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WHAT THIS BOOK TEACHES
That we are born "free and equal" is a glorious truth in one sense,
yet we are not all born equally rich, and we never shall be. One may say;
"there is a man who has an income of fifty thousand dollars per annum,
while I have but one thousand dollars; I knew that fellow when he was
poor like myself; now he is rich and thinks he is better than I am; I
will show him that I am as good as he is; I will go and buy a horse and
buggy; no, I cannot do that, but I will go and hire one and ride this
afternoon on the same road that he does, and thus prove to him that I am
as good as he is."
My friend, you need not take that trouble; you can easily prove that you
are "as good as he is;" you have only to behave as well as he does; but
you cannot make anybody believe that you are rich as he is. Besides, if
you put on these "airs," add waste your time and spend your money, your
poor wife will be obliged to scrub her fingers off at home, and buy her
tea two ounces at a time, and everything else in proportion, in order
that you may keep up "appearances," and, after all, deceive nobody.
On the other hand, Mrs. Smith may say that her next-door neighbor married
Johnson for his money, and "everybody says so." She has a nice one- thousand dollar camel's hair shawl, and she will make Smith get her an
imitation one, and she will sit in a pew right next to her neighbor in
church, in order to prove that she is her equal.
My good woman, you will not get ahead in the world, if your vanity and
envy thus take the lead. In this country, where we believe the majority
ought to rule, we ignore that principle in regard to fashion, and let a
handful of people, calling themselves the aristocracy, run up a false
standard of perfection, and in endeavoring to rise to that standard,
we constantly keep ourselves poor; all the time digging away for the sake
of outside appearances.
How much wiser to be a
"law unto ourselves" and say, "we will regulate our out-go by our income, and lay up something
for a rainy day." People ought to be as sensible on the subject of money-getting as on any other subject.
Like causes produces like effects. You cannot accumulate a fortune by taking the road that leads
to poverty. It needs no prophet to tell us that those who live fully up
to their means, without any thought of a reverse in this life, can never
attain a pecuniary independence.
Men and women accustomed to gratify every whim and caprice, will find it
hard, at first, to cut down their various unnecessary expenses, and will
feel it a great self-denial to live in a smaller house than they have
been accustomed to, with less expensive furniture, less company, less
costly clothing, fewer servants, a less number of balls, parties, theater-goings, carriage-ridings, pleasure excursions,
cigar-smokings, liquor-drinkings, and other extravagances; but, after all, if they will
try the plan of laying by a "nest-egg," or, in other words, a small sum
of money, at interest or judiciously invested in land, they will be
surprised at the pleasure to be derived from constantly adding to their
little "pile," as well as from all the economical habits which are engendered by this course.
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