第 10 节
作者:
瞎说呗 更新:2024-01-24 16:00 字数:9322
ng propensity; some calling of nature; some over…weening interest in any special field of industry; inquiry; or art; he will do right to obey the impulse; and that for two reasons: the first external; because there he will render the best services; the second personal; because a demand of his own nature is to him without appeal whenever it can be satisfied with the consent of his other faculties and appetites。 If he has no such elective taste; by the very principle on which he chooses any pursuit at all he must choose the most honest and serviceable; and not the most highly remunerated。 We have here an external problem; not from or to ourself; but flowing from the constitution of society; and we have our own soul with its fixed design of righteousness。 All that can be done is to present the problem in proper terms; and leave it to the soul of the individual。 Now; the problem to the poor is one of necessity: to earn wherewithal to live; they must find remunerative labour。 But the problem to the rich is one of honour: having the wherewithal; they must find serviceable labour。 Each has to earn his daily bread: the one; because he has not yet got it to eat; the other; who has already eaten it; because he has not yet earned it。
Of course; what is true of bread is true of luxuries and comforts; whether for the body or the mind。 But the consideration of luxuries leads us to a new aspect of the whole question; and to a second proposition no less true; and maybe no less startling; than the last。
At the present day; we; of the easier classes; are in a state of surfeit and disgrace after meat。 Plethora has filled us with indifference; and we are covered from head to foot with the callosities of habitual opulence。 Born into what is called a certain rank; we live; as the saying is; up to our station。 We squander without enjoyment; because our fathers squandered。 We eat of the best; not from delicacy; but from brazen habit。 We do not keenly enjoy or eagerly desire the presence of a luxury; we are unaccustomed to its absence。 And not only do we squander money from habit; but still more pitifully waste it in ostentation。 I can think of no more melancholy disgrace for a creature who professes either reason or pleasure for his guide; than to spend the smallest fraction of his income upon that which he does not desire; and to keep a carriage in which you do not wish to drive; or a butler of whom you are afraid; is a pathetic kind of folly。 Money; being a means of happiness; should make both parties happy when it changes hands; rightly disposed; it should be twice blessed in its employment; and buyer and seller should alike have their twenty shillings worth of profit out of every pound。 Benjamin Franklin went through life an altered man; because he once paid too dearly for a penny whistle。 My concern springs usually from a deeper source; to wit; from having bought a whistle when I did not want one。 I find I regret this; or would regret it if I gave myself the time; not only on personal but on moral and philanthropical considerations。 For; first; in a world where money is wanting to buy books for eager students and food and medicine for pining children; and where a large majority are starved in their most immediate desires; it is surely base; stupid; and cruel to squander money when I am pushed by no appetite and enjoy no return of genuine satisfaction。 My philanthropy is wide enough in scope to include myself; and when I have made myself happy; I have at least one good argument that I have acted rightly; but where that is not so; and I have bought and not enjoyed; my mouth is closed; and I conceive that I have robbed the poor。 And; second; anything I buy or use which I do not sincerely want or cannot vividly enjoy; disturbs the balance of supply and demand; and contributes to remove industrious hands from the production of what is useful or pleasurable and to keep them busy upon ropes of sand and things that are a weariness to the flesh。 That extravagance is truly sinful; and a very silly sin to boot; in which we impoverish mankind and ourselves。 It is another question for each man's heart。 He knows if he can enjoy what he buys and uses; if he cannot; he is a dog in the manger; nay; it he cannot; I contend he is a thief; for nothing really belongs to a man which he cannot use。 Proprietor is connected with propriety; and that only is the man's which is proper to his wants and faculties。
A youth; in choosing a career; must not be alarmed by poverty。 Want is a sore thing; but poverty does not imply want。 It remains to be seen whether with half his present income; or a third; he cannot; in the most generous sense; live as fully as at present。 He is a fool who objects to luxuries; but he is also a fool who does not protest against the waste of luxuries on those who do not desire and cannot enjoy them。 It remains to be seen; by each man who would live a true life to himself and not a merely specious life to society; how many luxuries he truly wants and to how many he merely submits as to a social propriety; and all these last he will immediately forswear。 Let him do this; and he will be surprised to find how little money it requires to keep him in complete contentment and activity of mind and senses。 Life at any level among the easy classes is conceived upon a principle of rivalry; where each man and each household must ape the tastes and emulate the display of others。 One is delicate in eating; another in wine; a third in furniture or works of art or dress; and I; who care nothing for any of these refinements; who am perhaps a plain athletic creature and love exercise; beef; beer; flannel shirts and a camp bed; am yet called upon to assimilate all these other tastes and make these foreign occasions of expenditure my own。 It may be cynical: I am sure I shall be told it is selfish; but I will spend my money as I please and for my own intimate personal gratification; and should count myself a nincompoop indeed to lay out the colour of a halfpenny on any fancied social decency or duty。 I shall not wear gloves unless my hands are cold; or unless I am born with a delight in them。 Dress is my own affair; and that of one other in the world; that; in fact and for an obvious reason; of any woman who shall chance to be in love with me。 I shall lodge where I have a mind。 If I do not ask society to live with me; they must be silent; and even if I do; they have no further right but to refuse the invitation! There is a kind of idea abroad that a man must live up to his station; that his house; his table; and his toilette; shall be in a ratio of equivalence; and equally imposing to the world。 If this is in the Bible; the passage has eluded my inquiries。 If it is not in the Bible; it is nowhere but in the heart of the fool。 Throw aside this fancy。 See what you want; and spend upon that; distinguish what you do not care about; and spend nothing upon that。 There are not many people who can differentiate wines above a certain and that not at all a high price。 Are you sure you are one of these? Are you sure you prefer cigars at sixpence each to pipes at some fraction of a farthing? Are you sure you wish to keep a gig? Do you care about where you sleep; or are you not as much at your ease in a cheap lodging as in an Elizabethan manor…house? Do you enjoy fine clothes? It is not possible to answer these questions without a trial; and there is nothing more obvious to my mind; than that a man who has not experienced some ups and downs; and been forced to live more cheaply than in his father's house; has still his education to begin。 Let the experiment be made; and he will find to his surprise that he has been eating beyond his appetite up to that hour; that the cheap lodging; the cheap tobacco; the rough country clothes; the plain table; have not only no power to damp his spirits; but perhaps give him as keen pleasure in the using as the dainties that he took; betwixt sleep and waking; in his former callous and somnambulous submission to wealth。
The true Bohemian; a creature lost to view under the imaginary Bohemians of literature; is exactly described by such a principle of life。 The Bohemian of the novel; who drinks more than is good for him and prefers anything to work; and wears strange clothes; is for the most part a respectable Bohemian; respectable in disrespectability; living for the outside; and an adventurer。 But the man I mean lives wholly to himself; does what he wishes; and not what is thought proper; buys what he wants for himself; and not what is thought proper; works at what he believes he can do well and not what will bring him in money or favour。 You may be the most respectable of men; and yet a true Bohemian。 And the test is this: a Bohemian; for as poor as he may be; is always open…handed to his friends; he knows what he can do with money and how he can do without it; a far rarer and more useful knowledge; he has had less; and continued to live in some contentment; and hence he cares not to keep more; and shares his sovereign or his shilling with a friend