when the reflection on the difference in cost is indulged in by those
who begin to know the pleasures of saving. Thousands of men are kept
poor, and tens of thousands are made so after they have acquired quite
sufficient to support them well through life, in consequence of laying
their plans of living on too broad a platform. Some families expend
twenty thousand dollars per annum, and some much more, and would
scarcely know how to live on less, while others secure more solid
enjoyment frequently on a twentieth part of that amount. Prosperity is a
more severe ordeal than adversity, especially sudden prosperity. "Easy
come, easy go," is an old and true proverb. A spirit of pride and
vanity, when permitted to have full sway, is the undying canker-worm
which gnaws the very vitals of a man's worldly possessions, let them be
small or great, hundreds, or millions. Many persons, as they begin to
prosper, immediately expand their ideas and commence expending for
luxuries, until in a short time their expenses swallow up their income,
and they become ruined in their ridiculous attempts to keep up
appearances, and make a "sensation."
I know a gentleman of fortune who says, that when he first began to
prosper, his wife would have a new and elegant sofa. "That sofa," he
says, "cost me thirty thousand dollars!" When the sofa reached the
house, it was found necessary to get chairs to match; then side-boards,
carpets and tables "to correspond" with them, and so on through the
entire stock of furniture; when at last it was found that the house
itself was quite too small and old-fashioned for the furniture, and a
new one was built to correspond with the new purchases; "thus," added my
friend, "summing up an outlay of thirty thousand dollars, caused by that
single sofa, and saddling on me, in the shape of servants, equipage, and
the necessary expenses attendant upon keeping up a fine 'establishment,'
a yearly outlay of eleven thousand dollars, and a tight pinch at that:
whereas, ten years ago, we lived with much more real comfort, because
with much less care, on as many hundreds. The truth is," he continued,
"that sofa would have brought me to inevitable bankruptcy, had not a
most unexampled title to prosperity kept me above it, and had I not
checked the natural desire to 'cut a dash'."
The foundation of success in life is good health: that is the substratum
fortune; it is also the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a
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