ho
have none, you are spending your money unselfishly. But if you
employ the same number of sempstresses for the same number of days,
in making four, or five, or six beautiful flounces for your own
ball-dress--flounces which will clothe no one but yourself, and which
you will yourself be unable to wear at more than one ball--you are
employing your money selfishly. You have maintained, indeed, in each
case, the same number of people; but in the one case you have directed
their labour to the service of the community; in the other case you have
consumed it wholly upon yourself. I don't say you are never to do so; I
don't say you ought not sometimes to think of yourselves only, and to
make yourselves as pretty as you can; only do not confuse coquettishness
with benevolence, nor cheat yourselves into thinking that all the finery
you can wear is so much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you:
it is not so; it is what you yourselves, whether you will or no, must
sometimes instinctively feel it to be--it is what those who stand
shivering in the streets, forming a line to watch you as you step out of
your carriages, _know_ it to be; those fine dresses do not mean that so
much has been put into their mouths, but that so much has been taken out
of their mouths.

51. The real politico-economical signification of every one of those
beautiful toilettes, is just this: that you have had a certain number of
people put for a certain number of days wholly under your authority, by
the sternest of slave-masters--hunger and cold; and you have said to
them, "I will feed you, indeed, and clothe you, and give you fuel for so
many days; but during those days you shall work for me only: your little
brothers need clothes, but you shall make none for them: your sick
friend needs clothes, but you shall make none for her: you yourself will
soon need another and a warmer dress, but you shall make none for
yourself. You shall make nothing but lace and roses for me; for this
fortnight to come, you shall work at the patterns and petals, and then I
will crush and consume them away in an hour." You will perhaps
answer--"It may not be particularly benevolent to do this, and we won't
call it so; but at any rate we do no wrong in taking their labour when
we pay them their wages: if we pay for their work, we have a right to
it."

52. No;--a thousand times no. The labour which you have paid for, does
indeed become, by the act of purchase, your ow