USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Picturesque Hampden : 1500 illustrations > Part 8
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OX THE PLAIN EAST OF THE CITY.
THE OLD METHODIST CHURCH.
But the power of these two formative influences is evidently waning. Nor is it to be altogether regretted. Both were too austere to be perpetually healthful; neither regarded the breadth and scope of human nature. The danger is lest the ebb be excessive, and its method be exchanged for others not so sure and wholesome. Thrift pertains to details. Our courage prompts to risks, our large-mindedness invites to great undertakings ; yet great undertakings are for the few, while thrift is for all. Large enter- prises make the few rich, but the majority prosper only through the carefulness and detail of thrift. But, while shunning the jaws of waste, there is danger of drifting upon the rocks of meanness. I say frankly, if either fate is to befall us, l would rather it were not the last.
I begin by insisting on the importance of having money. Bulwer says : " Never treat money affairs with levity ; money is char- acter." And indeed character for the most part is determined by one's relation to money. Find out how one gets, saves, spends, gives, lends, borrows, and be- queathes money, and you have the character of the man in full outline. "If one does all these
SOLDIERS.
DEPOT HILL, NOW CANONCHET PARK.
wisely," says Henry Taylor, "it would almost argue a perfect man." Nearly all the virtues play about the use of money- honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, forethought, self sacrifice. If poverty is our lot, we must bear it bravely and contend against its influences ; but we are not to think of it as good, or in any way except as something to be avoided or got- ten rid of, if honor and honesty permit it. You may already have a sufficiently ill opinion of poverty, but you may not under- stand that one is already pover- ty-stricken if his habits are not thrifty. Every day I see young men - well dressed, with full purses and something of inher-
"PLEASE TAKE MY PICTURE."
Life he sought in the city street- A touch of the people, the soul of the town Behind him, before and under his feet. It found him out and hunted him down, With from each little boy and each little sister : "Please, won't you take my picture, Mister? "
Life he sought, for life is treasure, In alleys dark and in business ways; Took and gave he measure for measure, For his lense was true to every phase, While cries each child of the street life mixture, " Please, Mister, won't you take my picture?" R.
SARGEANT STREET SCHOOL.
itance awaiting them - as pi., ily foredoomed to poverty as if its rags hung . out them.
The secret of thrift is fore. ought. Its process is saving for use; it involves also judicious spending. The thrifty man saves ; savings require investments in stable and remunerative forms; hence that order and condition of things that we call civilization, which does not exist until one generation passes on the results of its labors and sav- ings to the next. Thus thrift underlies civilization as well as personal prosperity. The moment it ceases to act society retro- grades towards savagery, the main feature of which is absence of forethought. A spendthrift or idler is essentially a savage ; a generation of them would throw society back into barbarism. There is a large number of young men- chiefly to be found in cities - who rise from their beds at eleven or twelve; breakfast in a clubhouse ; idle away the afternoon in walk- ing or driving; spend a part of the evening with their families, the rest at some place of amuse- ment or in meeting the engage- ments of society, bringing up at the clubhouse or some gambling den or place of worse repute, and early in the morning betake
55
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
DIGGING A CANAL.
themselves to bed again. They do no work ; they read but little; they are as a class vicious. I depict them simply to classify them. These men are essen- tially savages. Except in some slight matters of taste and custom, they are precisely the individuals Stanley found in Central Africa, with some advan- tages in favor of the African. Some years ago, Mr. Buckle startled the reading world by putting the Roman Catholics of Spain and the high Calvinists of Scotland in the same class, as alike in the generic trait of bigotry, though differing in matters of belief. Precisely in the same way, and with the same logical correctness, these idlers are to be put in the same category with savages. They live under the fundamental characteristic of savagery, namely, improvidence. Our young man of leisure has a rich father, and the African has his perennial banana, and, upon the whole, rather a surer outlook.
The chief distinction between civilization and barbarism turns on thrift. Thrift is the builder of society. Thrift redeems man from savagery. What are its methods ?
A LITTLE ITALIAN.
