Part 26 (1/2)
He became intemperate; and his intemperance made her necessitous. She made many efforts to abstain from shop-work; but her pecuniary necessities forced her back into the shop. The family was large; and every moment was required at home. I have known her, after the close of a hard day's work, sit up nearly all night for several nights together was.h.i.+ng and mending clothes. My father could have no comfort there.
These domestic obligations, which in a well-regulated house (even in that of a working man, where there are prudence and good management) would be done so as not to annoy the husband, were to my father a sort of annoyance; and he, from an ignorant and mistaken notion, sought comfort in an alehouse. My mother's ignorance of household duties; my father's consequent irritability and intemperance; the frightful poverty; the constant quarrelling; the pernicious example to my brothers and sisters; the bad effect upon the future conduct of my brothers,--one and all of us being forced out to work so young that our feeble earnings would produce only 1_s_. a week,--cold and hunger, and the innumerable sufferings of my childhood, crowd upon my mind and overpower me. They keep alive a deep anxiety for the emanc.i.p.ation of thousands of families in this great town (Birmingham) and neighbourhood, who are in a similar state of horrible misery. My own experience tells me that the instruction of the females in the work of a house, in teaching them to produce cheerfulness and comfort at the fireside, would prevent a great amount of misery and crime. There would be fewer drunken husbands and disobedient children. As a working man, within my own observation, female education is disgracefully neglected. I attach more importance to it than to anything else; for woman imparts the first impressions to the young susceptible mind; she models the child from which is formed the future man.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ART OF LIVING.
”Deem no man, in any age, Gentle for his lineage.
Though he be not highly born, He is gentle if he doth What 'longeth to a gentleman.”--_Chaucer_.
”Every one is the son of his own work.”--_Cervantes_.
”Serve a n.o.ble disposition, though poor; the time comes that he will repay thee.”--_George Herbert_.
”Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of.”--_Swift_.
”Let not what I cannot have My cheer of mind destroy.”--_Cibber_.
The Art of Living deserves a place among the Fine Arts. Like Literature, it may be ranked with the Humanities. It is the art of turning the means of living to the best account,--of making the best of everything. It is the art of extracting from life its highest enjoyment, and, through it, of reaching its highest results.
To live happily, the exercise of no small degree of art is required.
Like poetry and painting, the art of living comes chiefly by nature; but all can cultivate and develop it. It can be fostered by parents and teachers, and perfected by self-culture. Without intelligence, it cannot exist.
Happiness is not, like a large and beautiful gem, so uncommon and rare, that all search for it is vain, all efforts to obtain it hopeless; but it consists of a series of smaller and commoner gems, grouped and set together, forming a pleasing and graceful whole. Happiness consists in the enjoyment of little pleasures scattered along the common path of life, which, in the eager search for some great and exciting joy, we are apt to overlook. It finds delight in the performance of common duties, faithfully and honourably fulfilled.
The art of living is abundantly exemplified in actual life. Take two men of equal means,--one of whom knows the art of living, and the other not.
The one has the seeing-eye and the intelligent mind. Nature is ever new to him, and full of beauty. He can live in the present, rehea.r.s.e the past, or antic.i.p.ate the glory of the future. With him, life has a deep meaning, and requires the performance of duties which are satisfactory to his conscience, and are therefore pleasurable. He improves himself, acts upon his age, helps to elevate the depressed cla.s.ses, and is active in every good work. His hand is never tired, his mind is never weary. He goes through life joyfully, helping others to its enjoyment.
Intelligence, ever expanding, gives him every day fresh insight into men and things. He lays down his life full of honour and blessing, and his greatest monument is the good deeds he has done, and the beneficent example he has set before his fellow-creatures.
The other has comparatively little pleasure in life. He has scarcely reached manhood, ere he has exhausted its enjoyments. Money has done everything that it could for him. Yet he feels life to be vacant and cheerless. Travelling does him no good; for, for him history has no meaning. He is only alive to the impositions of innkeepers and couriers, and the disagreeableness of travelling for days amidst great mountains, among peasants and sheep, cramped up in a carriage. Picture galleries he feels to be a bore, and he looks into them because other people do.
These ”pleasures” soon tire him, and he becomes _blase_. When he grows old, and has run the round of fas.h.i.+onable dissipations, and there is nothing left which he can relish, life becomes a masquerade, in which he recognizes only knaves, hypocrites, and flatterers. Though he does not enjoy life, yet he is terrified to leave it. Then the curtain falls.
With all his wealth, life has been to him a failure, for he has not known the Art of Living, without which life cannot be enjoyed.
It is not wealth that gives the true zest to life,--but reflection, appreciation, taste, culture. Above all, the seeing eye and the feeling heart are indispensable. With these, the humblest lot may be made blest.
Labour and toil may be a.s.sociated with the highest thoughts and the purest tastes. The lot of labour may thus become elevated and enn.o.bled.
Montaigne observes that ”all moral philosophy is as applicable to a vulgar and private life as to the most splendid. Every man carries the entire form of the human condition within him.”
Even in material comfort, good taste is a real economist, as well as an enhancer of joy. Scarcely have you pa.s.sed the doorstep of your friend's house, when you can detect whether taste presides within it or not.
There is an air of neatness, order, arrangement, grace, and refinement, that gives a thrill of pleasure, though you cannot define it, or explain how it is. There is a flower in the window, or a picture against the wall, that marks the home of taste. A bird sings at the window-sill; books lie about; and the furniture, though common, is tidy, suitable, and, it may be, even elegant.
The art of living extends to all the economies of the household. It selects wholesome food, and serves it with taste. There is no profusion; the fare may be very humble, but it has a savour about it; everything is so clean and neat, the water so sparkles in the gla.s.s, that you do not desire richer viands, or a more exciting beverage. Look into another house, and you will see profusion enough, without either taste or order.
The expenditure is larger, and yet you do not feel ”at home” there. The atmosphere seems to be full of discomfort. Books, hats, shawls, and stockings in course of repair, are strewn about. Two or three chairs are loaded with goods. The rooms are hugger-mugger. No matter how much money is spent, it does not mend matters. Taste is wanting, for the manager of the household has not yet learnt the Art of Living.
You see the same contrast in cottage life. The lot of poverty is sweetened by taste. It selects the healthiest, openest neighbourhood, where the air is pure and the streets are clean. You see, at a glance, by the sanded doorstep, and the window-panes without a speck,--perhaps blooming roses or geraniums s.h.i.+ning through them,--that the tenant within, however poor, knows the art of making the best of his lot. How different from the foul cottage-dwellings you see elsewhere; with the dirty children playing in the gutters; the slattern-like women lounging by the door-cheek; and the air of sullen poverty that seems to pervade the place. And yet the weekly income in the former home may be no greater, perhaps even less, than in that of the other.