be departed from that no youth or man ought to be called your friend
who is addicted to indecent talk.
In your manners be neither boorish nor blunt, but even these are
preferable to simpering and crawling. Be obedient where obedience is
due; for it is no act of meanness to yield implicit and ready obedience
to those who have a right to demand it at your hands. 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.
Let me now turn to the things which you ought to do. And, first of
all, the husbanding of your time. Young people require more sleep than
those that are grown up, and the number of hours cannot well be, on an
average, less than eight. An hour in bed is better than an hours spent
over the fire in an idle gossip.
Money is said to be power; but superior sobriety, industry, and
activity are still a more certain source of power. Booklearning 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
next thing is the grammar of your own language, for grammar is the
foundation of all literature. Excellence in your own calling is the
first thing to be aimed at. After this may come general knowledge.
Geography naturally follows grammar; and you should begin with that of
this kingdom. When you come to history, begin also with that of your
own country; and here it is my bounded duty to put you well on your
guard. The works of our historians are, as far as they relate to former
times, masses of lies unmatched by any others that the world has ever
seen.
_II.--To a Young Man_
To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility; though
poverty is, except where there is an actual want of food and raiment,
a thing much more imaginary than real. Resolve to set this false shame
of being poor at defiance. Nevertheless, men ought to take care of
their names, 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. 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. I believe 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. The purchasing with ready money really means that
you have more money to purchase with.
A great evil arising from the desire not to be thought poor is the
destructive thing honoured by the name of "speculation," but which
ought to be called gambling. It is a purchasing of something to be sold
again with a great profit at a considerable hazard. Your life, while
you are thus engaged, is the life of a gamester: a life of general
gloom, enlivened now and then by a gleam of hope or of success.
In all situations of life avoid the trammels of the law. If you win
your suit and are poorer than you were before, what do you accomplish?
Better to put up with the loss of one pound than with two, with all the
loss of time and all the mortification and anxiety attending a law suit.
Unless your business or your profession 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. Nothing can be more stupid 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.
Another mode of spending the leisure time is that of books. 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 yourselves as to prices of labour and of food. 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 judgments, and stand by that judgment until fact or argument be
offered to convince you of your error.
_III.--To a Lover_
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, and those who love
according to the rules of arithmetic, or measure their matrimonial
expectations by the claim of the land-surveyor.
I address myself to the reader whom I suppose to be a real lover, but
not so smitten as to be bereft of reason. You should never forget that
marriage is a thing to last for life, and that, generally speaking, it
is to make life happy or miserable.
The things which you ought to desire in a wife are chastity, sobriety,
industry, frugality, cleanliness, knowledge of domestic affairs, good
temper and beauty.
Chastity, perfect modesty, in word, deed, and even thought, is so
essential that without it no female is fit to be a wife. 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. The very elements of
jealousy ought to be avoided, and the only safeguard is to begin well
and so render infidelity and jealousy next to impossible.
By sobriety I mean sobriety of conduct. When girls arrive at that
age which turns their thoughts towards the command of a house it
is time for them to cast away the levity of a child. Sobriety is a
title to trustworthiness, and that is a treasure to prize above all
others. But in order to possess this precious trustworthiness you must
exercise your reason in the choice of a partner. If she be vain, fond
of flattery, given to gadding about, coquettish, she will never be
trustworthy, and you will be unjust if you expect it at her hands. But
if you find in her that innate sobriety of which I have been speaking,
there requires on your part confidence and trust without any limit.
An ardent-minded young man may fear that sobriety of conduct in a young
woman argues a want of warmth; but my observation and experience tell
me that levity, not sobriety, is, ninety-nine times out of a hundred,
the companion of a want of ardent feeling.
There is no state in life in which industry in the wife is not
necessary to the happiness and prosperity of the family. If she be lazy
there will always be a heavy arrear of things unperformed, and this,
even among the wealthy, is a great curse. But who is to tell whether a
girl will make an industrious woman? There are certain outward signs,
which, if attended to with care, will serve as pretty sure guides.
If you find the tongue lazy you may be nearly certain that the hands
and feet are the same. The pronunciation of an industrious person is
generally quick, distinct, and firm. Another mark of industry is a
quick step and a tread showing that the foot comes down with a hearty
good will.
Early rising is another mark of industry. It is, I should imagine,
pretty difficult to keep love alive towards a woman who never sees the
dew, never beholds the rising sun.
Frugality. This means the contrary of extravagance. It does not mean
stinginess; it means an abstaining from all unnecessary expenditure.
The outward and vulgar signs of extravagance are all the hardware
which women put upon their persons. The girl who has not the sense to
perceive that her person is disfigured, and not beautified by parcels
of brass, tin, and other hardware stuck about her body, is too great a
fool to be trusted with the purse of any man.
Cleanliness is a capital ingredient. Occasional cleanliness is not the
thing that an English or American husband wants; he wants it always. A
sloven in one thing is a sloven in all things. Make up your mind to a
rope rather than to live with a slip-shod wife.
