in
that of a working man, where there are prudence and good management)
would be done so as not to annoy the husband, were to my father a sort
of annoyance; and he, from an ignorant and mistaken notion, sought
comfort in an alehouse. My mother's ignorance of household duties; my
father's consequent irritability and intemperance; the frightful
poverty; the constant quarrelling; the pernicious example to my brothers
and sisters; the bad effect upon the future conduct of my brothers,--one
and all of us being forced out to work so young that our feeble earnings
would produce only 1_s_. a week,--cold and hunger, and the innumerable
sufferings of my childhood, crowd upon my mind and overpower me. They
keep alive a deep anxiety for the emancipation of thousands of families
in this great town (Birmingham) and neighbourhood, who are in a similar
state of horrible misery. My own experience tells me that the
instruction of the females in the work of a house, in teaching them to
produce cheerfulness and comfort at the fireside, would prevent a great
amount of misery and crime. There would be fewer drunken husbands and
disobedient children. As a working man, within my own observation,
female education is disgracefully neglected. I attach more importance to
it than to anything else; for woman imparts the first impressions to the
young susceptible mind; she models the child from which is formed the
future man."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ART OF LIVING.

"Deem no man, in any age,
Gentle for his lineage.
Though he be not highly born,
He is gentle if he doth
What 'longeth to a gentleman."--_Chaucer_.

"Every one is the son of his own work."--_Cervantes_.

"Serve a noble disposition, though poor; the time comes that he will
repay thee."--_George Herbert_.

"Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet
perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where
sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not
of."--_Swift_.

"Let not what I cannot have
My cheer of mind destroy."--_Cibber_.

* * * * *

The Art of Living deserves a place among the Fine Arts. Like Literature,
it may be ranked with the Humanities. It is the art of turning the means
of living to the best account,--of making the best of everything. It is
the art of extracting from life its highest enjoyment, and, through it,
of reaching its highest results.

To live happily, the exercise