(1.) I name the first in one word-save. Thrift has no rule so imperative and without exception. If you have an allowance, teach yourself on no account to exhaust it. The margin be- tween income and expendi- ture is sacred ground, and must not be touched except for weightiest reasons. But if you are earning a salary -- it matters not how small- plan to save some part of it. If you receive seventy- five cents per day, live on seventy ; if one dollar, spend
A DOG TEAM.
but ninety ; you save thirty dollars a year - enough to put you into the category of civilization. But he who spends all must not complain if we set him down logically a savage. Your saving is but little, but it represents a feel- ing and a purpose, and, small as it is, it divides a true from a spurious manhood.
Life in its last analysis is a struggle. The main ques- tion for us all is, Which is getting the advantage, self or the world? When one is simply holding his own, spend- ing all he earns, and has nothing between himself and this "rough world," he is in a fair way to be worsted in the battle. He inevitably grows weaker, while the pitiless world keeps to its pitch of heavy exaction.
There is a sense of strength and advantage springing from however slight gains essential to manly character. Say what we will about "honest poverty"- and I would say nothing against it, for I well know that there may be built barriers of poverty about a man, not to be passed, yet within which
PARK STREET.
PARK STREET SCHOOL.
LOWER CABOT STREET.
PARK STREET, CORNER ADAMS.
56
PICTURESQUE
A CORNER IN SOUTH HOLYOKE.
he may nourish a royal manhood -still the men who escape from poverty into inde- pendence wear a nobler mein than those who keep even with the world. Burns is the poet of the poor man, and has almost glorified poverty, but he never put into any of his verses more of his broad common sense than into these :-
" To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile, Assiduous wait upon her ; And gather gear by ev'ry wile That's justified by honor ; Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train attendant ; But for the glorious privilege Of being independent."
It is a great part of this battle of life to keep a good heart. The prevailing mood of the poor is that of sadness. Their gayety is forced and fitful. Their drinking habits are the cause and result of their poverty. It takes but little to redeem one from this feeling. The spirit and purpose of saving thrift change the whole color of life.
It can hardly be expected that you will look ahead twenty or forty years, and realize the actual stings of poverty and the sharper stings of thriftless habits; but it may be expected that you will see
HAMPDEN.
why it is wiser and more manly to save than to spend. There is a certain fascinating glare about the young man who spends freely ; whose purse is always open, whether deep or shallow; who is always ready to foot the bills ; who says yes to every proposal, and produces the money. I have known such in the past, but as I meet them now I find them quite as ready to foot
PARK STREET, NORTH FROM CABOT.
A MAID WITH SHAVING CURLS.
the bills, but generally unable to do so. I have noticed also that the givers, and the benefactors of society, had no such youthhood. This popular and fascinating young man is in reality a very poor creature; very interesting he may be in the matter of drinks, and billiards, and theatre tickets, and sleigh-rides, and clothes, and club- rates; but when he earns five or eight or ten hundred dollars a year, and spends it chiefly in this way, would charity itself call him anything but a fool? The boys hail him a royal good fellow, and the girls pet him, but who respects him? The painful fact is to be recognized, that the saving habit is losing ground. The reasons are evi- dent: city and country are one. The standards of dress, amusements, and life generally are set in the richer circles of the metropolis, and are observed,
THE OLD WILLIMANSETT BRIDGE.
SOUTH HOLYOKE GERMAN CHURCH.
A CANAL WASHOUT.
57
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
MAIN STREET, CORNER CABOT.
HAMILTON STREET SCHOOL.
at whatever cost, in all other circles. I can do nothing to offset these influences but to remind you of nobler methods. I can only say that to spend all one earns is a mistake; that while to spend, except in a severe and judicious way, weakens character ; economy digni- fies and strengthens it.
The habit of saving is itself an education. It fosters every virtue. It teaches self-denial. It cultivates a sense of order. It trains to forethought, and so broadens the mind. It reveals the meaning of the word-business, which is something very different from its routine. One may know all the forms of business, even in a practical way, without having the business characteristic. Were a merchant to choose for a partner a young man thoroughly conversant with the business, but having expensive, self-indulgent personal habits, or one not yet versed in its details, but who
THE OLD SOUTH HOLYOKE FERRY.
knows how to keep a dollar when he has earned it, he would unhesitatingly take the latter. The habit of saving, while it has its dangers, even fosters generosity. The great givers have been great savers. The miserly habit is not acquired, but is inborn. Not there lies the danger. The divinely- ordered method of saving so educates and establishes such order in the man, and brings him into so intelligent a relation to the world, that he be- comes a benefactor. It is coarse thinking to confound spending with generosity, or saving with meanness.
