The American Frugal Housewife Part 14

TRAVELLING AND PUBLIC AMUs.e.m.e.nTS.

There is one kind of extravagance rapidly increasing in this country, which, in its effects on our purses and our _habits_, is one of the worst kinds of extravagance; I mean the rage for travelling, and for public amus.e.m.e.nts. The good old home habits of our ancestors are breaking up--it will be well if our virtue and our freedom do not follow them! It is easy to laugh at such prognostics,--and we are well aware that the virtue we preach is considered almost obsolete,--but let any reflecting mind inquire how decay has begun in all republics, and then let them calmly ask themselves whether we are in no danger, in departing thus rapidly from the simplicity and industry of our forefathers.

Nations do not plunge _at once_ into ruin--governments do not change _suddenly_--the causes which bring about the final blow, are scarcely perceptible in the beginning; but they increase in numbers, and in power; they press harder and harder upon the energies and virtue of a people; and the last steps only are alarmingly hurried and irregular.

A republic without industry, economy, and integrity, is Samson shorn of his locks. A luxurious and idle _republic_! Look at the phrase!--The words were never made to be married together; every body sees it would be death to one of them.

And are not _we_ becoming luxurious and idle? Look at our steamboats, and stages, and taverns! There you will find mechanics, who have left debts and employment to take care of themselves, while they go to take a peep at the great ca.n.a.l, or the opera-dancers. There you will find domestics all agog for their wages-worth of travelling; why should they look out for 'a rainy day?' There are hospitals enough to provide for them in sickness; and as for marrying, they have no idea of that, till they can find a man who will support them genteelly. There you will find mothers, who have left the children at home with Betsey, while they go to improve their minds at the Mountain House, or the Springs.

If only the rich did this, all would be well. They benefit others, and do not injure themselves. In any situation, idleness is their curse, and uneasiness is the tax they must pay for affluence; but their restlessness is as great a benefit to the community as the motions of Prince Esterhazy, when at every step the pearls drop from his coat.

People of moderate fortune have just as good a right to travel as the wealthy; but is it not unwise? Do they not injure themselves and their families? You say travelling is cheap. So is staying at home. Besides, do you count _all_ the costs?

The money you pay for stages and steamboats is the smallest of the items. There are clothes bought which would not otherwise be bought; those clothes are worn out and defaced twenty times as quick as they would have been at home; children are perhaps left with domestics, or strangers; their health and morals, to say the least, under very uncertain influence; your substance is wasted in your absence by those who have no self-interest to prompt them to carefulness; you form an acquaintance with a mult.i.tude of people, who will be sure to take your house in their way, when they travel next year; and finally, you become so accustomed to excitement, that home appears insipid, and it requires no small effort to return to the quiet routine of your duties. And what do you get in return for all this? Some pleasant scenes, which will soon seem to you like a dream; some pleasant faces, which you will never see again; and much of crowd, and toil, and dust, and bustle.

I once knew a family which formed a striking ill.u.s.tration of my remarks. The man was a farmer, and his wife was an active, capable woman, with more of ambition than sound policy. Being in debt, they resolved to take fashionable boarders from Boston, during the summer season. These boarders, at the time of their arrival, were projecting a jaunt to the Springs; and they talked of Lake George crystals, and Canadian music, and English officers, and 'dark blue Ontario,' with its beautiful little brood of _lakelets_, as Wordsworth would call them; and how one lady was dressed superbly at Saratoga; and how another was scandalized for always happening to drop her fan in the vicinity of the wealthiest beaux. All this fired the quiet imagination of the good farmer's wife; and no sooner had the boarders departed to enjoy themselves in spite of heat, and dust, and fever-and-ague, than she stated her determination to follow them. 'Why have we not as good a right to travel, as they have?' said she; 'they have paid us money enough to go to Niagara with; and it really is a shame for people to live and die so ignorant of their own country.' 'But then we want the money to pay for that stock, which turned out unlucky, you know.' 'Oh, that can be done next summer; we can always get boarders enough, and those that will pay handsomely. Give the man a mortgage of the house, to keep him quiet till next summer.' 'But what will you do with the children?' 'Sally is a very smart girl; I am sure she will take as good care of them as if I were at home.'

