omnibus, and be content with champagne dinners
and a box at the Opera as an occasional treat.
It may be laid down as a rule, that a thousand
a year cannot afford to pay more than a hundred
a year for rent and taxes. In London there is
no graduated scale of houses to suit incomes that
vary only by a hundred or so. A thousand a year
does not justify a better house than five hundred.
There is nothing between the moderately genteel
residence and the female servants, and the
mansion involving a carriage and footmen.

It used to be said that fools built houses and
wise men lived in them. But this was a proverb
of our ancestors, who made haste gently in the
matter of living. Now-a-days landlords and
tenants are all fools together. Not long ago I
observed the tax-gatherer proceeding on his
rounds. I watched him through a whole street
in a genteel region, and I am certain, by the
momentary stay he made at each door, that he
did not receive the taxes at a single house. I
thought it extremely probable that the landlords
had not received their rents. The whole system
is rotten to the core. On every hand we see
people living on credit, putting off pay-day to
the last, making in the end some desperate
effort, either by begging or borrowing, to scrape
the money together, and then struggling on
again, with the canker of care eating at their
hearts, to the inevitable goal of bankruptcy. If
people would only make a push at the beginning
instead of the end, they would save themselves
all this misery. The great secret of being
solvent, and well-to-do, and comfortable, is to
get ahead of your expenses. Eat and drink this
month what you earned last month: not what
you are going to earn next month. There are,
no doubt, many persons so unfortunately situated
that they can never accomplish this. No man
can guard against ill health; no man can ensure
himself a well-conducted helpful family, or a
permanent income. There will always be people
who cannot help their misfortunes. But, as a
rule, these unfortunates are far less trouble to
society than those in a better position who bring
their misfortunes upon themselves by deliberate
recklessness and extravagance. You may help
a poor honest struggling man to some purpose.
But the utmost you can do for an unthrift is
thrown away. You give him money you have
earned by hard labour and saved by self-denial and
economy, and he spends it in pleasures which you
have never permitted yourself to enjoy.

A measure is proposed by the Lord Chancellor,
the direct object of which may be said to be—to
make people thrifty by Act of Parliament. It is
possible that it may have some effect in
controlling the reckless practices of tradesmen,
who, having no dread of the Court of Bankruptcy
before their eyes, are ever anxious to force
credit upon customers on the mere chance of
payment; it may afford some protection to poor
debtors against the ruthless operation of the
law directed by unscrupulous and rapacious
creditors; but it will never compel people to live
within their means—that is to say, it will never
teach common prudence and common honesty.

The great, marvel is that so many people
should deliberately choose to be miserable when
they might just as easily be happy. It is the
greatest mistake in the world to suppose that
pleasure must be expensive. It is nothing of
the kind. The best pleasures, those which
sweeten life most, and leave no bitterness
behind, are cheap pleasures. What greater
pleasures can a man enjoy than the sense of
being free and independent? The man with his
fine house, his glittering carriage, and his rich
banquets, for which he is in debt, is a slave, a
prisoner, for ever dragging his chain behind
him through all the grandeur of the false, world
in which he moves. I will go out this morning
with the consciousness that I owe no man
anything, that even the bright day is earned and
paid for, and I will walk to Highgate, and, being
weary, and hungry, and athirst, I will enter a
wayside inn and feast upon bread and cheese,
washing it, down with a mug of ale, and there
will be no pleasure superior to mine in all
Christendom.

SUMMER IN THE CITY.

A STRANGE wan lustre dwells upon that brow,
To me sad presage of diviner things;
As though the angels hovered round my love.
And graced her with the twilight of their wings:
Yet would I fain behold more earthly light
Within those azure eyes so weirdly bright.

A silent music plays about her face,
A strange sweet melody that hath no sound;
And I stand mournfully like one who seeks
In tears the precincts of cathedral ground,
And listens to the harmony within,
Himself debarred by consciousness of sin.

O for one day beyond the city's gloom!
To wean my little one again to earth,
To bring a homely smile to that pure face,
To light those azure eyes with cheerful mirth!
O Heaven forgive me, but I curse my fate,
That this I cannot do until too late!

Afar I know the chesnuts are in flower,
Bearing their minarets of milky white;
The soft laburnums droop their yellow flames,
The hawthorn fills the warm air with delight;
While o'er the meadows shifting shadows fly,
And trees stand black against the blinding sky.

Then in the even, when the great soft moon
Sails slowly up the liquid azure deeps,
Until it grows in gold, and in the dark
And lustrous purple ever calmly sleeps,
Lo! the lone nightingale his love outpours
To charm the silence of the starry hours!

Those crowds of happy faces hastening home
Stab me with impotence and vain regret!
I see them kiss their wives and little ones,
Far out beyond the city's noise and fret:
My little one, more beautiful than they,
Is bound within this prison night and day.

O hapless lot! O error oft repented!
The heedless haste of fond romantic youth!
Why will she smile on me, and look contented,
Why not arise and scorn me without ruth?
O Heaven! she, weeping, clings unto my breast,
And says that there alone she findeth rest!