Mother, said Nancy Bennet, I wish you would let us have tea to
breakfast: there are neighbour Spendalls and their children drinking
tea every morning when I go by to school, and we never have it but on
Sunday afternoons. My dear, said her mother, every thing which is good
for you, that I can buy, I wish you to have; but there are many reasons
which would make it improper for us to drink much tea: One is, that
it is very dear, and affords but little nourishment: Another, that it
is neither pleasant nor wholesome without cream and sugar. Two pounds
of the coarsest sugar I could buy, would cost eighteen pence. With
that eighteen pence I could buy you a new shift; the sugar, you know,
would be soon gone and forgotten; the shift will help to keep you warm
and comfortable for years. Which would you rather have? O the shift,
said she to be sure. Well, my dear, said her mother, it is by denying
ourselves tea that we are able to get a comfortable change of shirts
and shifts; and another advantage is, that I believe we have better
health than many people who live a good deal on tea. Your father finds
himself more able to work after bread and cheese and a pint of beer,
than he would after tea: And a bason of milk-porridge is a much more
satisfying meal for us; and, it is a very happy thing, that the most
wholesome food is generally the cheapest. Ploughmen and milkmaids, who
look so ruddy, and are the most healthy people in the kingdom, seldom
taste tea. Part of their health and strength, it is true, is owing to
their rising early, going to bed early, and living a good deal out
of doors: but we, who are obliged to do our work more in the house,
ought to get the most wholesome food we can; and, spending our money
in tea and sugar, would deprive us of many more useful things. I have
heard my mother say, that tea was very little drank when she was young;
and, I believe, people were quite as healthy and as happy then. For
one quarter of a year, I laid by, every week, just as much as I should
have laid out had we drank tea. This, at the least I could reckon it,
was one shilling and sixpence a week. As there are twelve weeks in a
quarter of a year, this, you know, came to eighteen shillings; and,
with that money, I bought myself and you, these good stuff gowns, which
have kept us so warm all the winter, and a pair of sheets for your
bed: Would you rather have been starved in rags, and drank tea; or,
comfortably clad, and had milk-porridge? O, I have heard enough about
tea, said Nancy, give me milk-porridge, a stuff gown, and new sheets.
If comfort round a cottage fire,
The poor desire to see,
Let them to useful things aspire,
And learn to banish tea.
[Illustration]