To make a long story short, the farmer and his wife concluded to go to Quebec, just to show they had a _right_ to put themselves to inconvenience, if they pleased. They went; spent all their money; had a watch stolen from them in the steamboat; were dreadfully sea-sick off Point Judith; came home tired, and dusty; found the babe sick, because Sally had stood at the door with it, one chilly, damp morning, while she was feeding the chickens; and the eldest girl screaming and screeching at the thoughts of going to bed, because Sally, in order to bring her under her authority, had told her a frightful 'raw-head-and-b.l.o.o.d.y-bones' story; the horse had broken into the garden, and made wretched work with the vegetables; and fifty pounds of b.u.t.ter had become fit for the grease-pot, because the hoops of the firkin had sprung, and Sally had so much to do, that she never thought of going to see whether the b.u.t.ter was covered with brine.

After six or eight weeks, the children were pretty well restored to orderly habits; and the wife, being really a notable and prudent woman, resolved to make up for her lost b.u.t.ter and vegetables, by doing without help through the winter. When summer came, they should have boarders, she said; and sure enough, they had boarders in plenty; but not profitable ones. There were forty cousins, at whose houses they had stopped; and twenty people who had been very polite to them on the way; and it being such a pleasant season, and _travelling so cheap_, everyone of these people felt they had _a right_ to take a journey; and they could not help pa.s.sing a day or two with their friends at the farm. One after another came, till the farmer could bear it no longer. 'I tell you what, wife,' said he, 'I am going to jail as fast as a man can go. If there is no other way of putting a stop to this, I'll sell every bed in the house, except the one we sleep on.'

And sure enough, he actually did this; and when the forty-first cousin came down on a friendly visit, on account of what her other cousins had told her about the cheapness of travelling, she was told they should be very happy to sleep on the floor, for the sake of accommodating her, for a night or two; but the truth was, they had but one bed in the house. This honest couple are now busy in paying off their debts, and laying by something for their old age. He facetiously tells how he went to New York to have his watch stolen, and his boots blacked like a looking gla.s.s; and she shows her Lake George diamond ring, and tells how the steamboat was crowded, and how afraid she was the boiler would burst, and always ends by saying, 'After all, it was a toil of pleasure.'

However, it is not our farmers, who are in the greatest danger of this species of extravagance; for we look to that cla.s.s of people, as the strongest hold of republican simplicity, industry, and virtue. It is from adventurers, swindlers, broken down traders,--all that rapidly increasing cla.s.s of idlers, too genteel to work, and too proud to beg,--that we have most reason to dread examples of extravagance. A very respectable tavern-keeper has lately been driven to establish a rule, that no customer shall be allowed to rise from the table till he pays for his meal. 'I know it is rude to give such orders to honest men,' said he, 'and three years ago I would as soon cut off my hand as have done it; but now, travelling is so cheap, that all sorts of characters are on the move; and I find more than half of them will get away, if they can, without paying a cent.'

With regard to public amus.e.m.e.nts, it is still worse. Rope-dancers, and opera-dancers, and all sorts of dancers, go through the country, making thousands as they go; while, from high to low, there is one universal, despairing groan of 'hard times,' 'dreadful gloomy times!'

These things ought not to be. People who have little to spend, should partake sparingly of useless amus.e.m.e.nts; those who are in debt should deny themselves entirely. Let me not be supposed to inculcate exclusive doctrines. I would have every species of enjoyment as open to the poor as to the rich; but I would have people consider well how they are likely to obtain the greatest portion of happiness, taking the whole of their lives into view; I would not have them sacrifice permanent respectability and comfort to present gentility and love of excitement; above all, I caution them to beware that this love of excitement does not grow into a habit, till the fireside becomes a dull place, and the gambling table and the bar-room finish what the theatre began.

