nation on earth is guilty of it to the same extent. Not only by
+_blows_, but by privation, are we cruel towards these useful, docile,
+and patient creatures; and especially towards the last, which is the
+most docile and patient and laborious of the two, while the food that
+satisfies it, is of the coarsest and least costly kind, and in quantity
+so small! In the habitual ill-treatment of this animal, which, in
+addition to all its labours, has the milk taken from its young ones to
+administer a remedy for our ailments, there is something that bespeaks
+_ingratitude_ hardly to be described. In a REGISTER that I wrote from
+Long Island, I said, that amongst all the things of which I had been
+bereft, I regretted no one so much as a very diminutive _mare_, on which
+my children had all, in succession, learned to ride. She was become
+useless for them, and, indeed, for any other purpose; but the
+recollection of her was so entwined with so many past circumstances,
+which, at that distance, my mind conjured up, that I really was very
+uneasy, lest she should fall into cruel hands. By good luck, she was,
+after a while, turned out on the wide world to shift for herself; and
+when we got back, and had a place for her to _stand_ in, from her native
+forest we brought her to Kensington, and she is now at Barn-Elm, about
+twenty-six years old, and I dare say, as fat as a mole. Now, not only
+have I no moral _right_ (considering my ability to pay for keep) to
+deprive her of life; but it would be _unjust_ and _ungrateful_, in me to
+withhold from her sufficient food and lodging to make life as pleasant
+as possible while that life last.
+
+297. In the meanwhile the book-learning _crept in_ of its own accord, by
+imperceptible degrees. Children naturally want to be _like_ their
+parents, and _to do what they do_: the boys following their father, and
+the girls their mother; and as I was always _writing_ or _reading_, mine
+naturally desired to do something in the same way. But, at the same
+time, they heard no talk from _fools_ or _drinkers_; saw me with no
+idle, gabbling, empty companions; saw no vain and affected coxcombs, and
+no tawdry and extravagant women; saw no nasty gormandizing; and heard no
+gabble about play-houses and romances and the other nonsense that fit
+boys to be lobby-loungers, and girls to be the ruin of industrious and
+frugal young men.
+
+298. We wanted no stimulants of this sort to _keep up our spirits_: our
+various pleasing pursuits were quite sufficient for that; and the
+_book-learning_ came amongst the rest of the pleasures, to which it was,
+in some sort, necessary. I remember that, one year, I raised a
+prodigious crop of fine _melons_, under hand-glasses; and I learned how
+to do it from a gardening _book_; or, at least, that book was necessary
+to remind me of the details. Having passed part of an evening in talking
+to the boys about getting this crop, 'Come,' said I, 'now, let us _read
+the book_.' Then the book came forth, and to work we went, following
+very strictly the precepts of the book. I read the thing but once, but
+the eldest boy read it, perhaps, twenty times over; and explained all
+about the matter to the others. Why here was a _motive_! Then he had to
+tell the garden-labourer _what to do_ to the melons. Now, I will engage,
+that more was really _learned_ by this single _lesson_, than would have
+been learned by spending, at this son's age, a year at school; and he
+_happy_ and _delighted_ all the while. When any dispute arose amongst
+them about hunting or shooting, or any other of their pursuits, they, by
+degrees, found out the way of settling it by reference to some book; and
+when any difficulty occurred, as to the meaning, they referred to me,
+who, if at home, _always instantly attended to them_, in these matters.
+
+299. They began writing by taking words out of _printed books_; finding
+out which letter was which, by asking me, or asking those who knew the
+letters one from another; and by imitating bits of my writing, it is
+surprising how soon they began to write a hand like mine, very small,
+very faint-stroked, and nearly plain as print. The first use that any
+one of them made of the pen, was to _write to me_, though in the same
+house with them. They began doing this in mere _scratches_, before they
+knew how to make any one letter; and as I was always folding up letters
+and directing them, so were they; and they were _sure_ to receive a
+_prompt answer_, with most _encouraging_ compliments. All the meddlings
+and teazings of friends, and, what was more serious, the pressing
+prayers of their anxious mother, about sending them to _school_, I
+withstood without the slightest effect on my resolution. As to friends,
+preferring my own judgment to theirs, I did not care much; but an
+expression of anxiety, implying a doubt of the soundness of my own
+judgment, coming, perhaps, twenty times a day from her whose care they
+were as well as mine, was not a matter to smile at, and very great
+trouble it did give me. My answer at last was, as to the boys, I want
+them to be _like me_; and as to the girls, In whose hands can they be so
+safe as in _yours_? Therefore my resolution is taken: _go to school they
+shall not_.
+
+300. Nothing is much more annoying than the _intermeddling of friends_,
+in a case like this. The wife appeals _to them_, and '_good breeding_,'
+that is to say, _nonsense_, is sure to put them on _her side_. Then,
+they, particularly the _women_, when describing the _surprising
+progress_ made by their _own sons_ at school, used, if one of mine were
+present, to turn to him, and ask, to what school _he went_, and what
+_he_ was _learning_? I leave any one to judge of _his_ opinion of her;
+and whether _he_ would like her the better for that! 'Bless me, so tall,
+and _not learned_ any thing _yet_!' 'Oh yes, he has,' I used to say, 'he
+has learned to ride, and hunt, and shoot, and fish, and look after
+cattle and sheep, and to work in the garden, and to feed his dogs, and
+to go from village to village in the dark.' This was the way I used to
+manage with troublesome customers of this sort. And how glad the
+children used to be, when they got clear of such criticising people! And
+how grateful they felt to me for the _protection_ which they saw that I
+gave them against that state of restraint, of which other people's boys
+complained! Go whither they might, they found no place so pleasant as
+home, and no soul that came near them affording them so many means of
+gratification as they received from me.
+
+301. In this happy state we lived, until the year 1810, when the
+government laid its merciless fangs upon me, dragged me from these
+delights, and _crammed me into a jail amongst felons_; of which I shall
+have to speak more fully, when, in the last Number, I come to speak of
+the duties of THE CITIZEN. This added to the difficulties of my task of
+_teaching_; for now I was snatched away from the _only_ scene in which
+it could, as I thought, properly be executed. But even these
+difficulties were got over. The blow was, to be sure, a terrible one;
+and, oh God! how was it felt by these poor children! It was in the month
+of July when the horrible sentence was passed upon me. My wife, having
+left her children in the care of her good and affectionate sister, was
+in London, waiting to know the doom of her husband. When the news
+arrived at Botley, the three boys, one eleven, another nine, and the
+other seven, years old, were hoeing cabbages in that garden which had
+been the source of so much delight. When the account of the savage
+sentence was brought to them, the youngest could not, for some time, be
+made to understand what a _jail_ was; and, when he did, he, all in a
+tremor, exclaimed, 'Now I'm sure, William, that PAPA is not in a place
+_like that_!' The other, in order to disguise his tears and smother his
+sobs, fell to work with the hoe, and _chopped about like a blind
+person_. This account, when it reached me, affected me more, filled me
+with deeper resentment, than any other circumstance. And, oh! how I
+despise the wretches who talk of my _vindictiveness_; of my _exultation_
+at the confusion of those who inflicted those sufferings! How I despise
+the base creatures, the crawling slaves, the callous and cowardly
+hypocrites, who affect to be '_shocked_' (tender souls!) at my
+expressions of _joy_, and at the death of Gibbs, Ellenborough, Perceval,
+Liverpool, Canning, and the rest of the tribe that I have already seen
+out, and at the fatal workings of _that system_, for endeavouring to
+check which I was thus punished! How I despise these wretches, and how
+I, above all things, enjoy their ruin, and anticipate their utter
+beggary! What! I am to forgive, am I, injuries like this; and that, too,
+without any _atonement_? Oh, no! I have not so read the Holy Scriptures;
+I have not, from them, learned that I am not to rejoice at the fall of
+unjust foes; and it makes a part of my happiness to be able _to tell
+millions of men_ that I do thus rejoice, and that I have the means of
+calling on so many just and merciful men to rejoice along with me.
+
+302. Now, then, the _book-learning_ was _forced_ upon us. I had a _farm_
+in hand. It was necessary that I should be constantly informed of what
+was doing. I gave _all the orders_, whether as to purchases, sales,
+ploughing, sowing, breeding; in short, with regard to every thing, and
+the things were endless in number and variety, and always full of
+interest. My eldest son and daughter could now write well and fast. One
+or the other of these was always at Botley; and I had with me (having
+hired the best part of the keeper's house) one or two, besides either
+this brother or sister; the mother coming up to town about once in two
+or three months, leaving the house and children in the care of her
+sister. We had a HAMPER, with a lock and two keys, which came up once a
+week, or oftener, bringing me fruit and all sorts of country fare, for
+the carriage of which, cost free, I was indebted to as good a man as
+ever God created, the late Mr. GEORGE ROGERS, of Southampton, who, in
+the prime of life, died deeply lamented by thousands, but by none more
+deeply than by me and my family, who have to thank him, and the whole of
+his excellent family, for benefits and marks of kindness without number.