(2.) I vary the strain but little when I say, Avoid a self-indulgent spending of money.
The great body of young men in our coun- try are in the receipt of such incomes that the question whether a thing can be afforded or
HALCYON BOAT HOUSE.
SARGEANT STREET.
THE THIRD LEVEL CANAL, NEAR RIVERSIDE.
ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF SPRINGDALE, WITH A GLIMPSE OF ELMWOOD ON THE HILL.
58
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
not becomes a highly rational inquiry. With incomes ranging from a dollar or less per day to a thousand dollars a year, there is room for the play of that wise word, afford. I think it tends to shut out several things that are very generally
SPRINGDALE.
INGLESIDE, THE ELY HOMESTEAD.
indulged in. I have no in- tention of saying anything at this time about the habit of smoking, except to set it in the light of this common- sense word, afford. Your average salaries are, say, five hundred dollars. If you smoke cigars, your smallest daily allowance will be two, costing, say twenty cents, more than seventy dollars a year. If it were fifty, it would be a tenth of your salary. The naked question for a rational being to con- sider is, Can I afford to spend a tenth or seventh of my in- come in a mere indulgence? What has common sense to say to the proportion ? Would not this amount, lodged in some sound invest- ment, contribute rather more to self-respect ? Ten years of such expenditure represent probably a thousand dollars, for there is an inevitable ratio of increase in all self-indul- gent habits; fifty years rep- resent five thousand, -more than most men will have at sixty- five, who began life with so poor an understanding of the word afford. Double these estimates, and they will be all the truer. I do not propose in these pages to enter on a crusade against tobacco, but I may remind you that the eye of the world is fixed on the tobacco habit with a very close gaze. The educators in
THE LOWLANDS NEAR SPRINGDALE.
to show how the social critics of the day are regarding the subject.
The habit of drinking is so nearly parallel with smoking in its relation to thrift that it need not detain us. The same cogent word afford applies here
Europe and America are agreed that it impairs mental energy. Life insurance com- panies are shy of its peculiar pulse. Oculists say that it weakens the eyes. Physi- cians declare it to be a prolific cause of dyspepsia, and hence of other ills. The vital statistician finds in it an enemy of virility. It is as- serted by the leading authori- ties in each department that it takes the spring out of the nerves, the firmness out of the muscles, the ring out of the voice; that it renders the memory less retentive, the judgment less accurate, the conscience less quick, the sensibilities less acute ; that it relaxes the will and dulls every faculty of body and mind and moral nature, drop- ping the entire man down in the scale of his powers, and so is to be regarded as one of the wastes of society. I do not undertake to affirm all these propositions, but only
THE WIHTING "CABIN."
with stronger emphasis, because the drinking habit involves a larger ratio of increase. Waiving any moral considerations involved in beer drinking, the fact of its cost should throw it out. The same startling figures we have used are more than true here. It is not a thrifty habit, and no young man who has his way to make in the world is entitled to an unthrifty habit. It is idle to repeat the truisms of the theme. We have heard till we cease to heed that drink is the great waster of society. Great Britain spends annually two hundred and fifty millions of dollars
THE CITY, FROM SPRINGDALE.
59.ยช
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
EMT. ST. VINCENT ORPHAN ASYLUM.
in drink. Our own statistics are nearly as bad. It is the one thing - even if it does not reach the proportions of a vice - that keeps more men out of a competence than all other causes combined. The twin habits of smoking and beer drinking stand for a respectable property to all who indulge in them - a thing the greater part will never have, though they have had it. "The
THE WHITING FARM.
gods sell all things at a fare price," says the proverb; but they sell nothing dearer than these two indulgences, since the price is commonly the man himself.
The simple conclusion that common sense forces upon us is that a young man front- ing life cannot afford to drink; he cannot afford the money; he cannot afford to bear the reputation, nor run the risks it involves.
I refer next to the habit of light and foolish spending. Emerson says, "The farmer's dollar is heavy ; the clerk's is light and nimble, leaps out of his pockets, jumps on to cards and faro tables." But it gets into no more foolish place than the till of the showman, and minstrel troupe, and theatrical company. I do not say these things are bad. When decent, they are allowable as an occasional recreation, but here, as before,
THE ALMSHOUSE.
the sense of proportion must be observed ; not what I like, but what I can afford.