If men would have women economical, they must be so themselves. What motive is there for patient industry, and careful economy, when the savings of a month are spent at one trip to Nahant, and more than the value of a much desired, but rejected dress, is expended during the stay of a new set of comedians? We make a great deal of talk about being republicans; if we are so in reality, we shall stay at home, to mind our business, and educate our children, so long as one or the other need our attention, or can suffer by our neglect.

PHILOSOPHY AND CONSISTENCY.

Among all the fine things Mrs. Barbauld wrote, she never wrote anything better than her essay on the Inconsistency of Human Expectations. 'Everything,' says she, 'is marked at a settled price.

Our time, our labor, our ingenuity, is so much ready money, which we are to lay out to the best advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your own judgment; and do not, like children, when you have purchased one thing, repine that you do not possess another, which you would not purchase. Would you be rich? Do you think _that_ the single point worth sacrificing everything else to? You may then be rich. Thousands have become so from the lowest beginnings by toil, and diligence, and attention to the minutest articles of expense and profit. But you must give up the pleasures of leisure, of an unembarra.s.sed mind, and of a free, unsuspicious temper. You must learn to do hard, if not unjust things; and as for the embarra.s.sment of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid of it as fast as possible. You must not stop to enlarge your mind, polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep on in one beaten track, without turning aside to the right hand or the left. "But,"

you say, "I cannot submit to drudgery like this; I feel a spirit above it." 'Tis well; be above it then; only do not repine because you are not rich. Is knowledge the pearl of price in your estimation? That too may be purchased by steady application, and long, solitary hours of study and reflection. "But," says the man of letters, "what a hardship is it that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe the motto on his coach, shall raise a fortune, and make a figure, while I possess merely the common conveniences of life." Was it for fortune, then, that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and gave the sprightly years of youth to study and reflection? You then have mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry. "What reward have I then for all my labor?" What reward! A large comprehensive soul, purged from vulgar fears and prejudices, able to interpret the works of man and G.o.d. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Heaven! what other reward can you ask! "But is it not a reproach upon the economy of Providence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have ama.s.sed wealth enough to buy half a nation?" Not in the least. He made himself a mean, dirty fellow, for that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, and his liberty for it. Do you envy him his bargain? Will you hang your head in his presence, because he outshines you in equipage and show? Lift up your brow with a n.o.ble confidence, and say to yourself, "I have not these things, it is true; but it is because I have not desired, or sought them; it is because I possess something better. I have chosen my lot!

I am content, and satisfied." The most characteristic mark of a great mind is to choose some one object, which it considers important, and pursue that object through life. If we expect the purchase, we must pay the price.'

'There is a pretty pa.s.sage in one of Lucian's dialogues, where Jupiter complains to Cupid, that, though he has had so many intrigues, he was never sincerely beloved. "In order to be loved," says Cupid, "you must lay aside your aegis and your thunder-bolts; you must curl and perfume your hair, and place a garland on your head, and walk with a soft step, and a.s.sume a winning, obsequious deportment." "But," replied Jupiter, "I am not willing to resign so much of my dignity." "Then,"

returned Cupid, "leave off desiring to be loved."'

These remarks by Mrs. Barbauld are full of sound philosophy. Who has not observed, in his circle of acquaintance, and in the recesses of his own heart, the same inconsistency of expectation, the same peevishness of discontent.

Says Germanicus, 'There is my dunce of a cla.s.smate has found his way into Congress, and is living amid the perpetual excitement of intellectual minds, while I am cooped up in an ignorant country parish, obliged to be at the beck and call of every old woman, who happens to feel uneasy in her mind.'