+
+303. This HAMPER, which was always, at both ends of the line, looked for
+with the most lively feelings, became our _school_. It brought me _a
+journal_ of _labours_, _proceedings_, and _occurrences_, written on
+paper of shape and size uniform, and so contrived, as to margins, as to
+admit of binding. The journal used, when my son was the writer, to be
+interspersed with drawings of our dogs, colts, or any thing that he
+wanted me to have a correct idea of. The hamper brought me plants,
+bulbs, and the like, that I might _see_ the size of them; and always
+every one sent his or her _most beautiful flowers_; the earliest
+violets, and primroses, and cowslips, and blue-bells; the earliest twigs
+of trees; and, in short, every thing that they thought calculated to
+delight me. The moment the hamper arrived, I, casting aside every thing
+else, set to work to answer _every question_, to give new directions,
+and to add anything likely to give pleasure at Botley. _Every_ hamper
+brought one '_letter_,' as they called it, if not more, from every
+child; and to _every_ letter I wrote _an answer_, sealed up and sent to
+the party, being sure that that was the way to produce other and better
+letters; for, though they could not read what I wrote, and though their
+own consisted at first of mere _scratches_, and afterwards, for a while,
+of a few words written down for them to imitate, I always thanked them
+for their '_pretty letter_'; and never expressed any wish to see them
+_write better_; but took care to write in a very neat and plain hand
+_myself_, and to do up my letter in a very neat manner.
+
+304. Thus, while the ferocious tigers thought I was doomed to incessant
+mortification, and to rage that must extinguish my mental powers, I
+found in my children, and in their spotless and courageous and most
+affectionate mother, delights to which the callous hearts of those
+tigers were strangers. 'Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's
+aid.' How often did this line of Pope occur to me when I opened the
+little _spuddling_ 'letters' from Botley! This correspondence occupied a
+good part of my time: I had all the children with me, turn and turn
+about; and, in order to give the boys exercise, and to give the two
+eldest an opportunity of beginning to learn French, I used, for a part
+of the two years, to send them a few hours in the day to an ABBE, who
+lived in Castle-street, Holborn. All this was a great relaxation to my
+mind; and, when I had to return to my literary labours, I returned
+_fresh_ and cheerful, full of vigour, and _full of hope_, of finally
+seeing my unjust and merciless foes at my feet, and that, too, without
+caring a straw on whom their fall might bring calamity, so that my own
+family were safe; because, say what any one might, the _community, taken
+as a whole_, had _suffered this thing to be done unto us_.
+
+305. The paying of the work-people, the keeping of the accounts, the
+referring to books, the writing and reading of letters; this everlasting
+mixture of amusement with book-learning, made me, almost to my own
+surprise, find, at the end of the two years, that I had a parcel of
+_scholars_ growing up about me; and, long before the end of the time, I
+had _dictated many Registers_ to my two eldest children. Then, there was
+_copying_ out of books, which taught _spelling correctly_. The
+calculations about the farming affairs forced arithmetic upon us: the
+_use_, the _necessity_, of the thing, led to the study. By-and-by, we
+had to look into the _laws_ to know what to do about the _highways_,
+about the _game_, about the _poor_, and all rural and _parochial_
+affairs. I was, indeed, by the fangs of the government, defeated in my
+fondly-cherished project of making my sons farmers on their own land,
+and keeping them from all temptation to seek vicious and enervating
+enjoyments; but those fangs, merciless as they had been, had not been
+able to prevent me from laying in for their lives a store of useful
+information, habits of industry, care, sobriety, and a taste for
+innocent, healthful, and manly pleasures: the fangs had made me and them
+pennyless; but, they had not been able to take from us our health or our
+mental possessions; and these were ready for application as
+circumstances might ordain.
+
+306. After the age that I have now been speaking of, _fourteen_, I
+suppose every one _became_ a reader and writer according to fancy. As to
+_books_, with the exception of the _Poets_, I never bought, in my whole
+life, any one that I did not _want_ for some purpose of _utility_, and
+of _practical utility_ too. I have two or three times had the whole
+collection snatched away from me; and have begun again to get them
+together as they were wanted. Go and kick an ANT's nest about, and you
+will see the little laborious, courageous creatures _instantly_ set to
+work to get it together again; and if you do this ten times over, ten
+times over they will do the same. Here is the sort of stuff that men
+must be made of to oppose, with success, those who, by whatever means,
+get possession of great and mischievous power.
+
+307. Now, I am aware, that that which _I did_, cannot be done by every
+one of hundreds of thousands of fathers, each of whom loves his children
+with all his soul: I am aware that the attorney, the surgeon, the
+physician, the trader, and even the farmer, cannot, generally speaking,
+do what I did, and that they must, in most cases, send their _sons_ to
+school, if it be necessary for them to have _book-learning_. But while I
+say this, I know, that there are _many things_, which I did, which many
+fathers might do, and which, nevertheless, _they do not do_. It is in
+the power of _every father_ to live _at home with his family_, when not
+_compelled_ by business, or by public duty, to be absent: it is in his
+power to set an example of industry and sobriety and frugality, and to
+prevent a taste for gaming, dissipation, extravagance, from getting root
+in the minds of his children: it is in his power to continue to make his
+children _hearers_, when he is reproving servants for idleness, or
+commending them for industry and care: it is in his power to keep all
+dissolute and idly-talking companions from his house: it is in his power
+to teach them, by his uniform example, justice and mercy towards the
+inferior animals: it is in his power to do many other things, and
+something in the way of book-learning too, however busy his life may be.
+It is completely within his power to teach them early-rising and early
+going to bed; and, if many a man, who says that he has _not time_ to
+teach his children, were to sit down, in _sincerity_, with a pen and a
+bit of paper, and put down all the minutes, which he, in every
+twenty-four hours, _wastes_ over the _bottle_, or over _cheese_ and
+_oranges_ and _raisins_ and _biscuits_, _after_ he has _dined_; how many
+he lounges away, either at the coffee-house or at home, over the
+_useless_ part of newspapers; how many he spends in waiting for the
+coming and the managing of the tea-table; how many he passes by
+candle-light, _wearied of his existence_, when he might be in bed; how
+many he passes in the morning in bed, while the sun and dew shine and
+sparkle for him in vain: if he were to put all these together, and were
+to add those which he passes in the _reading of books_ for his mere
+personal _amusement_, and without the smallest chance of acquiring from
+them any _useful_ practical knowledge: if he were to sum up the whole of
+these, and add to them the time worse than wasted in the contemptible
+work of dressing off _his person_, he would be frightened at the result;
+would send for his boys from school; and if greater book-learning than
+he possessed were necessary, he would choose for the purpose some man of
+ability, and see the teaching carried on under his own roof, with safety
+as to morals, and with the best chance as to health.
+
+308. If after all, however, a school must be resorted to, let it, if in
+your power, be as little populous as possible. As 'evil communications
+corrupt good manners,' so the more numerous the assemblage, and the more
+extensive the communication, the greater the chance of corruption.
+_Jails, barracks, factories_, do not corrupt by their _walls_, but by
+their condensed numbers. Populous cities corrupt from the same cause;
+and it is, because _it must be_, the same with regard to schools, out of
+which children come not what they were when they went in. The master is,
+in some sort, their enemy; he is their overlooker; he is a spy upon
+them; his authority is maintained by his absolute power of punishment;
+_the parent commits them to that power_; to be taught is to be held in
+restraint; and, as the sparks fly upwards, the teaching and the
+restraint will not be divided in the estimation of the boy. Besides all
+this, there is the great disadvantage of _tardiness_ in arriving at
+years of discretion. If boys live only with boys, their ideas will
+continue to be boyish; if they see and hear and converse with nobody but
+boys, how are they to have the thoughts and the character of men? It is,
+_at last_, only by hearing _men_ talk and seeing men act, that they
+learn to talk and act like men; and, therefore, to confine them to the
+society of boys, is to _retard_ their arrival at the years of
+discretion; and in case of adverse circumstances in the pecuniary way,
+where, in all the creation, is there so helpless a mortal as a boy who
+has always been at school! But, if, as I said before, a school there
+_must_ be, let the congregation be as small as possible; and, do not
+expect too much from the master; for, if it be irksome to you to teach
+your own sons, what must that teaching be to him? If he have great
+numbers, he must delegate his authority; and, like all other delegated
+authority, it will either be abused or neglected.
+
+309. With regard to _girls_, one would think that _mothers_ would want
+no argument to make them shudder at the thought of committing the care
+of their daughters to other hands than their own. If fortune have so
+favoured them as to make them rationally desirous that their daughters
+should have more of what are called accomplishments _than_ they
+_themselves have_, it has also favoured them with the means of having
+teachers under their own eye. If it have not favoured them so highly as
+this (and it seldom has in the middle rank of life), what duty so sacred
+as that imposed on a mother to be the teacher of her daughters! And is
+she, from love of ease or of pleasure or of any thing else, to neglect
+this duty; is she to commit her daughters to the care of persons, with
+whose manners and morals it is impossible for her to be thoroughly
+acquainted; is she to send them into the promiscuous society of girls,
+who belong to nobody knows whom, and come from nobody knows whither, and
+some of whom, for aught she can know to the contrary, may have been
+corrupted before, and sent thither to be hidden from their former
+circle; is she to send her daughters to be shut up within walls, the
+bare sight of which awaken the idea of intrigue and invite to seduction
+and surrender; is she to leave the health of her daughters to chance, to
+shut them up with a motley bevy of strangers, some of whom, as is
+_frequently_ the case, are proclaimed _bastards_, by the undeniable
+testimony given by the _colour of their skin_; is she to do all this,
+and still put forward pretensions to the authority and the affection due
+to a _mother_! And, are you to permit all this, and still call yourself
+_a father_!