It has been said that no one should carry coin loose in the pocket, as too easily got at. I would vary it by applying the Spanish proverb, " Before forty, nothing ; after forty, anything." If one has been care- ful in early life he may be careless after. At first let the purse be stout and well tied with stout strings; later there need be no purse, but only an open hand.
It seems to be an excess of simplicity to suggest that a young man should purchase nothing that he does not actually want, nothing be- cause it is cheap; to resist the glittering appeals of jewels and gay clothing and delicate surroundings. These will come in due order.
(3.) It is an essential condition of thrift that one should keep to
AN INGLESIDE ROADWAY.
THE WHITING FARMHOUSE.
legitimate occupations. There is no thrift in chance; its central idea is order,-a series of causes and effects along the line of which forethought can look and make its calculations. Speculation makes the few rich and the many poor. Thrift divides the prizes of life to those who deserve them. If the great fortunes are the result of speculations, the average competencies have their foundation and permanence in thrifty ways.
(4.) Have a thorough knowledge of your affairs ; leave nothing at loose ends ;
A GROUP AT THE GATES OF THE ORPHAN ASYLUM.
60
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
be exact in every transaction. The chief source of quarrel in the business world is what is termed "an understand- ing," ending commonly in a misunderstanding. It is not ungenerous or ignoble always to insist on a full, straight-out bargain, and it falls in with the thrifty habit.
It is a very simple matter to name, but the habit of keeping a strict account of personal expenses down to the penny has great educa- tional power. Keep such a book, tabulate its items at the close of the year,-so much for necessaries, so much for luxuries, so much for worse than luxuries,-and listen to what it reports to you.
(5.) Debt is the secret foe of thrift, as vice and idleness are its open foes. It may sometimes be wise for one to put himself under a heavy debt, as for an education, or for land, or for a home; but the debt-habit is the twin brother of poverty.
INGLESIDE, IN BLOSSOM TIME.
what I have seen of young men and their after progress, I am satisfied that what is called 'bad fortune,' 'ill luck,' is, in nine cases out of ten, simply the result of in- verting the above maxim."
We cannot properly leave our subject until we have re- ferred more particularly to spending. Thrift decides how, and to what extent, we shall both spend and save. We must leave ample room for the play of generosity and honor; we must meet the demands of church and home and community with a wise and liberal hand; we must preserve a keen and govern- ing sense of stewardship, never forgetting the ultimate use of money, and the moral and intellectual realities that underlie life.
If I were to name a gen- eral principle to cover the whole matter, I would say, Spend upward, that is, for the higher faculties. Spend for the mind rather than for
(6.) Thrift must have a sufficient motive. There is none a young man feels so keenly, if once he will think so far, as the honor- able place assigned to men of sub- stance. No man is quite respectable in this nineteenth cen- tury who has not a bank account. True or false, high or low, this is the solid fact, and for one, I do not quarrel THE BIG ELM. with it. As most of us are situated in this world, we must win this place and pay its price. The common cry of "a good time while we are young " is not the price nor the way. Mr. Nasmyth, of England, an inventor and holder of a large fortune made by himself, says, " If I were to compress into one sentence the whole of my experi- ence, and offer it to young men as a rule and certain receipt for success in any station, it would be comprised in these words, Duty first, pleasure second ! From
A VALLEY VIEW.
the body; for culture rather than for amusement. The very secret and essence of thrift consists in getting things into higher values. As the clod turns into a flower, and the flower inspires a poet; as bread becomes vital force, and vital force feeds moral purpose and aspiration, so should all our saving and outgo
THE WILKINSON FARM.
IN ELMWOOD VILLAGE.
61
PICTURESQUE
THE OLD CEMETERY - ELMWOOD.
have regard to the higher ranges and appetites of our nature. If you have a dollar, or a hundred, to spend, put it into something above the average of your nature that you may be attracted to it. Beyond what is necessary for your bodily wants and well-being, every dollar spent for the body is a derogation of man- hood. Get the better thing, never the inferior. The night supper, the
RESIDENCE OF TIMOTHY MERRICK.
HAMPDEN.
THE OLD, OLD FLOWERS.
The author of "Endymion" put as much truth as poetry into his line when he wrote, " A thing of beauty is a joy forever." The dandelion is none the less beautiful because we have always seen it and it is too common to be noticed. A gentleman presented a bouquet to a lady, in which was one flower that struck her as so exquisite that she exhausted all her superlatives in its praise.
