Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/385

Rh kind, spends shillings almost without knowing it, merely to facilitate his movements or help to pass his day, and would be utterly astonished if he ever put down his yearly outgoings in mere silver in a formal account. He would hardly believe his eyes, and would resolve upon a retrenchment, which, nevertheless, he would find more difficult than almost any serious economy. It is much easier to lay down a carriage than to abstain from taking a cab, much less annoying to do without wine than to drink Gladstone claret, far less worrying to cease to entertain, than to cease to over-reward every man who does you some slight service. There is no retrenchment so difficult to a man who has been rich, or even well off, as economy in silver, and no extravagance so tempting to a man who has risen to a fair income, and perhaps increased his weight, and with it the indolence of his natural temperament, as extravagance in shillings. The sum which is yearly spent in this way, more especially in London, by men who do not wish to be wasteful, but who are not severely self-restrained as to their expenditure, would appear to poorer men, anxious to keep up appearances and lead the refined life upon small means, almost incredible, and we are not sure that they would not condemn it as also slightly wicked. It seems so hard to them that an income should be allowed, so to speak, to perspire away. We have known professional men in London, men earning their own incomes, who did not intend to be extravagant, and in great matters were even frugal, who had no especial reason for being in a hurry, and who were quite capable of self-denial, spend two-thirds of Mr. Ruskin's supposed income in cabs alone, and throw away double the sum in outlays for which they had nothing to show, and which indeed they were wholly unable to remember. Of course, it is the young and rich who are the most guilty in this way, but this form of extravagance is constantly found among men who are not thoughtless, who are earning their own living, and who would be rather shocked if they were told that they squandered in meaningless indulgences as much as would keep a respectable family in comfort. It is a great bore to be walking when one is in a hurry, and one is always in a hurry to avoid a tedious walk. Two or three cigars a day cannot matter much, and they yield a tranquillity of spirit and provide an exemption from ennui which are worth all the money. A lunch at the club is not necessary, but still it is pleasant, and is a great deal more "civilized" a method of taking food than eating a biscuit in office, with clients and business acquaintances always dropping in. A pint of claret a day is not injurious to health, and it is very doubtful if it is good for the stomach that the claret should be too cheap. One must see a couple of papers a day, say a Times and a Pall Mall Gazette, and take one weekly newspaper, and buy one of the tittle-tattle papers pretty regularly as one passes the book-stall. A book now and then cannot be considered wasteful, indeed, a book is always an economy; a toy of any sort, whether for grown-ups or little folk, is usually acceptable; and the gift of shillings to servants, porters, beggars, or other people who look as if they expected douceurs, and would be importunate if they did not get them, is very nearly a virtue, a sort of charity in everybody's opinion except that of the receiver. We have mentioned nothing in the least degree out of the way, nothing indicating a hobby, nothing for which a man earning, say, £2,000 a year, would dream of condemning himself, and yet we have mentioned expenditures almost equal to the average income of English junior clergymen. Hundreds among our readers, if they will examine their expenditure with the single-eyed keenness with which they would examine a lawyer's bill or a milliner's account, will know that the following table is for them an under-statement of the truth: — The account is wholly exclusive of needless waste in dress caused by mere thoughtlessness and indifference to expense, and includes no necessary whatever except the Times, and yet the total amounts to more than £220 a year, or, as we said before, nearly two-thirds of the total sum which Mr. Ruskin has put down as the income on which if an English bachelor gentleman cannot live he ought to die and be done with it. We believe there are men in London by no means "rich," as riches are now counted, who spend twice the 