generosity unless she lives _within_ her income. Whether the expenditure
be on a large or a small scale, it signifies little; she alone is truly
rich who has brought her wants sufficiently within the bounds of her
income to have always something to spare for unexpected contingencies.
In laying down rules for your expenditure, you will, of course, impose
upon yourself a regular dedication of a certain part of your income to
charitable purposes. This ought to be considered as entirely set apart,
as no longer your own: your opportunities must determine the exact
proportion; but the tenth, at least, of the substance which God has
given you must be considered as appropriated to his service; nor can you
hope for a blessing upon the remainder, if you withhold that which has
been distinctly claimed from you. Besides the regular allowance for the
wants of the poor, I can readily suppose that it will be a satisfaction
to you to deny yourself, from time to time, some innocent gratification,
when a greater gratification is within your reach, by laying out your
money "to make the widow's heart to sing for joy; to bring upon yourself
the blessing of him that was ready to perish."[67] Here, however, will
much watchfulness be required; you must be sure that it is only some
self-indulgence you sacrifice, and nothing of that which the claims of
justice demand. For when, after systematic, as well as present,
self-denial, you still find that you cannot afford to relieve the
distress which it pains your heart to witness, be careful to resist the
temptation of giving away that which is lawfully due to others. For the
purpose of saving suffering in one direction you may cause it in
another; and besides, you set yourself as plainly in opposition to that
which is the will of God concerning you as if your imprudent
expenditure were caused by some temptation less refined and unselfish
than the relief of real distress. The gratification that another woman
would find in a splendid dress, you derive from more exalted sources;
but if you or she purchase your gratification by an act of injustice, by
spending money that does not belong to you, you, as well as she, are
making an idol of self, in choosing to have that which the providence of
God has denied you. "The silver and the gold is mine, saith the Lord;"
and it cannot be without a special purpose, relating to the peculiar
discipline requisite for such characters, that this silver and gold is
so often withheld from those who would make the best and kindest use of
it. Murmur not, then, when this hard trial comes upon you, when you see
want and sorrow which you cannot in justice to others relieve; and when
you see thousands, at the very moment you experience this generous
suffering, expended on entirely selfish, perhaps sinful gratifications,
neither be tempted to murmur or to act unjustly. "Is it not the Lord;"
has not he in his infinite love and infinite wisdom appointed this very
trial for you? Bow your head and heart in submission, and dare not to
seek an escape from it by one step out of the path of duty. It may be
that close examination, a searching of the stores of memory, will bring
even this trial under the almost invariable head of needful
chastisement; it may be that it is the consequence of some former act of
self-indulgence and extravagance, which would have been forgotten, or
not deeply enough repented of, unless your sin had in this way been
brought to remembrance. Thus even this trial assumes the invariable
character of all God's chastisements: it is the inevitable consequence
of sin,--as inevitable as the relation of cause and effect. It results
from no special interposition of Providence, but is the natural result
of those decrees upon which the whole system of the world is founded;
secondarily, however, overruled to work together for good to the
penitent sinner, by impressing more deeply on his mind the humbling
remembrance of past sin, and leading to a more watchful future avoidance
of the same.
It is indeed probable, that without many trials of this peculiarly
painful kind, the duty of economy could not be deeply enough impressed
on a naturally generous and warm heart. The restraints of prudence would
be unheeded, unless bitter experience, as it were, burned them in.
I have spoken of two necessary preparations for the practice of
economy,--the first, a clear general view of our probable expenses; the
second, which I am now about to notice, is the calculation of the
probable funds that are to meet these expenses. In your case, there is a
certain income, with sundry contingencies, very much varying, and
altogether uncertain. Such probabilities, then, as the latter, ought to
be appropriated to such expenses as are occasional and not inevitable:
you must never calculate on them for any of your necessary expenditure,
except in the same average manner as you have calculated that
expenditure; and you must estimate the average considerably within
probabilities, or you will be often thrown into discomfort. It is much
better that all indulgences of mere taste, of entirely personal
gratification, should be dependent on this uncertain fund; and here
again I would warn you to keep in view the more pressing wants that may
arise in the future. The gratification in which you are now indulging
yourself may be a perfectly innocent one; but are you quite sure that
you are not expending more money than _you_ can prudently, or, to speak
better, conscientiously afford, on that which offers only a temporary
gratification, and involves no improvement or permanent benefit? You
certainly are not sufficiently rich to indulge in any merely temporary
gratification, except in extreme moderation. With relation to that part
of your income which is varying and uncertain, I have observed that it
is a very common temptation assailing the generous and thoughtless,
(about money matters, often those who are least thoughtless about other
things,) that there is always some future prospect of an increase of
income, which is to free them from present embarrassments, and enable
them to pay for the enjoyment of all those wishes that they are now
gratifying. It is a future, however, that never arrives; for every
increase of property brings new claims or new wants along with it; and
it is found, too late, that, by exceeding present income, we have
destroyed both the present and the future, we have created wants which
the future income will find a difficulty in supplying, having in
addition its own new ones to provide for.