+
+310. Well, then, having resolved to teach your own children, or, to have
+them taught, at home, let us now see how they ought to proceed as to
+_books_ for learning. It is evident, speaking of boys, that, at last,
+they must study the art, or science, that you intend them to pursue; if
+they be to be surgeons, they must read books on surgery; and the like in
+other cases. But, there are certain _elementary_ studies; certain books
+to be used by _all persons_, who are destined to acquire any
+book-learning at all. Then there are departments, or branches of
+knowledge, that every man in the middle rank of life, ought, if he can,
+to acquire, they being, in some sort, necessary to his reputation as a
+_well-informed_ man, a character to which the farmer and the shopkeeper
+ought to aspire as well as the lawyer and the surgeon. Let me now, then,
+offer my advice as to the _course_ of reading, and the _manner_ of
+reading, for a boy, arrived at his _fourteenth_ year, that being, in my
+opinion, early enough for him to begin.
+
+311. And, first of all, whether as to boys or girls, I deprecate
+_romances_ of every description. It is impossible that they can do any
+_good_, and they may do a great deal of harm. They excite passions that
+ought to lie dormant; they give the mind a taste for _highly-seasoned_
+matter; they make matters of real life insipid; every girl, addicted to
+them, sighs to be a SOPHIA WESTERN, and every boy, a TOM JONES. What
+girl is not in love with the _wild_ youth, and what boy does not find a
+justification for his wildness? What can be more pernicious than the
+teachings of this celebrated romance? Here are two young men put before
+us, both sons of the same mother; the one a _bastard_ (and by a parson
+too), the other a _legitimate child_; the former wild, disobedient, and
+squandering; the latter steady, sober, obedient, and frugal; the former
+every thing that is frank and generous in his nature, the latter a
+greedy hypocrite; the former rewarded with the most beautiful and
+virtuous of women and a double estate, the latter punished by being made
+an outcast. How is it possible for young people to read such a book, and
+to look upon orderliness, sobriety, obedience, and frugality, as
+_virtues_? And this is the tenor of almost every romance, and of almost
+every play, in our language. In the 'School for Scandal,' for instance,
+we see two brothers; the one a prudent and frugal man, and, to all
+appearance, a moral man, the other a hair-brained squanderer, laughing
+at the morality of his brother; the former turns out to be a base
+hypocrite and seducer, and is brought to shame and disgrace; while the
+latter is found to be full of generous sentiment, and Heaven itself
+seems to interfere to give him fortune and fame. In short, the direct
+tendency of the far greater part of these books, is, to cause young
+people to despise all those virtues, without the practice of which they
+must be a curse to their parents, a burden to the community, and must,
+except by mere accident, lead wretched lives. I do not recollect one
+romance nor one play, in our language, which has not this tendency. How
+is it possible for young princes to read the historical plays of the
+punning and smutty Shakspeare, and not think, that to be drunkards,
+blackguards, the companions of debauchees and robbers, is the suitable
+beginning of a glorious reign?
+
+312. There is, too, another most abominable principle that runs through
+them all, namely, that there is in _high birth_, something of _superior
+nature_, instinctive courage, honour, and talent. Who can look at the
+two _royal youths_ in CYMBELINE, or at the _noble youth_ in DOUGLAS,
+without detesting the base parasites who wrote those plays? Here are
+youths, brought up by _shepherds_, never told of their origin, believing
+themselves the sons of these humble parents, but discovering, when grown
+up, the highest notions of valour and honour, and thirsting for military
+renown, even while tending their reputed fathers' flocks and herds! And,
+why this species of falsehood? To cheat the mass of the people; to keep
+them in abject subjection; to make them quietly submit to despotic sway.
+And the infamous authors are guilty of the cheat, because they are, in
+one shape or another, paid by oppressors out of means squeezed from the
+people. A _true_ picture would give us just the reverse; would show us
+that '_high birth_' is the enemy of virtue, of valour, and of talent;
+would show us, that with all their incalculable advantages, royal and
+noble families have, only by mere accident, produced a great man; that,
+in general, they have been amongst the most effeminate, unprincipled,
+cowardly, stupid, and, at the very least, amongst the most useless
+persons, considered as individuals, and not in connexion with the
+prerogatives and powers bestowed on them solely by the law.
+
+313. It is impossible for me, by any words that I can use, to express,
+to the extent of my thoughts, the danger of suffering young people to
+form their opinions from the writings of poets and romances. Nine times
+out of ten, the morality they teach is bad, and must have a bad
+tendency. Their wit is employed to _ridicule virtue_, as you will almost
+always find, if you examine the matter to the bottom. The world owes a
+very large part of its sufferings to tyrants; but what tyrant was there
+amongst the ancients, whom the poets did not place _amongst the gods_?
+Can you open an English poet, without, in some part or other of his
+works, finding the grossest flatteries of royal and noble persons? How
+are young people not to think that the praises bestowed on these persons
+are just? DRYDEN, PARNELL, GAY, THOMSON, in short, what poet have we
+had, or have we, POPE only excepted, who was not, or is not, a
+pensioner, or a sinecure placeman, or the wretched dependent of some
+part of the Aristocracy? Of the extent of the powers of writers in
+producing mischief to a nation, we have two most striking instances in
+the cases of Dr. JOHNSON and BURKE. The former, at a time when it was a
+question whether war should be made on America to compel her to submit
+to be taxed by the English parliament, wrote a pamphlet, entitled,
+'_Taxation no Tyranny_,' to urge the nation into that war. The latter,
+when it was a question, whether England should wage war against the
+people of France, to prevent them from reforming their government, wrote
+a pamphlet to urge the nation into _that_ war. The first war lost us
+America, the last cost us six hundred millions of money, and has loaded
+us with forty millions a year of taxes. JOHNSON, however, got a _pension
+for his life_, and BURKE a pension for his life, and for _three lives
+after his own_! CUMBERLAND and MURPHY, the play-writers, were
+pensioners; and, in short, of the whole mass, where has there been one,
+whom the people were not compelled to pay for labours, having for their
+principal object the deceiving and enslaving of that same people? It is,
+therefore, the duty of every father, when he puts a book into the hands
+of his son or daughter, to give the reader a true account of _who_ and
+_what_ the writer of the book was, or is.
+
+314. If a boy be intended for any particular calling, he ought, of
+course, to be induced to read books relating to that calling, if such
+books there be; and, therefore, I shall not be more particular on that
+head. But, there are certain things, that all men in the middle rank of
+life, ought to know something of; because the knowledge will be a source
+of pleasure; and because the want of it must, very frequently, give them
+pain, by making them appear inferior, in point of mind, to many who are,
+in fact, their inferiors in that respect. These things are _grammar,
+arithmetic, history_, accompanied with _geography_ Without these, a man,
+in the middle rank of life, however able he may be in his calling, makes
+but an awkward figure. Without _grammar_ he cannot, with safety to his
+character as a well-informed man, put his thoughts upon paper; nor can
+he be _sure_, that he is speaking with propriety. How many clever men
+have I known, full of natural talent, eloquent by nature, replete with
+every thing calculated to give them weight in society; and yet having
+little or no weight, merely because unable to put correctly upon paper
+that which they have in their minds! For me not to say, that I deem _my
+English Grammar_ the best book for teaching this science, would be
+affectation, and neglect of duty besides; because I know, that it is the
+best; because I wrote it for the purpose; and because, hundreds and
+hundreds of men and women have told me, some verbally, and some by
+letter, that, though (many of them) at grammar schools for years, they
+really never _knew_ any thing of grammar, until they studied my book. I,
+who know well all the difficulties that I experienced when I read books
+upon the subject, can easily believe this, and especially when I think
+of the numerous instances in which I have seen _university_-scholars
+unable to write English, with any tolerable degree of correctness. In
+this book, the principles are so clearly explained, that the disgust
+arising from intricacy is avoided; and it is this disgust, that is the
+great and mortal enemy of acquiring knowledge.
+
+315. With regard to ARITHMETIC, it is a branch of learning absolutely
+necessary to every one, who has any pecuniary transactions beyond those
+arising out of the expenditure of his week's wages. All the books on
+this subject that I had ever seen, were so bad, so destitute of every
+thing calculated to lead the mind into a knowledge of the matter, so
+void of principles, and so evidently tending to puzzle and disgust the
+learner, by their sententious, and crabbed, and quaint, and almost
+hieroglyphical definitions, that I, at one time, had the intention of
+writing a little work on the subject myself. It was put off, from one
+cause or another; but a little work on the subject has been, partly at
+my suggestion, written and published by Mr. THOMAS SMITH of Liverpool,
+and is sold by Mr. SHERWOOD, in London. The author has great ability,
+and a perfect knowledge of his subject. It is a book of principles; and
+any young person of common capacity, will learn more from it in a week,
+than from all the other books, that I ever saw on the subject, in a
+twelve-month.
+
+316. While the foregoing studies are proceeding, though they very well
+afford a relief to each other, HISTORY may serve as a relaxation,
+particularly during the study of grammar, which is an undertaking
+requiring patience and time. Of all history, that of our own country is
+of the most importance; because, for want of a thorough knowledge of
+what _has been_, we are, in many cases, at a loss to account for _what
+is_, and still more at a loss, to be able to show what _ought to be_.
