The old suit of clothes, and the old bonnet and dress, will answer for
another season; the Croton or spring water taste better than champagne;
a cold bath and a brisk walk will prove more exhilarating than a ride in
the finest coach; a social chat, an evening's reading in the family
circle, or an hour's play of "hunt the slipper" and "blind man's buff"
will be far more pleasant than a fifty or five hundred dollar party,
when the reflection on the difference in cost is indulged in by those
who begin to know the pleasures of saving. Thousands of men are kept
poor, and tens of thousands are made so after they have acquired quite
sufficient to support them well through life, in consequence of laying
their plans of living on too broad a platform. Some families expend
twenty thousand dollars per annum, and some much more, and would
scarcely know how to live on less, while others secure more solid
enjoyment frequently on a twentieth part of that amount. Prosperity is a
more severe ordeal than adversity, especially sudden prosperity. "Easy
come, easy go," is an old and true proverb. A spirit of pride and
vanity, when permitted to have full sway, is the undying canker-worm
which gnaws the very vitals of a man's worldly possessions, let them be
small or great, hundreds, or millions.
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