" Do tell me the name of it," she said.
" It is a potato blossom," replied the donor.
Real beauty is above the laws of fashion, and outlives fashion; so that if it becomes "unfashionable" by a whim of human taste or fancy, it can
THE OLD BROWN PLACE.
afford to wait till its turn comes again. A flower (of whatever kind) is a piece of perfection, and nature never changes its pattern for the fickle favor of men and women.
The revived popularity of the old-time flowers is a curious illustration of both the changeableness of taste, and the permanence of beauty. On many sides we see evidences that the old-fashioned flowers are coming into fresh favor. There is a decided tendency to again use in gardens the flowers of our great-grandmothers' gardens, such as the peonies, poppies, hollyhocks, sweet williams, clove pinks, yellow lilies, columbines, bluebells, fleur-de-lis, monkshood, phloxes, lychnis, sweet sultan and the like. They are not only for the most part beautiful in color and form, but a great advantage of their cultivation is that when once planted they will de-
ball, the drink, the billiard table, the minstrels,-enough calls of this sort there are, and in no wise modest in their demands, but they issue from be- low you. Go buy a book instead, or journey abroad, or bestow a gift.
I have not urged thrift upon you for its own sake, nor merely that you may be kept from poverty, nor even for the ease it brings, but because it lies near to all the virtues, and antagonizes all the vices. It makes soil and atmosphere for all healthy growths. It favors a full manhood. It works against the very faults it seems to invite, and becomes the reason and inspiration of generosity .- Theodore T. Munger, in " On the Threshold."
VIEW FROM WESTOVER.
NORTHAMPTON STREET.
light the senses for years, if a little attention is only given to them in the spring by dig- ging about the roots and applying a plentiful supply of rich compost, and dividing the roots in autumn if too crowded.
To make an old-fashioned garden there should be beds of Easter lilies, mingled with clumps of spider lilies and borders of sweet williams and columbnes of every hue, intermixed with circles of such annuals as mignonette and sweet alyssum, edged with bluebells or baby's-breath. Long beds are made of tulips of all colors, single and double, and clumps of peonies, phloxes, clove pinks, poppies and garden pinks, with a
THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH.
62
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
background of holly- hocks and monkshood. The martagon lilies, Easter lilies, yellow lilies, and the iris with its pure crimson bells, may suc- ceed the tulips, and then the June roses, which in these days of rose gar- dens would not be thought very beautiful, but in the old days were a glory. In the finest of these old gar- dens you might have found as many as fifty kinds of roses planted there, besides climbers and bush roses, and vari- ous kinds of monthly tea and a blanksia, whose clusters of buff flowers
A PICNIC PARTY ON ASHLEY PONDS.
ALONG SHORE.
were exquisitely beautiful. Of course, these delicate roses were housed in the cel- lar during the winter, but they added great beauty to the old garden in the summer. Campanulas, foxgloves, py- rethrums and larkspurs also grew in abundance, and cut flowers always filled dishes in the sitting-room and par- lor. The blood-red, dark- crimson and dwarf golden- yellow sorts are very effect- ive in mixed borders. Sweet williams have been greatly improved and pro- duce flowers of large size and great richness of coloring.
WAS THIS IN HAMPDEN ?
Simeon Brash, or Uncle Simmy, as every one called him, was one of the "odd sticks," who lived on a little farm in the Connecticut val- ley a great many years ago; but many of his quaint say- ings and queer performances
ASHLEY PONDS.
A WATERSIDE AVENUE.
When nearly seventy years old, and after having been a widower for the space of six months, Uncle Simmy concluded to marry Mrs. Kittery, a well-to-do widow of sixty-five, living near him.
Without giving the lady the slightest hint of the honor about to be done her, he drove up to her door in his old buggy one day, dressed for the bridal, evidently thinking that Mrs. Kittery would gladly and immediately array herself likewise and go on with him to the village, where they would be
AUTUMN FIELDS, EAST OF ASHLEY PONDS.
are laughed about to this day by the descendants of those who knew Uncle Simmy.
One day, mounted on a decrepit, bony, blind horse, minus saddle or bridle, he rode around the neighbor- hood, accosting every one he met with, " Ye hain't, hev ye ? Ye hain't, hev ye?"
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