+The difference between history and romance is this; that that which is
+narrated in the latter, leaves in the mind nothing which it can apply to
+present or future circumstances and events; while the former, when it is
+what it ought to be, leaves the mind stored with arguments for
+experience, applicable, at all times, to the actual affairs of life. The
+history of a country ought to show the origin and progress of its
+institutions, political, civil, and ecclesiastical; it ought to show the
+effects of those institutions upon the state of the people; it ought to
+delineate the measures of the government at the several epochs; and,
+having clearly described the state of the people at the several periods,
+it ought to show the cause of their freedom, good morals, and happiness;
+or of their misery, immorality, and slavery; and this, too, by the
+production of indubitable facts, and of inferences so manifestly fair,
+as to leave not the smallest doubt upon the mind.
+
+317. Do the histories of England which we have, answer this description?
+They are very little better than romances. Their contents are generally
+confined to narrations relating to battles, negociations, intrigues,
+contests between rival sovereignties, rival nobles, and to the character
+of kings, queens, mistresses, bishops, ministers, and the like; from
+scarcely any of which can the reader draw any knowledge which is at all
+applicable to the circumstances of the present day.
+
+318. Besides this, there is the _falsehood_; and the falsehoods
+contained in these histories, where shall we find any thing to surpass?
+Let us take one instance. They all tell us, that William the Conqueror
+knocked down twenty-six parish churches, and laid waste the parishes in
+order to make the New Forest; and this in a tract of the very poorest
+land in England, where the churches must then have stood at about one
+mile and two hundred yards from each other. The truth is, that all the
+churches are still standing that were there when William landed, and the
+whole story is a sheer falsehood from the beginning to the end.
+
+319. But, this is a mere specimen of these romances; and that too, with
+regard to a matter comparatively unimportant to us. The important
+falsehoods are, those which misguide us by statement or by inference,
+with regard to the state of the people at the several epochs, as
+produced by the institutions of the country, or the measures of the
+Government. It is always the object of those who have power in their
+hands, to persuade the people that they are better off than their
+forefathers were: it is the great business of history to show how this
+matter stands; and, with respect to this great matter, what are we to
+learn from any thing that has hitherto been called a history of England!
+I remember, that, about a dozen years ago, I was talking with a very
+clever young man, who had read twice or thrice over the History of
+England, by different authors; and that I gave the conversation a turn
+that drew from him, unperceived by himself, that he did not know how
+tithes, parishes, poor-rates, church-rates, and the abolition of trial
+by jury in hundreds of cases, came to be in England; and, that he had
+not the smallest idea of the manner in which the Duke of Bedford came to
+possess the power of taxing our cabbages in Covent-Garden. Yet, this is
+history. I have done a great deal, with regard to matters of this sort,
+in my famous History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION; for I may truly call
+that famous, which has been translated and published in all the modern
+languages.
+
+320. But, it is reserved for me to write a complete history of the
+country from the earliest times to the present day; and this, God giving
+me life and health, I shall begin to do in monthly numbers, beginning on
+the first of September, and in which I shall endeavour to combine
+brevity with clearness. We do not want to consume our time over a dozen
+pages about Edward the Third dancing at a ball, picking up a lady's
+garter, and making that garter the foundation of an order of knighthood,
+bearing the motto of '_Honi soit qui mal y pense_? It is not stuff like
+this; but we want to know what was the state of the people; what were a
+labourer's wages; what were the prices of the food, and how the
+labourers were dressed in the reign of that great king. What is a young
+person to imbibe from a history of England, as it is called, like that
+of Goldsmith? It is a little romance to amuse children; and the other
+historians have given us larger romances to amuse lazy persons who are
+grown up. To destroy the effects of these, and to make the people know
+what their country has been, will be my object; and this, I trust, I
+shall effect. We are, it is said, to have a History of England from SIR
+JAMES MACKINTOSH; a History of Scotland from SIR WALTER SCOTT; and a
+HISTORY OF IRELAND from Tommy Moore, the luscious poet. A Scotch lawyer,
+who is a pensioner, and a member for Knaresborough, which is well known
+to the Duke of Devonshire, who has the great tithes of twenty parishes
+in Ireland, will, doubtless, write a most impartial _History of
+England_, and particularly as far as relates to _boroughs_ and _tithes_.
+A Scotch romance-writer, who, under the name of _Malagrowther_, wrote a
+pamphlet to prove, that one-pound-notes were the cause of riches to
+Scotland, will write, to be sure, a most instructive _History of
+Scotland_. And, from the pen of a Irish poet, who is a sinecure
+placeman, and a protege of an English peer that has immense parcels of
+Irish confiscated estates, what a beautiful history shall we not then
+have of _unfortunate Ireland_! Oh, no! We are not going to be content
+with stuff such as these men will bring out. Hume and Smollett and
+Robertson have cheated us long enough. We are not in a humour to be
+cheated any longer.
+
+321. GEOGRAPHY is taught at schools, if we believe the school-cards. The
+scholars can tell you all about the divisions of the earth, and this is
+very well for persons who have leisure to indulge their curiosity; but
+it does seem to me monstrous that a young person's time should be spent
+in ascertaining the boundaries of Persia or China, knowing nothing all
+the while about the boundaries, the rivers, the soil, or the products,
+or of the any thing else of Yorkshire or Devonshire. The first thing in
+geography is to know that of the country in which we live, especially
+that in which we were born: I have now seen almost every hill and valley
+in it with my own eyes; nearly every city and every town, and no small
+part of the whole of the villages. I am therefore qualified to give an
+account of the country; and that account, under the title of
+Geographical Dictionary of England and Wales, I am now having printed as
+a companion to my history.
+
+322. When a young man well understands the geography of his own country;
+when he has referred to maps on this smaller scale; when, in short, he
+knows all about his own country, and is able to apply his knowledge to
+useful purposes, he may look at other countries, and particularly at
+those, the powers or measures of which are likely to affect his own
+country. It is of great importance to us to be well acquainted with the
+extent of France, the United States, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Turkey,
+and Russia; but what need we care about the tribes of Asia and Africa,
+the condition of which can affect us no more than we would be affected
+by any thing that is passing in the moon?
+
+323. When people have nothing useful to do, they may indulge their
+curiosity; but, merely to _read books_, is not to be industrious, is not
+to study, and is not the way to become learned. Perhaps there are none
+more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers. A book
+is an admirable excuse for sitting still; and, a man who has constantly
+a newspaper, a magazine, a review, or some book or other in his hand,
+gets, at last, his head stuffed with such a jumble, that he knows not
+what to think about any thing. An empty coxcomb, that wastes his time in
+dressing, strutting, or strolling about, and picking his teeth, is
+certainly a most despicable creature, but scarcely less so than a mere
+reader of books, who is, generally, conceited, thinks himself wiser than
+other men, in proportion to the number of leaves that he has turned
+over. In short, a young man should bestow his time upon no book, the
+contents of which he cannot apply to some useful purpose.
+
+324. Books of travels, of biography, natural history, and particularly
+such as relate to agriculture and horticulture, are all proper, when
+leisure is afforded for them; and the two last are useful to a very
+great part of mankind; but, unless the subjects treated of are of some
+interest to us in our affairs, no time should be wasted upon them, when
+there are so many duties demanded at our hands by our families and our
+country. A man may read books for ever, and be an ignorant creature at
+last, and even the more ignorant for his reading.
+
+325. And, with regard to young women, everlasting book-reading is
+absolutely _a vice_. When they once get into the habit, they neglect all
+other matters, and, in some cases, even their very dress. Attending to
+the affairs of the house: to the washing, the baking, the brewing, the
+preservation and cooking of victuals, the management of the poultry and
+the garden; these are their proper occupations. It is said (with what
+truth I know not) of the _present Queen_ (wife of William IV), that she
+was an active, excellent manager of her house. Impossible to bestow on
+her greater praise; and I trust that her example will have its due
+effect on the young women of the present day, who stand, but too
+generally, in need of that example.
+
+326. The great fault of the present generation, is, that, in _all_
+ranks, the _notions of self-importance are too high_. This has arisen
+from causes not visible to many, out the consequences are felt by all,
+and that, too, with great severity. There has been a general
+_sublimating_ going on for many years. Not to put the word _Esquire_
+before the name of almost any man who is not a mere labourer or artisan,
+is almost _an affront_. Every merchant, every master-manufacturer, every
+dealer, if at all rich, is an _Esquire_; squires' sons must be
+_gentlemen_, and squires' wives and daughters _ladies_. If this were
+_all_; if it were merely a ridiculous misapplication of words, the evil
+would not be great; but, unhappily, words lead to acts and produce
+things; and the '_young gentleman_' is not easily to be moulded into a
+_tradesman_ or a _working farmer_. And yet the world is too small to
+hold so many _gentlemen_ and _ladies_. How many thousands of young men
+have, at this moment, cause to lament that they are not carpenters, or
+masons, or tailors, or shoemakers; and how many thousands of those, that
+they have been bred up to wish to disguise their honest and useful, and
+therefore honourable, calling! ROUSSEAU observes, that men are happy,
+first, in proportion to their virtue, and next, in proportion to their
+_independence_; and that, of all mankind, the artisan, or craftsman, is
+the most independent; because he carries about, _in his own hands_ and
+person, the means of gaining his livelihood; and that the more common
+the use of the articles on which he works, the more perfect his
+independence. 'Where,' says he, 'there is one man that stands in need of
+the talents of the dentist, there are a hundred thousand that want those
+of the people who supply the matter for the teeth to work on; and for
+one who wants a sonnet to regale his fancy, there are a million
+clamouring for men to make or mend their shoes.' Aye, and this is the
+reason, why shoemakers are proverbially the most independent part of the
+people, and why they, in general, show more public spirit than any other
+men. He who lives by a pursuit, be it what it may, which does not
+require a considerable degree of _bodily labour_, must, from the nature
+of things, be, more or less, a _dependent_; and this is, indeed, the
+price which he pays for his exemption from that bodily labour. He _may_
+arrive at riches, or fame, or both; and this chance he sets against the
+certainty of independence in humbler life. There always have been, there
+always will be, and there always ought to be, _some_ men to take this
+chance: but to do this has become the _fashion_, and a fashion it is the
+most fatal that ever seized upon a community.