'Well, Germanicus, the road to political distinction was as open to you as to him; why did you not choose it?' 'Oh, I could not consent to be the tool of a party; to shake hands with the vicious, and flatter fools. It would gall me to the quick to hear my opponents accuse me of actions I never committed, and of motives which worlds would not tempt me to indulge.' Since Germanicus is wise enough to know the whistle costs more than it is worth, is he not unreasonable to murmur because he has not bought it?

Matrona always wears a discontented look when she hears the praises of Clio. 'I used to write her composition for her, when we were at school together,' says she; 'and now she is quite the idol of the literary world; while I am never heard of beyond my own family, unless some one happens to introduce me as the friend of Clio.' 'Why not write, then; and see if the world will not learn to introduce Clio as the friend of Matrona?' 'I write! not for the world! I could not endure to pour my soul out to an undiscerning mult.i.tude; I could not see my cherished thoughts caricatured by some soulless reviewer, and my favorite fancies expounded by the matter-of-fact editor of some stupid paper.'

Why does Matrona envy what she knows costs so much, and is of so little value?

Yet so it is, through all cla.s.ses of society. All of us covet some neighbor's possession, and think our lot would have been happier, had it been different from what it is. Yet most of us could obtain worldly distinctions, if our habits and inclinations allowed us to pay the immense price at which they must be purchased. True wisdom lies in finding out all the advantages of a situation in which we _are_ placed, instead of imagining the enjoyments of one in which we are _not_ placed.

Such philosophy is rarely found. The most perfect sample I ever met was an old woman, who was apparently the poorest and most forlorn of the human species--so true is the maxim which all profess to believe, and which none act upon invariably, viz. that happiness does not depend on outward circ.u.mstances. The wise woman, to whom I have alluded, _walks_ to Boston, from a distance of twenty-five or thirty miles, to sell a bag of brown thread and stockings; and then patiently foots it back again with her little gains. Her dress, though tidy, is a grotesque collection of 'shreds and patches,' coa.r.s.e in the extreme.

'Why don't you come down in a wagon?' said I, when I observed that she was soon to become a mother, and was evidently wearied with her long journey. 'We h'an't got any horse,' replied she; 'the neighbors are very kind to me, but they can't spare their'n; and it would cost as much to hire one, as all my thread will come to.' 'You have a husband--don't he do anything for you.' 'He is a good man; he does all he can; but he's a cripple and an invalid. He reels my yarn, and _specks_ the children's shoes. He's as kind a husband as a woman need to have.' 'But his being a cripple is a heavy misfortune to you,'

said I. 'Why, ma'am, I don't look upon it in that light,' replied the thread-woman; 'I consider that I've great reason to be thankful he never took to any bad habits.' 'How many children have you?' 'Six sons, and five _darters_, ma'am.' 'Six sons and five daughters! What a family for a poor woman to support!' 'It's a family, surely, ma'am; but there an't one of 'em I'd be willing to lose. They are as good children as need to be--all willing to work, and all clever to me.

Even the littlest boy, when he gets a cent now and then for doing a _ch.o.r.e_, will be sure and bring it to ma'am.' 'Do your daughters spin your thread?' 'No, ma'am; as soon as they are old enough, they go out to _sarvice_. I don't want to keep them always delving for me; they are always willing to give me what they can; but it is right and fair they should do a little for themselves. I do all my spinning after the folks are abed.' 'Don't you think you should be better off, if you had no one but yourself to provide for?' 'Why, no, ma'am, I don't. If I hadn't been married, I should always have had to work as hard as I could; and now I can't do more than that. My children are a great comfort to me; and I look forward to the time when they'll do as much for me as I have done for them.'

Here was true philosophy! I learned a lesson from that poor woman which I shall not soon forget. If I wanted true, hearty, well principled service, I would employ children brought up by such a mother.

REASONS FOR HARD TIMES.

