very cent of their income, and then
leave their children to depend on the precarious charity and reluctant
friendship of a world they have wasted their substance to please.
Men who rush into enterprise and speculation, keep up their credit
by splendor; and should they sink, they and their families carry with
them extravagant habits to corrode their spirits with discontent,
perchance to tempt them into crime. 'I know we are extravagant,' said
one of my acquaintance, the other day; 'but how can I help it? My
husband does not like to see his wife and daughters dress more meanly
than those with whom they associate.' 'Then, my dear lady, your
husband has not as much moral dignity and moral courage as I thought
he had. He should be content to see his wife and daughters respected
for neatness, good taste, and attractive manners.' 'This all sounds
very well in talk,' replied the lady; 'but, say what you will about
pleasing and intelligent girls, nobody will attend to them unless they
dress in the fashion. If my daughters were to dress in the plain, neat
style you recommend, they would see all their acquaintance asked to
dance more frequently than themselves, and not a gentleman would join
them in Cornhill.'

'I do not believe this in so extensive a sense as you do. Girls may
appear genteelly without being extravagant, and though some fops may
know the most approved color for a ribbon, or the newest arrangement
for trimming, I believe gentlemen of real character merely notice
whether a lady's dress is generally in good taste, or not. But,
granting your statement to be true, in its widest sense, of what
consequence is it? How much will the whole happiness of your
daughter's life be affected by her dancing some fifty times less
than her companions, or wasting some few hours less in the empty
conversation of coxcombs? A man often admires a style of dress, which
he would not venture to support in a wife. Extravagance has prevented
many marriages, and rendered still more unhappy. And should your
daughters fail in forming good connexions, what have you to leave
them, save extravagant habits, too deeply rooted to be eradicated.
Think you those who now laugh at them for a soiled glove, or an
unfashionable ribbon, will assist their poverty, or cheer their
neglected old age? No; they would find them as cold and selfish
as they are vain. A few thousands in the bank are worth all the
fashionable friends in Christendom.'

Whether my frien