THE MORALITY OF EXTRAVAGANCE.
THE English people is, we believe, the only one in the world which considers thrift discreditable, which attaches oppro- brious epithets to carefulness in expenditure, and regards fore- sight against wastry with something of moral as well as intellec- tual disdain. It is also the only one which denounces extrava- gance not as a folly, but a vice, as a habit showing defect of con- science as well as deficiency of judgment. We are inclined, in the absence of any more pressing considerations, to speculate for a moment on the soundness as well as the origin of this feeling, -which out of London, and sometimes in London, has a marvellous -effect in limiting the freedom of individual action. In New England, as Mrs. Beecher Stowe has told us, it is so powerful -that neighbours will sharply remonstrate against what the Scotch -call wasting the mercies, will sit in committee and decide whether gilt salt-spoons are "consistent." Even in England, though neighbours hardly venture on remonstrance, they regard extrava- gance as full apology for that form of reprobation which is half back-biting, half-moral reprehension, and which the majority of ;people are so afraid to excite. There are thousands of families in English country towns where the pursebearer literally dare not live as he likes or do as he likes, because "the family," or the neighbours, or the community generally would think the attendant -expenditure wanton, and in all future discussion of him and his -character would qualify any praise by the assertion that he was -" so very extravagant." People hire houses for years rather than build, because other people would characterize that act of economy .as extravagance, just as the British Government pays eight per cent. in rent lest the House of Commons should condemn an outlay -of the same capital obtainable at three. We have known an in- stance.in which a man in business was half ruined by the dis- -credit brought on him by an assertion that "he drank wine at breakfast." It was quite true ; he had lived long abroad, and pre- ierred claret and water to tea, but so strong became the bruit, that he was compelled to give it up. He was not condemned, be it observed, for taking wine in the morning,—his neighbours were -quite well aware that he was temperate enough to take them .all in,—and had he drunk beer, as many of his towns- men did, not a word would have been said. But, "Claret -for breakfast! what shocking extravagance ! that man will fail !" was the sentence repeated in a hundred different ways, for months after the unlucky merchant had yielded to social pressure. His whole expenditure on his luxury he said was a shilling a day, which be could perfectly well afford ; but he could not stand the Aloubt the claret threw on his reputation for a business head, and, indeed, on his general charaeter. He might have thrown away five times the sum in a whist club and nobody would have made a remark ; but he was spending money in a way his neighbours did not understand, was, in short, exira-vagans, going beyond the sacred limit of the usual !—and wandering of that kind in England is held to be immoral. "John," says some old lady of the famils,
is all very well, but, my dear, he is so extravagant ;" and she says it with just the feeling with which she would say "he is wild," or "he drinks too much," or "he is harsh to his wife," or would accuse him of any other offence not precisely punishable by law. The object of the expenditure in her judgment, which is that of the majority of Englishmen, has nothing to do with the matter, and its extent very little indeed. A man may put 500/. in a rotten investment and escape all blame, and then be held up as an awful example to tho neighbourhood because he gives 100/. for a diamond for his wife—an investment about as secure and nearly as profitable as Consols. IVe have known a man who could not eat the tunas of half baked flour which it pleases Englishmen to consider bread condemned for " extravagance " because be "peeled the loaf," at a cost of about a pound a year, while his health was worth a pound an hour ; and have heard serious repro- bation of another because he had a fancy for taking in two news- papers instead of one. Ile was extravagant, and that was enough, and he might, as far as his acquaintance were concerned, almost as well have been called a drunkard, or a profligate, or a blasphemer.
