A Joy For Ever; (And Its Price in the Market) | Page 4

be
misapplied, and much more if it be insufficient,--if the nation or man be
indolent and unwise,--suffering and want result, exactly in proportion
to the indolence and improvidence--to the refusal of labour, or to the
misapplication of it. Wherever you see want, or misery, or degradation,
in this world about you, there, be sure, either industry has been wanting,
or industry has been in error. It is not accident, it is not
Heaven-commanded calamity, it is not the original and inevitable evil
of man's nature, which fill your streets with lamentation, and your
graves with prey. It is only that, when there should have been
providence, there has been waste; when there should have been labour,
there has been lasciviousness; and wilfulness, when there should have
been subordination.[1]
[Note 1: Proverbs xiii. 23: "Much food is in the tillage of the poor, but
there is that is destroyed for want of judgment."]
8. Now, we have warped the word "economy" in our English language
into a meaning which it has no business whatever to bear. In our use of
it, it constantly signifies merely sparing or saving; economy of money
means saving money--economy of time, sparing time, and so on. But
that is a wholly barbarous use of the word--barbarous in a double sense,
for it is not English, and it is bad Greek; barbarous in a treble sense, for
it is not English, it is bad Greek, and it is worse sense. Economy no
more means saving money than it means spending money. It means, the
administration of a house; its stewardship; spending or saving, that is,
whether money or time, or anything else, to the best possible advantage.
In the simplest and clearest definition of it, economy, whether public or
private, means the wise management of labour; and it means this
mainly in three senses: namely, first, applying your labour rationally;
secondly, preserving its produce carefully; lastly, distributing its
produce seasonably.
9. I say first, applying your labour rationally; that is, so as to obtain the
most precious things you can, and the most lasting things, by it: not
growing oats in land where you can grow wheat, nor putting fine

embroidery on a stuff that will not wear. Secondly, preserving its
produce carefully; that is to say, laying up your wheat wisely in
storehouses for the time of famine, and keeping your embroidery
watchfully from the moth: and lastly, distributing its produce
seasonably; that is to say, being able to carry your corn at once to the
place where the people are hungry, and your embroideries to the places
where they are gay; so fulfilling in all ways the Wise Man's description,
whether of the queenly housewife or queenly nation: "She riseth while
it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her
maidens. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing is silk
and purple. Strength and honour are in her clothing, and she shall
rejoice in time to come."
10. Now, you will observe that in this description of the perfect
economist, or mistress of a household, there is a studied expression of
the balanced division of her care between the two great objects of
utility and splendour: in her right hand, food and flax, for life and
clothing; in her left hand, the purple and the needlework, for honour
and for beauty. All perfect housewifery or national economy is known
by these two divisions; wherever either is wanting, the economy is
imperfect. If the motive of pomp prevails, and the care of the national
economist is directed only to the accumulation of gold, and of pictures,
and of silk and marble, you know at once that the time must soon come
when all these treasures shall be scattered and blasted in national ruin.
If, on the contrary, the element of utility prevails, and the nation
disdains to occupy itself in any wise with the arts of beauty or delight,
not only a certain quantity of its energy calculated for exercise in those
arts alone must be entirely wasted, which is bad economy, but also the
passions connected with the utilities of property become morbidly
strong, and a mean lust of accumulation merely for the sake of
accumulation, or even of labour merely for the sake of labour, will
banish at last the serenity and the morality of life, as completely, and
perhaps more ignobly, than even the lavishness of pride, and the
likeness of pleasure. And similarly, and much more visibly, in private
and household economy, you may judge always of its perfectness by its
fair balance between the use and the pleasure of its possessions. You
will see the wise cottager's garden trimly divided between its well-set

vegetables, and its fragrant flowers; you will see the good housewife
taking pride