Knowledge of domestic affairs is so necessary in every wife that
the lover ought to have it continually in his eye. A wife must not
only know how things ought to be done, but how to do them. I cannot
form an idea of a more unfortunate being than a girl with a mere
boarding-school education and without a future to enable her to keep a
servant when married. Of what use are her accomplishments?
Good temper is a very difficult thing to ascertain beforehand--smiles
are so cheap. By "good temper" I do not mean easy temper--a serenity
which nothing disturbs is a mark of laziness. Sulkiness, querulousness,
cold indifference, pertinacity in having the last word, are bad things
in a young woman, but of all the faults of temper your melancholy
ladies are the worst. Most wives are at times misery-makers, but the
melancholy carry it on as a regular trade.
The great use of female beauty is that it naturally tends to keep the
husband in good humour with himself, to make him pleased with his
bargain.
As to constancy in lovers, 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.
_IV.--To a Husband_
It is as a husband that your conduct will have the greatest effect on
your happiness. All in a wife, beyond her own natural disposition and
education, is, nine times out of ten, the work of her husband.
First convince her of the necessity of moderation in expense; make her
clearly see the justice of beginning to act upon the presumption that
there are children coming. The great danger of all is beginning with a
servant. The wife is young, and why is she not to work as well as her
husband? If the wife be not able to do all the work to be done in the
house, she ought not to have been able to marry.
The next thing to be attended to is your demeanour towards a young
wife. The first frown that she receives from you is a dagger to her
heart. Let nothing put you out of humour with her.
Every husband who spends his leisure time in company other than that
of his wife and family tells her and them that he takes more delight
in other company than in theirs. Resolve from the very first never to
spend an hour from home unless business or some necessary and rational
purpose demand it. If you are called away your wife ought to be fully
apprised of the probable duration of the absence and of the time of
return. When we consider what a young woman gives up on her wedding
day, how can a just man think anything a trifle that affects her
happiness?
Though these considerations may demand from us the kindest possible
treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful deportment at
her hands. A husband under command is the most contemptible of God's
creatures. Am I recommending tyranny? Am I recommending disregard of
the wife's opinions and wishes? By no means. But the very nature of
things prescribes that there must be a head of every house, and an
undivided authority. The wife ought to be heard, and patiently heard;
she ought to be reasoned with, and, if possible, convinced; but if she
remain opposed to the husband's opinion, his will must be obeyed.
I now come to that great bane of families--jealousy. One thing every
husband can do in the way of prevention, and that is to give no
ground for it. Few characters are more despicable than that of a
jealous-headed husband, and that, not because he has grounds, but
because he has not grounds.
If to be happy in the married state requires these precautions, you may
ask: Is it not better to remain single? The cares and troubles of the
married life are many, but are those of the single life few? Without
wives men are poor, helpless mortals.
As to the expense, I 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. The bachelor has no one on whom he can in all cases rely. To me,
no being in this world appears so wretched as he.
_V.--To a Father_
It is yourself that you see in your children. They are the great and
unspeakable delight of your youth, the pride of your prime of life,
and the props of your old age. From the very beginning ensure in them,
if possible, an ardent love for 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.
The man who is to gain a living by his labour must be drawn away from
home; 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 ought to be no
toils, no watchings, no breakings of rest, imposed by this duty, of
which he ought not to perform his full share, and that, too, without
grudging. The working man, in whatever line, and whether in town or
country, who spends his day of rest away from his wife and children is
not worthy of the name of father.
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. 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, but that, from their
birth, they have an abundance of good food; not only of food, but of
rich food. Nor is this, in any point of view, an unimportant matter,
for a tall man is worth more than a short man. 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 enterprising spirit. Children should
eat often, and as much as they like at a time. They will never take, of
plain food, more than it is good for them to take.
The next thing after good and plentiful and plain food is good air.
Besides sweet air, children want exercise. Even when they are babies in
arms they want tossing and pulling about, and talking and singing to.
They will, when they begin, take, if you let them alone, just as much
exercise as nature bids them, and no more.
I am of opinion that it is injurious to the mind to press book-learning
upon a child at an early age. I must impress my opinion upon every
father that his children's happiness ought to be his first object;
that book-learning, if it tend to militate against this, ought to be
disregarded. A man may read books for ever and be an ignorant creature
at last, and even the more ignorant for his reading.
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
cooking of victuals, the management of the poultry and the garden,
these are their proper occupations.
_VI.--To the Citizen_
Having now given my advice to the youth, the man, the lover, the
husband, and the father, I shall tender it to the citizen. To act well
our part as citizens 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 payments. The great right
of all is the right of taking a part in the making of the laws by which
we are governed.
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.
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? 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; yet, notwithstanding this equality, he is to
risk all, and, if he escape, he is still to be denied an equality of
rights! Why are the poor to risk their lives? To uphold the laws and
to protect property--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!
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, and 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.