The cause of this special dislike of some forms of spending money among a people by no means thrifty is, we imagine, the rooted blunder in English philosophy which tends so strongly to stereotype society, the confusion between selfishness and self-will. There can be no doubt that there are forms of extravagance in which the habit amounts to vice, and quite deserves all the social reprobation it receives, and more than it is likely to get. The man who spends on himself till he is unable to meet the claims or, it may be, the rights of others, is, of course, a vicious man, vicious not for his expenditure, but for indulging a selfishness so great as to involve a cruelty. For a married man, without property, to postpone a life insurance to a daily glass of port, or even a daily journal, is an offence against the highest law of morals, and so is any extravagance involving debts which will never be paid. That is in reality a form of theft, though palliated usually as to motive, but not as to result, by a certain want of consciousness of the injury inflicted. So, we suppose, is extrava- gance of the kind most usually commented on in newspapers, an expenditure on some habit, or taste, or pursuit so wild that the spendthrift ultimately falls out of his position, is, in popular par- lance, a ruined man. It is excessively difficult to defiuo in words the immorality of this particular form of extravagance,—that is, its immorality without reference to the object of the expenditure,— though we all feel that it is immoral. To waste a fortune on the Turf is clearly wrong, because the object is almost always a selfish pursuit of excitement ; and the same condemnation must be passed on the most ruinous extravagance of all, social ostenta- tion. That is a loss of power for the indulgence of a low vanity, and is as morally wrong as it would be for a man to cut off his hand in order to excite the impression that be was a wounded hero. But suppose the object to be beneficial or indifferent. A. childless man might give, though it has never been done, the bulk of his means to reduce the National Debt,—would that be wrong? The late Duke of Buckingham borrowed vast sums at 5 per cent. in order to buy land which only returned 3 per cent., in order to increase his political influence, and so reduced his family for a time to the comparative poverty out of which they are now again emerging. Supposing the increase of political influence a worthy or indifferent object, which it might or might not be,—wm that wrong ? Men have an instinct that it was, and we suppose the true argument is, that no man can have a right to throw away his own capacity of usefulness, of which power station and command of money are, no doubt, im- portant constituents. It is very difficult, however, to show that the gift to the National Debt would be worse than any other gift to the people, or that the Duke of Buckingham's extravagance was worse than that of Mr. Pitt, who ruined himself in order to be able to govern England undisturbed by household cares. One is almost driven amidst such instances to accept result rather than motive as the basis of judgment — a very unsound mode of induction in ethics.
There is a form of extravagance which is vicious, but as a rule the acts to which that word is usually applied in England are either indifferent or actually praiseworthy, are the results of mere idiosyncrasy, of that individuality of judgment which it ought to be the object of Englishmen to encourage ; or, at worst, of a wilfulness not worthy blame. The most common form of all extravagances, indifference to petty outlays, is very often as right as if it were the result of wise and deliberate judgment. Up to a certain point, care about such expenditures cramps and worries the mind—causes in actual loss of money more waste than it saves. Sixpences smooth life, and to the nervous organizations bred in our cities life needs smoothing. Nobody is ever ruined in candle-
ends, and the effort to keep them only ensures a discontented, and therefore a spasmodically expensive household. No form of waste- fulness strikes some men,—and some liberal men,—so much as wastefulness of silver in cab-hire, in petty gifts, in minute pur- chases, and no income seems to exempt those who practise it from the charge of extravagance. Nevertheless, it is often quite certain that a waste of half-a-crown a day-40l. a year— will increase a man's power of making the best of himself, of earning, if it is to be put in that way, more than twice the sum expended in things yielding a visible return. It is right to save temper, even at the expense of cash. There are degrees in all things ; but we suspect that the professional class, in their habitual extravagance in sixpences, are wiser than the trading class, who so often condemn them for that disregard. One of the commonest forms of extravagance, building, is often a direct moral and intellectual benefit to the amateur, gratifying a healthy passion of constructiveness, which, ungratified, would exhibit itself in the search for much more dangerous excitements. Book-buying, picture-buying, gem or toy-buying are defen- sible on the same grounds, as at worst blameless amuse- ments, and it will rarely be found, we think, that men with any special extravagance of that sort come to much pecuniary grief. On the contrary, they as often acquire the habit of thrift and regularity in pecuniary matters in order to gratify the exceptional taste. "Collectors," for example, even if it be of old china, are very rarely ruined. Other men, again— and this is a very frequent case—get a reputation for extravagance by a habit decidedly wise, that of concentrating wastefulness, of .making presents, or buying toys, for example, very seldom, but .when they give or buy securing things really worth the money. The woman who saves in "chiffons" what will buy lace or diamonds is the very reverse of extravagant, though she is certain to be so considered by people to whom daily extravagance in smaller things would seem quite unobjectionable.
But, it may be urged, you are proving only that extravagance may be prudent, not that it can be moral. No, we are not ; for our point is that, apart from selfishness or loss of usefulness through waste, expenditure is a matter to be governed by individual will, with little or no moral meaning whatever. A man is not bound to spend his money in the way approved by the community, but in the way approved by himself. If he has 300/. a year to spend on a carriage, and chooses to spend it on diamond buttons instead, he may be a fool for his pains, though as an investor he would be simply shrewd, but he is not in any way morally wrong. He only prefers his own way to other people's, and he not only has a right to prefer it, but is bound to prefer it, if he wants to preserve any individuality of character at all—a doctrine we are proclaim- ing from the housetop about once a month, without, we fear, the smallest result. It is easy to fight, and not difficult to defeat Mrs. Worldly Grundy ; but to defeat Mrs. Spiritual Grandy is nearly impossible, and even to fight her fairly is considered in England to involve something of the sin of presumption. It is a work which wants doing, nevertheless, and as the right of Chris- tian liberty is the last the old pulpit will ever preach up, the new one will do well to take it under its care.
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