Let these triflers put us out
of conceit with petty comforts. To a man at work, the frost is but a
color; the rain, the wind, he forgot them when he came in. Let us learn
to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of
dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.
Neither will we be driven into a quiddling abstemiousness. 'Tis a
superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the
same chemical atoms.
A man in pursuit of greatness feels no little wants. How can you mind
diet, bed, dress, or salutes or compliments, or the figure you make in
company, or wealth, or even the bringing things to pass, when you think
how paltry are the machinery and the workers? Wordsworth was praised to
me, in Westmoreland, for having afforded to his country neighbors an
example of a modest household, where comfort and culture were secured
without display. And a tender boy who wears his rusty cap and outgrown
coat, that he may secure the coveted place in college and the right
in the library, is educated to some purpose. There is a great deal of
self-denial and manliness in poor and middle-class houses, in town and
country, that has not got into literature, and never will, but that
keeps the earth sweet,--that saves on superfluities, and spends on
essentials,--that goes rusty, and educates the boy,--that sells the
horse, but builds the school,--works early and late, takes two looms in
the factory, three looms, six looms, but pays off the mortgage on the
paternal farm, and then goes back cheerfully to work again.
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