It may indeed in a few, a very few, cases be necessary, in others
expedient, to forestall that money which we have every certainty of
presently possessing; but unless the expenditure relates to particulars
coming under the term of "daily bread," it appears to me decided
dishonesty to lay out an uncertain future income. Even if it should
become ours, have we not acted in direct contradiction to the revealed
will of God concerning us? The station of life in which God has placed
us depends very much on the expenditure within our power; and if we
double that, do we not in fact choose wilfully for ourselves a different
position from that which he has appointed, and withdraw from under the
guiding hand of his providence? Let us not hope that even temporal
success will be allowed to result from such acts of disobedience.
What a high value does it stamp on the virtue of economy, when we thus
consider it as one of the means towards enabling us to submit ourselves
to the will of God!
I cannot close a letter to a woman on the subject of economy without
referring to the subject of dress. Though your strongest temptations to
extravagance may be those of a generous, warm heart, I have no doubt
that you are also, though in an inferior degree, tempted by the desire
to improve your personal appearance by the powerful aid of dress. It
ought not to be otherwise; you should not be indifferent to a very
important means of pleasing. Your natural beauty would be unavailing
unless you devoted both time and care to its preservation and adornment.
You should be solicitous to win the affection of those around you; and
there are many who will be seriously influenced by any neglect of due
attention to your personal appearance. Besides the insensible effect
produced on the most ignorant and unreasonable spectator, those whom you
will most wish to please will look upon it, and with justice, as an
index to your mind; and a simple, graceful, and well-ordered exterior
will always give the impression that similar qualities exist within.
Dressing well is some a natural and easy accomplishment; to others, who
may have the very same qualities existing in their minds without the
power (which is in a degree mechanical) of displaying the same outward
manifestation of them, it will be much more difficult to attain the same
object with the same expense. Your study, therefore, of the art of dress
must be a double one,--must first enable you to bring the smallest
details of your apparel into as close conformity as possible to the
forms and tastes of your mind, and, secondly, enable you to reconcile
this exercise of taste with the duties of economy. If fashion is to be
consulted as well as taste, I fear that you will find this impossible;
if a gown or a bonnet is to be replaced by a new one, the moment a
slight alteration takes place in the fashion of the shape or the colour,
you will often be obliged to sacrifice taste as well as duty. Rather
make up your mind to appear no richer than you are; if you cannot afford
to vary your dress according to the rapidly--varying fashions, have the
moral courage to confess this in action. Nor will your appearance lose
much by the sacrifice. If your dress is in accordance with true taste,
the more valuable of your acquaintance will be able to appreciate that,
while they would be unconscious of any strict and expensive conformity
to the fashions of the month. Of course, I do not speak now of any
glaring discrepancy between your dress and the general costume of the
time. There could be no display of a simple taste while any singularity
in your dress attracted notice; neither could there be much additional
expense in a moderate attention to the prevailing forms and colours of
the time,--for bonnets and gowns do not, alas, last for ever. What I
mean to deprecate is the laying aside any one of these, which is
suitable in every other respect, lest it should reveal the secret of
your having expended nothing upon dress during this season. Remember how
many indulgences to your generous nature would be procured by the price
of, a fashionable gown or bonnet, and your feelings will provide a
strong support to your duty. Another way in which you may successfully
practise economy is by taking care of your clothes, having them repaired
in proper time, and neither exposing them to sun or rain unnecessarily.