+
+327. With regard to young women, too, to sing, to play on instruments of
+music, to draw, to speak French, and the like, are very agreeable
+qualifications; but why should they _all_ be musicians, and painters,
+and linguists? Why _all_ of them? Who, then, is there left to _take care
+of the houses_ of farmers and traders? But there is something in these
+'accomplishments' worse than this; namely, that they think themselves
+_too high_ for farmers and traders: and this, in fact, they are; much
+_too high_; and, therefore, the servant-girls step in and supply their
+place. If they could see their own interest, surely they would drop this
+lofty tone, and these lofty airs. It is, however, the fault of the
+parents, and particularly of the father, whose duty it is to prevent
+them from imbibing such notions, and to show them, that the greatest
+honour they ought to aspire to is, thorough skill and care in the
+economy of a house. We are all apt to set too high a value on what we
+ourselves have done; and I may do this; but I do firmly believe, that to
+cure any young woman of this fatal sublimation, she has only patiently
+to read my COTTAGE ECONOMY, written with an anxious desire to promote
+domestic skill and ability in that sex, on whom so much of the happiness
+of man must always depend. A lady in Worcestershire told me, that until
+she read COTTAGE ECONOMY she had never _baked in the house_, and had
+seldom had _good beer_; that, ever since, she had looked after both
+herself; that the pleasure she had derived from it, was equal to the
+profit, and that the latter was very great. She said, that the article
+'_on baking bread_,' was the part that roused her to the undertaking;
+and, indeed, if the facts and arguments, _there_ made use of, failed to
+stir her up to action, she must have been stone dead to the power of
+words.
+
+328. After the age that we have now been supposing, boys and girls
+become _men_ and _women_; and, there now only remains for the _father_
+to act towards them with _impartiality_. If they be numerous, or,
+indeed, if they be only two in number, to expect _perfect harmony_ to
+reign amongst, or between, them, is to be unreasonable; because
+experience shows us, that, even amongst the most sober, most virtuous,
+and most sensible, harmony so complete is very rare. By nature they are
+rivals for the affection and applause of the parents; in personal and
+mental endowments they become rivals; and, when _pecuniary interests_
+come to be well understood and to have their weight, here is a
+rivalship, to prevent which from ending in hostility, require more
+affection and greater disinterestedness than fall to the lot of one out
+of one hundred families. So many instances have I witnessed of good and
+amiable families living in harmony, till the hour arrived for dividing
+property amongst them, and then, all at once, becoming hostile to each
+other, that I have often thought that property, coming in such a way,
+was a curse, and that the parties would have been far better off, had
+the parent had merely a blessing to bequeath them from his or her lips,
+instead of a will for them to dispute and wrangle over.
+
+329. With regard to this matter, all that the father can do, is to be
+_impartial_; but, impartiality does not mean positive _equality_ in the
+distribution, but equality _in proportion_ to the different deserts of
+the parties, their different wants, their different pecuniary
+circumstances, and different prospects in life; and these vary so much,
+in different families, that it is impossible to lay down any general
+rule upon the subject. But there is one fatal error, against which every
+father ought to guard his heart; and the kinder that heart is, the more
+necessary such guardianship. I mean the fatal error of heaping upon one
+child, to the prejudice of the rest; or, upon a part of them. This
+partiality sometimes arises from mere caprice; sometimes from the
+circumstance of the favourite being more favoured by nature than the
+rest; sometimes from the nearer resemblance to himself, that the father
+sees in the favourite; and, sometimes, from the hope of preventing the
+favoured party from doing that which would disgrace the parent. All
+these motives are highly censurable, but the last is the most general,
+and by far the most mischievous in its effects. How many fathers have
+been ruined, how many mothers and families brought to beggary, how many
+industrious and virtuous groups have been pulled down from competence to
+penury, from the desire to prevent one from bringing shame on the
+parent! So that, contrary to every principle of justice, the bad is
+rewarded for the badness; and the good punished for the goodness.
+Natural affection, remembrance of infantine endearments, reluctance to
+abandon long-cherished hopes, compassion for the sufferings of your own
+flesh and blood, the dread of fatal consequences from your adhering to
+justice; all these beat at your heart, and call on you to give way: but,
+you must resist them all; or, your ruin, and that of the rest of your
+family, are decreed. Suffering is the natural and just punishment of
+idleness, drunkenness, squandering, and an indulgence in the society of
+prostitutes; and, never did the world behold an instance of an offender,
+in this way, reclaimed but by the infliction of this punishment;
+particularly, if the society of prostitutes made part of the offence;
+for, here is something that takes the _heart from you_. Nobody ever yet
+saw, and nobody ever will see, a young man, linked to a prostitute, and
+retain, at the same time, any, even the smallest degree of affection,
+for parents or brethren. You may supplicate, you may implore, you may
+leave yourself pennyless, and your virtuous children without bread; the
+invisible cormorant will still call for more; and, as we saw, only the
+other day, a wretch was convicted of having, at the instigation of his
+prostitute, _beaten his aged mother_, to get from her the small remains
+of the means necessary to provide her with food. In HERON'S collection
+of God's judgments on wicked acts, it is related of an unnatural son,
+who fed his aged father upon orts and offal, lodged him in a filthy and
+crazy garret, and clothed him in sackcloth, while he and his wife and
+children lived in luxury; that, having bought sackcloth enough for two
+dresses for his father, the children took away the part not made up, and
+_hid it_, and that, upon asking them what they could _do this for_, they
+told him that they meant to keep it _for him_, when he should become old
+and walk with a stick! This, the author relates, pierced his heart; and,
+indeed, if _this_ failed, he must have had the heart of a tiger; but,
+even _this_ would not succeed with the associate of a prostitute. When
+_this vice_, this love of the society of prostitutes; when this vice has
+once got fast hold, vain are all your sacrifices, vain your prayers,
+vain your hopes, vain your anxious desire to disguise the shame from the
+world; and, if you have acted well your part, no part of that shame
+falls on you, unless you _have administered to the cause of it_. Your
+authority has ceased; the voice of the prostitute, or the charms of the
+bottle, or the rattle of the dice, has been more powerful than your
+advice and example: you must lament this: but, it is not to bow you
+down; and, above all things, it is weak, and even criminally selfish, to
+sacrifice the rest of your family, in order to keep from the world the
+knowledge of that, which, if known, would, in your view of the matter,
+bring shame on yourself.
+
+330. Let me hope, however, that this is a calamity which will befall
+very few good fathers; and that, of all such, the sober, industrious,
+and frugal habits of their children, their dutiful demeanor, their truth
+and their integrity, will come to smooth the path of their downward
+days, and be the objects on which their eyes will close. Those children
+must, in their turn, travel the same path; and they may be assured,
+that, 'Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in
+the land,' is a precept, a disregard of which never yet failed, either
+first or last, to bring its punishment. And, what can be more just than
+that signal punishment should follow such a crime; a crime directly
+against the voice of nature itself? Youth has its passions, and due
+allowance justice will make for these; but, are the delusions of the
+boozer, the gamester, or the harlot, to be pleaded in excuse for a
+disregard of the source of your existence? Are those to be pleaded in
+apology for giving pain to the father who has toiled half a lifetime in
+order to feed and clothe you, and to the mother whose breast has been to
+you the fountain of life? Go, you, and shake the hand of the
+boon-companion; take the greedy harlot to your arms; mock at the tears
+of your tender and anxious parents; and, when your purse is empty and
+your complexion faded, receive the poverty and the scorn due to your
+base ingratitude!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI
+
+TO THE CITIZEN
+
+331. Having now given my Advice to the YOUTH, the grown-up MAN, the
+LOVER, the HUSBAND and the FATHER, I shall, in this concluding Number,
+tender my Advice to the CITIZEN, in which capacity every man has rights
+to enjoy and duties to perform, and these too of importance not inferior
+to those which belong to him, or are imposed upon him, as son, parent,
+husband or father. The word _citizen_ is not, in its application,
+confined to the mere inhabitants of cities: it means, a _member of a
+civil society, or community_; and, in order to have a clear
+comprehension of man's rights and duties in this capacity, we must take
+a look at the _origin of civil communities_.
