rm the basis of a fortune and independence. The earnings
of the people of the United States, rich and poor, old and young, male
and female, amount to an average of less than fifty cents a day. But it
is by economizing such savings that one must get his start in business.
The man without a penny is practically helpless, from a business point of
view, except so far as he can immediately utilize his powers of body and
mind. Besides, when a man or woman is driven to the wall, the chance of
goodness surviving self-respect and the loss of public esteem is
frightfully diminished.

"Money goes as it comes." "A child and a fool imagine that twenty years
and twenty shillings can never be spent."

Live between extravagance and meanness. Don't save money and starve your
mind. "The very secret and essence of thrift consists in getting things
into higher values. Spend upward, that is, for the higher faculties.
Spend for the mind rather than for the body, for culture rather than for
amusement. Some young men are too stingy to buy the daily papers, and
are very ignorant and narrow." "There is that withholdeth more than is
meet, but it tendeth to poverty." "Don't squeeze out of your life and
comfort and family what you save."

Liberal, not lavish, is Nature's hand. Even God, it is said, cannot
afford to be extravagant. When He increased the loaves and fishes, He
commanded to gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.

"Nature uses a grinding economy," says Emerson, "working up all that is
wasted to-day into to-morrow's creation; not a superfluous grain of sand
for all the ostentation she makes of expense and public works. She flung
us out in her plenty, but we cannot shed a hair or a paring of a nail but
instantly she snatches at the shred and appropriates it to her general
stock." Last summer's flowers and foliage decayed in autumn only to
enrich the earth this year for other forms of beauty. Nature will not
even wait for our friends to see us, unless we die at home. The moment
the breath has left the body she begins to take us to pieces, that the
parts may be used again for other creations. Mark the following
contrast:--

1772. 1822.
Man, to the plow; Man, tally-ho;
Wife, to the cow; Wife, piano;
Girl, to the sow; Miss, silk and satin;
Boy, to the mow; Boy, Greek and Latin;
And your rents will be net