Perhaps there never was a time when the depressing effects of stagnation in business were so universally felt, all the world over, as they are now.--The merchant sends out old dollars, and is lucky if he gets the same number of new ones in return; and he who has a share in manufactures, has bought a 'bottle imp,' which he will do well to hawk about the street for the lowest possible coin. The effects of this depression must of course be felt by all grades of society. Yet who that pa.s.ses through Cornhill at one o'clock, and sees the bright array of wives and daughters, as various in their decorations as the insects, the birds and the sh.e.l.ls, would believe that the community was staggering under a weight which almost paralyzes its movements?

'Everything is so cheap,' say the ladies, 'that it is inexcusable not to dress well.' But do they reflect _why_ things are so cheap? Do they know how much wealth has been sacrificed, how many families ruined, to produce this boasted result? Do they not know enough of the machinery of society, to suppose that the stunning effect of crash after crash, may eventually be felt by those on whom they depend for support?

Luxuries are cheaper now than necessaries were a few years since; yet it is a lamentable fact, that it costs more to live now than it did formerly. When silk was nine shillings per yard, seven or eight yards sufficed for a dress; now it is four or five shillings, sixteen or twenty yards will hardly satisfy the mantuamaker.

If this extravagance were confined to the wealthiest cla.s.ses, it would be productive of more good than evil. But if the rich have a new dress every fortnight, people of moderate fortune will have one every month.

In this way, finery becomes the standard of respectability; and a man's cloth is of more consequence than his character.

Men of fixed salaries spend every cent of their income, and then leave their children to depend on the precarious charity and reluctant friendship of a world they have wasted their substance to please.

Men who rush into enterprise and speculation, keep up their credit by splendor; and should they sink, they and their families carry with them extravagant habits to corrode their spirits with discontent, perchance to tempt them into crime. 'I know we are extravagant,' said one of my acquaintance, the other day; 'but how can I help it? My husband does not like to see his wife and daughters dress more meanly than those with whom they a.s.sociate.' 'Then, my dear lady, your husband has not as much moral dignity and moral courage as I thought he had. He should be content to see his wife and daughters respected for neatness, good taste, and attractive manners.' 'This all sounds very well in talk,' replied the lady; 'but, say what you will about pleasing and intelligent girls, n.o.body will attend to them unless they dress in the fashion. If my daughters were to dress in the plain, neat style you recommend, they would see all their acquaintance asked to dance more frequently than themselves, and not a gentleman would join them in Cornhill.'

'I do not believe this in so extensive a sense as you do. Girls may appear genteelly without being extravagant, and though some fops may know the most approved color for a ribbon, or the newest arrangement for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, I believe gentlemen of real character merely notice whether a lady's dress is generally in good taste, or not. But, granting your statement to be true, in its widest sense, of what consequence is it? How much will the whole happiness of your daughter's life be affected by her dancing some fifty times less than her companions, or wasting some few hours less in the empty conversation of c.o.xcombs? A man often admires a style of dress, which he would not venture to support in a wife. Extravagance has prevented many marriages, and rendered still more unhappy. And should your daughters fail in forming good connexions, what have you to leave them, save extravagant habits, too deeply rooted to be eradicated.

Think you those who now laugh at them for a soiled glove, or an unfashionable ribbon, will a.s.sist their poverty, or cheer their neglected old age? No; they would find them as cold and selfish as they are vain. A few thousands in the bank are worth all the fashionable friends in Christendom.'

Whether my friend was convinced, or not, I cannot say; but I saw her daughters in Cornhill, the next week, with new French hats and blonde veils.

It is really melancholy to see how this fever of extravagance rages, and how it is sapping the strength of our happy country. It has no bounds; it pervades all ranks, and characterizes all ages.

I know the wife of a pavier, who spends her three hundred a year in 'outward adorning,' and who will not condescend to speak to her husband, while engaged in his honest calling.

Mechanics, who should have too high a sense of their own respectability to resort to such pitiful compet.i.tion, will indulge their daughters in dressing like the wealthiest; and a domestic would certainly leave you, should you dare advise her to lay up one cent of her wages.

'These things ought not to be.' Every man and every woman should lay up some portion of their income, whether that income be great or small.