+
+332. Time was when the inhabitants of this island, for instance, laid
+claim to all things in it, without the words _owner_ or _property_ being
+known. God had given to _all_ the people all the land and all the trees,
+and every thing else, just as he has given the burrows and the grass to
+the rabbits, and the bushes and the berries to the birds; and each man
+had the good things of this world in a greater or less degree in
+proportion to his skill, his strength and his valour. This is what is
+called living under the LAW OF NATURE; that is to say, the law of
+self-preservation and self-enjoyment, without any restraint imposed by a
+regard for the good of our neighbours.
+
+333. In process of time, no matter from what cause, men made amongst
+themselves a compact, or an agreement, to divide the land and its
+products in such manner that each should have a share to his own
+exclusive use, and that each man should be protected in the exclusive
+enjoyment of his share by the _united power of the rest_; and, in order
+to ensure the due and certain application of this united power, the
+whole of the people agreed to be bound by regulations, called LAWS. Thus
+arose civil society; thus arose _property_; thus arose the words _mine_
+and _thine_. One man became possessed of more good things than another,
+because he was more industrious, more skilful, more careful, or more
+frugal: so that LABOUR, of one sort or another, was the BASIS of all
+property.
+
+334. In what manner civil societies proceeded in providing for the
+making of laws and for the enforcing of them; the various ways in which
+they took measures to protect the weak against the strong; how they have
+gone to work to secure wealth against the attacks of poverty; these are
+subjects that it would require volumes to detail; but these truths are
+written on the heart of man: that all men are, by nature, _equal_; that
+civil society can never have arisen from any motive other than that of
+the _benefit of the whole_; that, whenever civil society makes the
+greater part of the people _worse off_ than they were under the Law of
+Nature, the civil compact is, in conscience, dissolved, and all the
+rights of nature return; that, in civil society, the _rights and the
+duties go hand in hand_, and that, when the former are taken away, the
+latter cease to exist.
+
+335. Now, then, in order to act well our part, as citizens, or members
+of the community, we ought clearly to understand _what our rights are_;
+for, on our enjoyment of these depend our duties, rights going before
+duties, as value received goes before payment. I know well, that just
+the contrary of this is taught in our political schools, where we are
+told, that our _first duty_ is to _obey the laws_; and it is not many
+years ago, that HORSLEY, Bishop of Rochester, told us, that the _people_
+had _nothing_ to do with the laws but to _obey_ them. The truth is,
+however, that the citizen's _first duty_ is to maintain his rights, as
+it is the purchaser's first duty to receive the thing for which he has
+contracted.
+
+336. Our rights in society are numerous; the right of enjoying life and
+property; the right of exerting our physical and mental powers in an
+innocent manner; but, the great right of all, and without which there
+is, in fact, _no right_, is, the right of _taking a part in the making
+of the laws by which we are governed_. This right is founded in that law
+of Nature spoken of above; it springs out of the very principle of civil
+society; for what _compact_, what _agreement_, what _common assent_, can
+possibly be imagined by which men would give up all the rights of
+nature, all the free enjoyment of their bodies and their minds, in order
+to subject themselves to rules and laws, in the making of which they
+should have nothing to say, and which should be enforced upon them
+without their assent? The great right, therefore, of _every man_, the
+right of rights, is the right of having a share in the making of the
+laws, to which the good of the whole makes it his duty to submit.
+
+337. With regard to the means of enabling every man to enjoy this share,
+they have been different, in different countries, and, in the same
+countries, at different times. Generally it has been, and in great
+communities it must be, by the choosing of a few to speak and act _in
+behalf of the many_: and, as there will hardly ever be _perfect
+unanimity_ amongst men assembled for any purpose whatever, where fact
+and argument are to decide the question, the decision is left to the
+_majority_, the compact being that the decision of the majority shall be
+that of the whole. _Minors_ are excluded from this right, because the
+law considers them as infants, because it makes the parent answerable
+for civil damages committed by them, and because of their legal
+incapacity to make any compact. _Women_ are excluded because husbands
+are answerable in law for their wives, as to their civil damages, and
+because the very nature of their sex makes the exercise of this right
+incompatible with the harmony and happiness of society. Men stained with
+_indelible crimes_ are excluded, because they have forfeited their right
+by violating the laws, to which their assent has been given. _Insane
+persons_ are excluded, because they are dead in the eye of the law,
+because the law demands no duty at their hands, because they cannot
+violate the law, because the law cannot affect them; and, therefore,
+they ought to have no hand in making it.
+
+338. But, with these exceptions, where is the ground whereon to maintain
+that _any man_ ought to be deprived of this right, which he derives
+directly from the law of Nature, and which springs, as I said before,
+out of the same source with civil society itself? Am I told, that
+_property_ ought to confer this right? Property sprang from _labour_,
+and not labour from property; so that if there were to be a distinction
+here, it ought to give the preference to labour. All men are equal by
+nature; nobody denies that they all ought to be _equal in the eye of the
+law_; but, how are they to be thus equal, if the law begin by suffering
+_some_ to enjoy this right and refusing the enjoyment to _others_? It is
+the duty of every man to defend his country against an enemy, a duty
+imposed by the law of Nature as well as by that of civil society, and
+without the recognition of this duty, there could exist no independent
+nation and no civil society. Yet, how are you to maintain that this is
+the duty of _every man_, if you deny to _some_ men the enjoyment of a
+share in making the laws? Upon what principle are you to contend for
+_equality_ here, while you deny its existence as to the right of sharing
+in the making of the laws? The poor man has a body and a soul as well as
+the rich man; like the latter, he has parents, wife and children; a
+bullet or a sword is as deadly to him as to the rich man; there are
+hearts to ache and tears to flow for him as well as for the squire or
+the lord or the loan-monger: yet, notwithstanding this equality, he is
+to risk all, and, if he escape, he is still to be denied an equality of
+rights! If, in such a state of things, the artisan or labourer, when
+called out to fight in defence of his country, were to answer: 'Why
+should I risk my life? I have no possession but my _labour_; no enemy
+will take that from me; you, the rich, possess all the land and all its
+products; you make what laws you please without my participation or
+assent; you punish me at your pleasure; you say that my want of property
+excludes me from the right of having a share in the making of the laws;
+you say that the property that I have in my labour _is nothing worth_;
+on what ground, then, do you call on me to risk my life?' If, in such a
+case, such questions were put, the answer is very difficult to be
+imagined.
+
+339. In cases of _civil commotion_ the matter comes still more home to
+us. On what ground is the rich man to call the artisan from his shop or
+the labourer from the field to join the sheriff's posse or the militia,
+if he refuse to the labourer and artisan the right of sharing in the
+making of the laws? Why are they to risk their lives here? To _uphold
+the laws_, and to protect _property_. What! _laws_, in the making of, or
+assenting to, which they have been allowed to have no share? _Property_,
+of which they are said to possess none? What! compel men to come forth
+and risk their lives for the _protection of property_; and then, in the
+same breath, tell them, that they are not allowed to share in the making
+of the laws, because, and ONLY BECAUSE, _they have no property_! Not
+because they have committed any crime; not because they are idle or
+profligate; not because they are vicious in any way; out solely because
+they have _no property_; and yet, at the same time, compel them to come
+forth and _risk their lives_ for the _protection of property_!
+
+340. But, the PAUPERS? Ought _they_ to share in the making of the laws?
+And why not? What is a _pauper_; what is one of the men to whom this
+degrading appellation is applied? A _very poor_ man; a man who is, from
+some cause or other, unable to supply himself with food and raiment
+without aid from the parish-rates. And, is that circumstance alone to
+deprive him of his right, a right of which he stands more in need than
+any other man? Perhaps he has, for many years of his life, contributed
+directly to those rates; and ten thousand to one he has, by his labour,
+contributed to them indirectly. The aid which, under such circumstances,
+he receives, _is his right_; he receives it not as _an alms_: he is no
+mendicant; he begs not; he comes to receive that which _the law of the
+country awards him_ in lieu of the _larger portion_ assigned him by the
+_law of Nature_. Pray mark that, and let it be deeply engraven on your
+memory. The audacious and merciless MALTHUS (a parson of the church
+establishment) recommended, some years ago, the passing of a law to _put
+an end to the giving of parish relief_, though he recommended no law to
+put an end to the enormous taxes paid by poor people. In his book he
+said, that the poor should be left to the _law of Nature_, which, in
+case of their having nothing to buy food with, _doomed them to starve_.
+They would ask nothing better than to be left to the _law of Nature_;
+that law which knows nothing about _buying_ food or any thing else; that
+law which bids the hungry and the naked _take_ food and raiment wherever
+they find it best and nearest at hand; that law which awards all
+possessions to the _strongest_; that law the operations of which would
+clear out the London meat-markets and the drapers' and jewellers' shops
+in about half an hour: to this law the parson wished the parliament to
+leave the poorest of the working people; but, if the parliament had done
+it, it would have been quickly seen, that this law was far from 'dooming
+them to be starved.'
