The other day, I heard a mechanic say, 'I have a wife and two little
children; we live in a very small house; but, to save my life, I
cannot spend less than twelve hundred a year.' Another replied,
'You are not economical; I spend but eight hundred.' I thought to
myself,--'Neither of you pick up your twine and paper.' A third one,
who was present, was silent; but after they were gone, he said, 'I
keep house, and comfortably too, with a wife and children, for six
hundred a year; but I suppose they would have thought me mean, if I
had told them so.' I did not think him mean; it merely occurred to me
that his wife and children were in the habit of picking up paper and
twine.
Economy is generally despised as a low virtue, tending to make people
ungenerous and selfish. This is true of avarice; but it is not so
of economy. The man who is economical, is laying up for himself the
permanent power of being useful and generous. He who thoughtlessly
gives away ten dollars, when he owes a hundred more than he can pay,
deserves no praise,--he obeys a sudden impulse, more like instinct
than reason: it would be real charity to check this feeling; because
the good he does maybe doubtful, while the injury he does his family
and creditors is certain.
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