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, it might be considered as of little
importance. But it is none of these; it is a practical matter. Who lets
another man put his hand into his purse when he pleases? It is the
first duty of every man to do all in his power to maintain this right
of self-government where it exists, and to restore it where it has been
lost. Men are in such a case labouring, not for the present day only,
but for ages to come. If life should not allow them time to see their
endeavours crowned, their children will see it.
DANIEL DEFOE
A Journal of the Plague Year
"A Journal of the Plague Year" appeared in 1722. In its second
edition it received the title of "A History of the Plague." This
book was suggested by the public anxiety caused by a fearful
visitation of the plague at Marseilles in the two preceding
years. As an account of the epidemic in London, it has all the
vividness of Defoe's fiction, while it is acknowledged to be
historically accurate. (Defoe biography, see Vol. III, p. 26.)
_I.--A Stricken City_
It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among the rest
of my neighbours, heard that the plague was returned again in Holland.
We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days to spread
rumours and reports of things; but such things as these were gathered
from the letters of merchants, and from them were handed about by word
of mouth only. In December, two Frenchmen died of the plague in Long
Acre, or, rather, at the upper end of Drury Lane. The secretaries
of state got knowledge of it, and two physicians and a surgeon were
ordered to go to the house and make inspection. This they did, and,
finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies, they gave
their opinions publicly, that they died of the plague; whereupon it was
given in to the parish clerk, and he also returned them to the Hall;
and it was printed in the weekly bill of mortality in the usual manner,
thus:
Plague, 2; Parishes infected, 1.
The distemper spread slowly, and in the beginning of May, the city
being healthy, we began to hope that as the infection was chiefly among
the people at the other end of the town, it might go no further. We
continued in these hopes for a few days, but it was only for a few,
for the people were no more to be deceived thus; they searched the
houses, and found that the plague was really spread every way, and that
many died of it every day; and accordingly, in the weekly bill for
the next week, the thing began to show itself. There was, indeed, but
fourteen set down of the plague, but this was all knavery and collusion.
Now the weather set in hot, and from the first week in June the
infection spread in a dreadful manner, and the bills rose high. Yet all
that could conceal their distempers did it to prevent their neighbours
shunning them, and also to prevent authority shutting up their houses.
I lived without Aldgate, midway between Aldgate church and Whitechapel
Bars, and our neighbourhood continued very easy. But at the other end
of the town their consternation was very great, and the richer sort
of people, especially the nobility and gentry, from the west part of
the city, thronged out of town with their families and servants. In
Whitechapel, where I lived, nothing was to be seen but waggons and
carts, with goods, women, servants, children, etc., all hurrying away.
This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and it filled me
with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city.
I now began to consider seriously how I should dispose of myself,
whether I should resolve to stay in London, or shut up my house and
flee. I had two important things before me: the carrying on of my
business and shop, and the preservation of my life in so dismal a
calamity. My trade was a saddler, and though a single man, I had a
family of servants and a house and warehouses filled with goods, and to
leave them all without any overseer had been to hazard the loss of all
I had in the world.
I had resolved to go; but, one way or other, I always found that to
appoint to go away was always crossed by some accident or other, so as
to disappoint and put it off again; and I advise every person, in such
a case, to keep his eye upon the particular providences which occur
at that time, and take them as intimations from Heaven of what is his
unquestioned duty to do in such a case. Add to this, that, turning over
the Bible which lay before me, I cried out, "Well, I know not what
to do; Lord, direct me!" and at that juncture, casting my eye down,
I read: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the pestilence that walketh in
darkness.... A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy
right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee." I scarce need tell the
reader that from that moment I resolved that I would stay in the town,
casting myself entirely upon the protection of the Almighty.
The court removed in the month of June, and went to Oxford, where it
pleased God to preserve them; for which I cannot say they showed any
great token of thankfulness, and hardly anything of reformation, though
they did not want being told that their crying voices might, without
breach of charity, have gone far in bringing that terrible judgment
upon the whole nation.
A blazing star or comet had appeared for several months before the
plague, and there had been universal melancholy apprehensions of some
dreadful calamity. The people were at this time more addicted to
prophecies, dreams, and old wives' fables, than ever they were before
or since. Some ran about the streets with oral predictions, one crying,
"Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed!" Another poor naked
creature cried, "Oh, the great and dreadful God!" repeating these words
continually, with voice and countenance full of horror, and a swift
pace, and nobody could ever find him to stop. Some saw a flaming sword
in a hand coming out of a cloud; others, hearses and coffins in the
air; others, heaps of dead bodies unburied. But those who were really
serious and religious applied themselves in a truly Christian manner to
the proper work of repentance and humiliation. Many consciences were
awakened, many hard hearts melted into tears. People might be heard in
the streets as we passed along, calling upon God for mercy, and saying,
"I have been a thief," or "a murderer," and the like; and none dared
stop to make the least inquiry into such things, or to comfort the poor
creatures that thus cried out. The face of London was now strangely
altered; it was all in tears; the shrieks of women and children at the
windows and doors, where their dearest relations were dead, were enough
to pierce the stoutest heart.