+
+341. Trusting that it is unnecessary for me to express a hope, that
+barbarous thoughts like those of Malthus and his tribe will never be
+entertained by any young man who has read the previous Numbers of this
+work, let me return to my _very, very poor man_, and ask, whether it be
+consistent with justice, with humanity, with reason, to deprive a man of
+the most precious of his political rights, because, and _only because_,
+he has been, in a pecuniary way, _singularly unfortunate_? The Scripture
+says, 'Despise not the poor, _because_ he is poor;' that is to say,
+despise him not _on account of his poverty_. Why, then, deprive him of
+his right; why put him out of the pale of the law, on account of his
+poverty? There are _some_ men, to be sure, who are reduced to poverty by
+their vices, by idleness, by gaming, by drinking, by squandering; but,
+the far greater part by bodily ailments, by misfortunes to the effects
+of which all men may, without any fault, and even without any folly, be
+exposed: and, is there a man on earth so cruelly unjust as to wish to
+add to the sufferings of such persons by stripping them of their
+political rights? How many thousands of industrious and virtuous men
+have, within these few years, been brought down from a state of
+competence to that of pauperism! And, is it just to strip such men of
+their rights, merely because they are thus brought down? When I was at
+ELY, last spring, there were in that neighbourhood, _three paupers_
+cracking stones on the roads, who had all three been, not only
+rate-payers, but _overseers of the poor_, within seven years of the day
+when I was there. Is there any man so barbarous as to say, that these
+men ought, merely on account of their misfortunes, to be deprived of
+their political rights? Their right to receive relief is as perfect as
+any right of property; and, would you, merely because they claim _this
+right_, strip them of _another right_? To say no more of the injustice
+and the cruelty, is there reason, is there common sense in this? What!
+if a farmer or tradesman be, by flood or by fire, so totally ruined as
+to be compelled, surrounded by his family, to resort to the parish-book,
+would you break the last heart-string of such a man by making him feel
+the degrading loss of his political rights?
+
+342. Here, young man of sense and of spirit; _here is the point_ on
+which you are to take your stand. There are always men enough to plead
+the cause of the rich; enough and enough to echo the woes of the fallen
+great; but, be it your part to show compassion for those who labour, and
+to maintain _their rights_. Poverty is not _a crime_, and, though it
+sometimes arises from faults, it is not, even in that case, to be
+visited by punishment beyond that which it brings with itself. Remember,
+that poverty is decreed by the very nature of man. The Scripture says,
+that 'the poor shall never cease from out of the land;' that is to say,
+that there shall always be some very poor people. This is inevitable
+from the very nature of things. It is necessary to the existence of
+mankind, that a very large portion of every people should live by manual
+labour; and, as such labour is _pain_, more or less, and as no living
+creature likes pain, it must be, that the far greater part of labouring
+people will endure only just as much of this pain as is absolutely
+necessary to the supply of their _daily wants_. Experience says that
+this has always been, and reason and nature tell us, that this must
+always be. Therefore, when ailments, when losses, when untoward
+circumstances of any sort, stop or diminish the daily supply, _want
+comes_; and every just government will provide, from the general stock,
+the means to satisfy this want.
+
+343. Nor is the deepest poverty without its _useful effects_ in society.
+To the practice of the virtues of abstinence, sobriety, care, frugality,
+industry, and even honesty and amiable manners and acquirement of
+talent, the two great motives are, to get upwards in riches or fame, and
+_to avoid going downwards to poverty_, the last of which is the most
+powerful of the two. It is, therefore, not with contempt, but with
+compassion, that we should look on those, whose state is one of the
+decrees of nature, from whose sad example we profit, and to whom, in
+return, we ought to make compensation by every indulgent and kind act in
+our power, and particularly by a defence of their rights. To those who
+labour, we, who labour not with our hands, owe all that we eat, drink
+and wear; all that shades us by day and that shelters us by night; all
+the means of enjoying health and pleasure; and, therefore, if we possess
+talent for the task, we are ungrateful or cowardly, or both, if we omit
+any effort within our power to prevent them from being _slaves_; and,
+disguise the matter how we may, _a slave_, a _real slave_, every man is,
+who has no share in making the laws which he is compelled to obey.
+
+344. _What is a slave_? For, let us not be amused by _a name_; but look
+well into the matter. A slave is, in the first place, a man who has _no
+property_; and property means something that he _has_, and that nobody
+can take from him without his leave, or consent. Whatever man, no matter
+what he may call himself or any body else may call him, can have his
+money or his goods taken from him _by force_, by virtue of an order, or
+ordinance, or law, which he has had no hand in making, and to which he
+has not given his assent, has _no property_, and is merely a depositary
+of the goods of his master. A slave has _no property in his labour_; and
+any man who is compelled to give up the fruit of his labour to another,
+at the arbitrary will of that other, has no property in his labour, and
+is, therefore, a slave, whether the fruit of his labour be taken from
+him directly or indirectly. If it be said, that he gives up this fruit
+of his labour by his own will, and that it is _not forced from him_. I
+answer, To be sure he _may_ avoid eating and drinking and may go naked;
+but, then he must _die_; and on this condition, and this condition only,
+can he refuse to give up the fruit of his labour; 'Die, wretch, or
+surrender as much of your income, or the fruit of your labour as your
+masters choose to take.' This is, in fact, the language of the rulers to
+every man who is refused to have a share in the making of the laws to
+which he is _forced_ to submit.
+
+345. But, some one may say, slaves are _private property_, and may _be
+bought and sold_, out and out, like cattle. And, what is it to the
+slave, whether he be property of _one_ or of _many_; or, what matters it
+to him, whether he pass from master to master by a sale for an
+indefinite term, or be let to hire by the year, month, or week? It is,
+in no case, the flesh and blood and bones that are sold, but the
+_labour_; and, if you actually sell the labour of man, is not that man
+_a slave_, though you sell it for only a short time at once? And, as to
+the principle, so ostentatiously displayed in the case of the _black_
+slave-trade, that '_man_ ought not to have _a property in man_,' it is
+even an advantage to the slave to be private property, because the owner
+has then a clear and powerful _interest_ in the preservation of his
+life, health and strength, and will, therefore, furnish him amply with
+the food and raiment necessary for these ends. Every one knows, that
+public property is never so well taken care of as private property; and
+this, too, on the maxim, that 'that which is every body's business is
+nobody's business.' Every one knows that a _rented_ farm is not so well
+kept in heart, as a farm in the hands of the _owner_. And as to
+_punishments_ and _restraints_, what difference is there, whether these
+be inflicted and imposed by a private owner, or his overseer, or by the
+agents and overseers of a body of proprietors? In short, if you can
+cause a man to be imprisoned or whipped if he do not work enough to
+please you; if you can sell him by auction for a time limited; if you
+can forcibly separate him from his wife to prevent their having
+children; if you can shut him up in his dwelling place when you please,
+and for as long a time as you please; if you can force him to draw a
+cart or wagon like a beast of draught; if you can, when the humour
+seizes you, and at the suggestion of your mere fears, or whim, cause him
+to be shut up in a dungeon during your pleasure: if you can, at your
+pleasure, do these things to him, is it not to be impudently
+hypocritical to affect to call him _a free-man_? But, after all, these
+may all be wanting, and yet the man be _a slave_, if he be allowed to
+have _no property_; and, as I have shown, no property he can have, not
+even in that _labour_, which is not only property, but the _basis_ of
+all other property, unless he have a _share in making the laws_ to which
+he is compelled to submit.
+
+346. It is said, that he may have this share _virtually_ though not in
+form and _name_; for that his _employers_ may have such share, and they
+will, as a matter of course, _act for him_. This doctrine, pushed home,
+would make the _chief_ of the nation the sole maker of the laws; for, if
+the rich can thus _act for_ the poor, why should not the chief act for
+the rich? This matter is very completely explained by the practice in
+the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. There the maxim is, that _every free man_,
+with the exception of men stained with crime and men insane, has a right
+to have a voice in choosing those who make the laws. The number of
+Representatives sent to the Congress is, in each State, proportioned to
+the number of _free people_. But, as there are _slaves_ in _some_ of the
+States, these States _have a certain portion of additional numbers on
+account of those slaves_! Thus the slaves are _represented by their
+owners_, and this is real, practical, open and undisguised _virtual
+representation_! No doubt that white men may be represented in the same
+way; for the colour of the skin is nothing; but let them be called
+slaves, then; let it not be pretended that they are _free men_; let not
+the word _liberty_ be polluted by being applied to their state; let it
+be openly and honestly avowed, as in America, that they _are slaves_;
+and then will come the question whether men ought to exist in such a
+state, or whether they ought to do every thing in their power to rescue
+themselves from it.
+
+347. If the right to have a share in making the laws were merely a
+feather; if it were a fanciful thing; if it were only a speculative
+theory; if it were but an _abstract principle_; on any of these
+suppositions, it might be considered as of little importance. But it is
+none of these; it is a practical matter; the want of it not only _is_,
+but must of necessity be, felt by every man who lives under that want.
+If it were proposed to the shopkeepers in a town, that a rich man or
+two, living in the neighbourhood, should have power to send, _whenever
+they pleased_, and take away as much as they pleased of the money of the
+shopkeepers, and apply it to what uses they please; what an outcry the
+shopkeepers would make! And yet, what would this be _more_ than taxes
+imposed on those who have no voice in choosing the persons who impose
+them? Who lets another man put his hand into his purse when he pleases?
+Who, that has the power to help himself, surrenders his goods or his
+money to the will of another? Has it not always been, and must it not
+always be, true, that, if your property be at the absolute disposal of
+others, your ruin is certain? And if this be, of necessity, the case
+amongst individuals and parts of the community, it must be the case with
+regard to the whole community.
