But it seems as if only the tolerably
well-to-do have the heart to be provident and self-denying. A man with a
few hundreds annually does not marry, unless he thinks he can afford it:
but the workman with fifteen shillings a week is profoundly indifferent
to any such calculation. I firmly believe that the sternest of all
self-denial is that practised by those who, when we divide mankind into
rich and poor, must be classed (I suppose) with the rich. But I turn
away from a miserable subject, through which I cannot see my way
clearly, and on which I cannot think but with unutterable pain. It is an
easy way of cutting the knot, to declare that the rich are the cause of
all the sufferings of the poor; but when we look at the case in all its
bearings, we shall see that that is rank nonsense. And on the other
hand, it is unquestionable that the rich are bound to do something. But
what? I should feel deeply indebted to any one who would write out, in
a few short and intelligible sentences, the practical results that are
aimed at in the "Song of the Shirt." The misery and evil are manifest:
but tell us whom to hang; tell us what to do!
One heavy burden with which many men are weighted for the race of life
is depression of spirits.
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