A ten-guinea gown may be sacrificed in half an hour, and the indolence
of your disposition would lead you to prefer this sacrifice to the
trouble of taking any preservatory precautions, or thinking about the
matter at all. Is this right? Even if you can procure money to satisfy
the demands of mere carelessness, are you acting as a faithful steward
by thus expending it? I willingly grant to you that some women are so
wealthy, placed in situations requiring so much representation, that it
would be degrading to them to take much thought about any thing but the
beauty and fashion of their clothes; and that an anxiety on their part
about the preservation of, to them, trifles would indicate meanness and
parsimoniousness. Their office is to encourage trade by a lavish
expenditure, conformable to the rank in life in which God has placed
them. Happy are they if this wealth do not become a temptation too hard
to be overcome! Happier those from whom such temptations, denounced in
the word of God more strongly than any other, are entirely averted!
This is your position; and as much as it is the duty of the very wealthy
to expend proportionally upon their dress, so is it yours to be
scrupulously economical, and to bring down your aspiring thoughts from
the regions of poetry and romance to the homely duties of mending and
caretaking. There will be poetry and romance too in the generous and
useful employment you may make of the money thus economised. Besides, if
you do not yet see that they exist in the smallest and homeliest of
every-day cares, it is only because your mind has not been sufficiently
developed by experience to find poetry and romance in every act of
self-control and self-denial.
There is, I believe, a general idea that genius and intellectual
pursuits are inconsistent with the minute observations and cares that I
have been recommending; and by nature perhaps they are so. The memoirs
of great men are filled with anecdotes of their incompetency for
commonplace duties, their want of observation, their indifference to
details: you may observe, however, that such men were great in learning
alone; they never exhibited that union of action and thought which is
essential to constitute a heroic character.
We read that a Charlemagne and a Wallenstein could stoop, in the midst
of their vast designs and splendid successes, to the cares of selling
the eggs of their poultry-yard,[68] and of writing minute directions
for its more skilful management.[69] A proper attention to the repair
of the strings of your gowns or the ribbons of your shoes could scarcely
be farther, in comparison, beneath your notice.
The story of Sir Isaac Newton's cat and kitten has often made you smile;
but it is no smile of admiration: such absence of mind is simply
ridiculous. If, indeed, you should refer to its cause you may by
reflection ascertain that the concentration of thought secured by such
abstraction, in his particular case, may have been of use to mankind in
general; but you must at the same time feel that he, even a Sir Isaac
Newton, would have been a greater man had his genius been more
universal, had it extended from the realms of thought into those of
action.
With women the same case is much stronger; their minds are seldom, if
ever, employed on subjects the importance and difficulty of which might
make amends for such concentration of thought as would necessarily,
except in first-rate minds, produce abstraction and inattention to
homely every-day duties.
Even in the case of a genius, one of most rare occurrence, an attention
to details, and thoughtfulness respecting them, though certainly more
difficult, is proportionally more admirable than in ordinary women.
It was said of the wonderful Elizabeth Smith, that she equally excelled
in every department of life, from the translation of the most difficult
passages of the Hebrew Bible down to the making of a pudding. You should
establish it as a practical truth in your mind, that, with a strong
will, the intellectual powers may be turned into every imaginable
direction, and lead to excellence in one as surely as in another.
Even where the strong will is wanting, and there may not be the same
mechanical facility that belongs to more vigorous organizations, every
really useful and necessary duty is still within the reach of all
intellectual women. Among these, you can scarcely doubt that the science
of economy, and that important part of it which consists in taking care
of your clothes, is within the power of every woman who does not look
upon it as beneath her notice. This I suppose you do not, as I know you
to take a rational and conscientious view of the minor duties of life,
and that you are anxious to fulfil those of exactly "that state of life
unto which it has pleased God to call you."[70]
I must not close this letter without adverting to an error into which
those of your sanguine temperament would be the most likely to fall.
You will, perhaps--for it is a common progress--run from one extreme to
another, and from having expended too large a proportion of your income
on personal decoration, you may next withdraw even necessary attention
from it. "All must be given to the poor," will be the decision of your
own impulses and of over-strained views of duty.