+
+348. Aye, and experience shows us that it always has been the case. The
+natural and inevitable consequences of a want of this right in the
+people have, in all countries, been _taxes_ pressing the industrious and
+laborious to the earth; _severe laws_ and _standing armies_ to compel
+the people to submit to those taxes; wealth, luxury, and splendour,
+amongst those who make the laws and receive the taxes; poverty, misery,
+immorality and crime, amongst those who bear the burdens; and at last
+commotion, revolt, revenge, and rivers of blood. Such have always been,
+and such must always be, the consequences of a want of this right of all
+men to share in the making of the laws, a right, as I have before shown,
+derived immediately from the law of Nature, springing up out of the same
+source with civil society, and cherished in the heart of man by reason
+and by experience.
+
+349. Well, then, this right being that, without the enjoyment of which
+there is, in reality, no right at all, how manifestly is it _the first
+duty_ of every man to do all in his power to _maintain_ this right where
+it exists, and to _restore_ it where it has been lost? For observe, it
+must, at one time, have existed in every _civil_ community, it being
+impossible that it could ever be excluded by any _social compact_;
+absolutely impossible, because it is contrary to the law of
+self-preservation to believe, that men would agree to give up the rights
+of nature without stipulating for some _benefit_. Before we can affect
+to believe that this right was not reserved, in such compact, as
+completely as the right to _live_ was reserved, we must affect to
+believe, that millions of men, under no control but that of their own
+passions and desires, and having all the earth and its products at the
+command of their strength and skill, consented to be for ever, they and
+their posterity, the _slaves of a few_.
+
+350. We cannot believe this, and therefore, without going back into
+_history_ and _precedents_, we must believe, that, in whatever civil
+community this right does not exist, it has been lost, or rather,
+_unjustly taken away_. And then, having seen the terrible evils which
+always have arisen, and always must arise, from the want of it; being
+convinced that, where lost or taken away by force or fraud, it is our
+very first duty to do all in our power to _restore_ it, the next
+consideration is, _how_ one ought to act in the discharge of this most
+sacred duty; for sacred it is even as the duties of husband and father.
+For, besides the baseness of the thought of quietly submitting to be a
+slave _oneself_, we have here, besides our duty to the community, a duty
+to perform towards our children and our children's children. We all
+acknowledge that it is our bounden duty to provide, as far as our power
+will go, for the competence, the health, and the good character of our
+children; but, is this duty superior to that of which I am now speaking?
+What is competence, what is health, if the possessor be _a slave_, and
+hold his possessions at the will of another, or others; as he must do if
+destitute of the right to a share in the making of the laws? What is
+competence, what is health, if both can, at any moment, be snatched away
+by the grasp or the dungeon of a master; and his master he is who makes
+the laws without his participation or assent? And, as to _character_, as
+to _fair fame_, when the white slave puts forward pretensions to those,
+let him no longer affect to commiserate the state of his sleek and fat
+brethren in Barbadoes and Jamaica; let him hasten to mix the hair with
+the wool, to blend the white with the black, and to lose the memory of
+his origin amidst a dingy generation.
+
+351. Such, then, being the nature of the duty, _how_ are we to go to
+work in the performance of it, and what are our _means_? With regard to
+these, so various are the circumstances, so endless the differences in
+the states of society, and so many are the cases when it would be
+madness to attempt that which it would be prudence to attempt in others,
+that no _general_ rule can be given beyond this; that, the right and the
+duty being clear to our minds, the _means_ that are _surest_ and
+_swiftest_ are the _best_. In every such case, however, the great and
+predominant desire ought to be not to employ any means beyond those of
+reason and persuasion, as long as the employment of these afford a
+ground for rational expectation of success. Men are, in such a case,
+labouring, not for the present day only, but for ages to come; and
+therefore they should not slacken in their exertions, because the grave
+may close upon them before the day of final triumph arrive. Amongst the
+virtues of the good Citizen are those of fortitude and patience; and,
+when he has to carry on his struggle against corruptions deep and
+widely-rooted, he is not to expect the baleful tree to come down at a
+single blow; he must patiently remove the earth that props and feeds it,
+and sever the accursed roots one by one.
+
+352. _Impatience_ here is a very bad sign. I do not like your
+_patriots_, who, because the tree does not give way at once, fall to
+_blaming_ all about them, accuse their fellow-sufferers of cowardice,
+because they do not do that which they themselves dare not think of
+doing. Such conduct argues _chagrin_ and _disappointment_; and these
+argue a _selfish_ feeling: they argue, that there has been more of
+private ambition and gain at work than of _public good_. Such blamers,
+such general accusers, are always to be suspected. What does the _real_
+patriot want more than to feel conscious that he has done his duty
+towards his country; and that, if life should not allow him time to see
+his endeavours crowned with success, his children will see it? The
+impatient patriots are like the young men (mentioned in the beautiful
+fable of LA FONTAINE) who ridiculed the man of fourscore, who was
+planting an avenue of very small trees, which, they told him, that he
+never could expect to see as high as his head. 'Well,' said he, 'and
+what of that? If their shade afford me no pleasure, it may afford
+pleasure to my children, and even to you; and, therefore, the planting
+of them gives me pleasure.'
+
+353. It is the want of the noble disinterestedness, so beautifully
+expressed in this fable, that produces the _impatient_ patriots. They
+wish very well to their country, because they want _some of the good for
+themselves_. Very natural that all men should wish to see the good
+arrive, and wish to share in it too; but, we must look on the dark side
+of nature to find the disposition to cast blame on the whole community
+because our wishes are not instantly accomplished, and especially to
+cast blame on others for not doing that which we ourselves dare not
+attempt. There is, however, a sort of _patriot_ a great deal worse than
+this; he, who having failed himself, would see his country enslaved for
+ever, rather than see its deliverance achieved by others. His failure
+has, perhaps, arisen solely from his want of talent, or discretion; yet
+his selfish heart would wish his country sunk in everlasting
+degradation, lest his inefficiency for the task should be established by
+the success of others. A very hateful character, certainly, but, I am
+sorry to say, by no means rare. _Envy_, always associated with meanness
+of soul, always detestable, is never so detestable as when it shows
+itself here.
+
+354. Be it your care, my young friend (and I tender you this as my
+parting advice), if you find this base and baleful passion, which the
+poet calls 'the eldest born of hell;' if you find it creeping into your
+heart, be it your care to banish it at once and for ever; for, if once
+it nestle there, farewell to all the good which nature has enabled you
+to do, and to your peace into the bargain. It has pleased God to make an
+unequal distribution of talent, of industry, of perseverance, of a
+capacity to labour, of all the qualities that give men distinction. We
+have not been our own makers: it is no fault in you that nature has
+placed him above you, and, surely, it is no fault in him; and would you
+_punish_ him on account, and only on account, of his pre-eminence! If
+you have read this book you will startle with horror at the thought: you
+will, as to public matters, act with zeal and with good humour, though
+the place you occupy be far removed from the first; you will support
+with the best of your abilities others, who, from whatever circumstance,
+may happen to take the lead; you will not suffer even the consciousness
+and the certainty of your own superior talents to urge you to do any
+thing which might by possibility be injurious to your country's cause;
+you will be forbearing under the aggressions of ignorance, conceit,
+arrogance, and even the blackest of ingratitude superadded, if by
+resenting these you endanger the general good; and, above all things,
+you will have the justice to bear in mind, that that country which gave
+you birth, is, to the last hour of your capability, entitled to your
+exertions in her behalf, and that you ought not, by acts of commission
+or of omission, to visit upon her the wrongs which may have been
+inflicted on you by the envy and malice of individuals. Love of one's
+native soil is a feeling which nature has implanted in the human breast,
+and that has always been peculiarly strong in the breasts of Englishmen.
+God has given us a country of which to be proud, and that freedom,
+greatness and renown, which were handed down to us by our wise and brave
+forefathers, bid us perish to the last man, rather than suffer the land
+of their graves to become a land of slavery, impotence and dishonour.
+
+355. In the words with which I concluded my English Grammar, which I
+addressed to my son James, I conclude my advice to you. 'With English
+and French on your tongue and in your pen, you have a resource, not only
+greatly valuable in itself, but a resource that you can be deprived of
+by none of those changes and chances which deprive men of pecuniary
+possessions, and which, in some cases, make the purse-proud man of
+yesterday a crawling sycophant to-day. Health, without which life is not
+worth having, you will hardly fail to secure by early rising, exercise,
+sobriety, and abstemiousness as to food. Happiness, or misery, is in the
+_mind_. It is the mind that lives; and the length of life ought to be
+measured by the number and importance of our ideas, and not by the
+number of our days. Never, therefore, esteem men merely on account of
+their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.
+Honour talent wherever you behold it unassociated with vice; but, honour
+it most when accompanied with exertion, and especially when exerted in
+the cause of truth and justice; and, above all things, hold it in
+honour, when it steps forward to protect defenceless innocence against
+the attacks of powerful guilt.' These words, addressed to my own son, I
+now, in taking my leave, address to you. Be just, be industrious, be
+sober, and be happy; and the hope that these effects will, in some
+degree, have been caused by this little work, will add to the happiness
+of
+
+      Your friend and humble servant,
+
+            WM. COBBETT.
+
+Kensington, 25th Aug. 1830.
+
+
+
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