This, however, is, in an opposite direction, quitting the station of
life in which God has placed you, as much as those do who indulge in an
expenditure of double their income. Your dressing according to your
station in life is as much in accordance with the will of God
concerning you, as your living in a drawing-room instead of a kitchen,
in a spacious mansion instead of a peasant's cottage. Besides, as you
are situated, there is another consideration with respect to your dress
which must not be passed over in silence. The allowance you receive is
expressly for the purpose of enabling you to dress properly, suitably,
and respectably; and if you do not in the first place fulfil the purpose
of the donor, you are surely guilty of a species of dishonesty. You have
no right to indulge personal feeling, or gratify a mistaken sense of
duty, by an expenditure of money for a different purpose from that for
which it was given to you; nor even, were your money exclusively your
own, would you have a right to disregard the opinions of your friends by
dressing in a different manner from them, or from what they consider
suitable for you. If you thus err, they will neither allow you to
exercise any influence over them, nor will they be at all prejudiced in
favour of the, it may be, stricter religious principles which you
profess, when they find them lead to unnecessary singularity, and to
disregard of the feelings and wishes of those around you. It is
therefore your duty to dress like a lady, and not like a peasant
girl,--not only because the former is the station in life God himself
has chosen for you, but also because you have no right to lay out other
people's money on your own devices; and, lastly, because it is your
positive duty, in this as in all other points, to consult and consider
the reasonable wishes and opinions of those with whom God has connected
you by the ties of blood or friendship.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] 1 Tim. vi. 10.
[66] The saying of the "Great Captain," Gonsalvo di Cordova.
[67] Job xxix. 13.
[68] Montesquieu. Esprit des Lois.
[69] Colonel Mitchell's Life of Wallenstein.
[70] The Church Catechism.
LETTER VIII.
THE CULTIVATION OF THE MIND.
In writing to you upon the subject of mental cultivation, it would seem
scarcely necessary to dwell for a moment on its advantages; it would
seem as if, in this case at least, I might come at once to the point,
and state to you that which appears to me the best manner of attaining
the object in view. Experience, however, has shown me, that even into
such minds as yours, doubts will often obtain admittance, sometimes from
without, sometimes self-generated, as to the advantages of intellectual
education for women. The time will come, even if you have never yet
momentarily experienced it, when, saddened by the isolation of
superiority, and witnessing the greater love or the greater prosperity
acquired by those who have limited or neglected intellects, you may be
painfully susceptible to the slighting remarks on clever women, learned
ladies, &c., which will often meet your ear,--remarks which you will
sometimes hear from uneducated women, who may seem to be in the
enjoyment of much more peace and happiness than yourself, sometimes from
well-educated and sensible men, whose opinions you justly value. I fear,
in short, that even you may at times be tempted to regret having
directed your attention and devoted your early days to studies which
have only attracted envy or suspicion; that even you may some day or
other attribute to the pursuits which are now your favourite ones those
disappointments and unpleasantnesses which doubtless await your path, as
they do that of every traveller along life's weary way. This
inconsistency may indeed be temporary; in a character such as yours it
must be temporary, for you will feel, on reflection, that nothing which
others have gained, even were your loss of the same occasioned by your
devotion to your favourite pursuits, could make amends to you for their
sacrifice. A mind that is really susceptible of culture must either
select a suitable employment for the energies it possesses, or they will
find some dangerous occupation for themselves, and eat away the very
life they were intended to cherish and strengthen. I should wish you to
be spared, however, the humiliation of even temporary regrets, which, at
the very least, must occasion temporary loss of precious hours, and a
decrease of that diligent labour for improvement which can only be kept
in an active state of energy by a deep and steady conviction of its
nobleness and utility; further still, (which would be worse than the
temporary consequences to yourself,) at such times of despondency you
might be led to make admissions to the disadvantage of mental
cultivation, and to depreciate those very habits of study and
self-improvement which it ought to be one of the great objects of your
life to recommend to all. You might thus discourage some young beginner
in the path of self-cultivation, who, had it not been for you, might
have cheered a lonely way by the indulgence of healthy, natural tastes,
besides exercising extensive beneficial influence over others. Your
incautious words, doubly dangerous because they seem to be the result
of experience, may be the cause of such a one's remaining in useless and
wearisome, because uninterested idleness. That you may guard the more
successfully against incurring such responsibilities, you should without
delay begin a long and serious consideration, founded on thought and
observation, both as to the relative advantages of ignorance and
knowledge. When your mind has been fully made up on the point, after the
careful examination I recommend to you, you must lay your opinion aside
on the shelf, as it were, and suffer it no longer to be considered as a
matter of doubt, or a subject for discussion. You can then, when
temporarily assailed by weak-minded fears, appeal to the former
dispassionate and unprejudiced decision of your unbiassed mind. To one
like you, there is no safer appeal than that from a present excited, and
consequently prejudiced self, to another dispassionate, and consequently
wiser self. Let us then consider in detail what foundation there may be
for the remarks that are made to the depreciation of a cultivated
intellect, and illustrate their truth or falsehood by the examples of
those upon whose habits of life we have an opportunity of exercising our
observation.