ers--Habitual politeness--French manners--Happiness in good
manners--Amusement--Relaxation--Influence of music--Household
elegance--Elegance of flowers--Common enjoyments--Portraits of great
men--Art at home--Final art of living. Pages 358--378

INDEX 379

A FABLE.

A grasshopper, half starved with cold and hunger, came to a well-stored
beehive at the approach of winter, and humbly begged the bees to relieve
his wants with a few drops of honey.

One of the bees asked him how he had spent his time all the summer, and
why he had not laid up a store of food like them.

"Truly." said he, "I spent my time very merrily, in drinking, dancing,
and singing, and never once thought of winter."

"Our plan is very different," said the bee; "we work hard in the summer,
to lay by a store of food against the season when we foresee we shall
want it; but those who do nothing but drink, and dance, and sing in the
summer, must expect to starve in the winter."

THRIFT.

CHAPTER I.

INDUSTRY.

"Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom."--_Carlyle_.

"Productive industry is the only capital which enriches a people, and
spreads national prosperity and well-being. In all labour there is
profit, says Solomon. What is the science of Political Economy, but a
dull sermon on this text?"--_Samuel Laing_.

"God provides the good things of the world to serve the needs of nature,
by the labours of the ploughman, the skill and pains of the artizan, and
the dangers and traffic of the merchant.... The idle person is like one
that is dead, unconcerned in the changes and necessities of the world;
and he only lives to spend his time, and eat the fruits of the earth:
like a vermin or a wolf, when their time comes they die and perish, and
in the meantime do no good."--_Jeremy Taylor_.

"For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build."--_Longfellow_.

* * * * *

Thrift began with civilization. It began when men found it necessary to
provide for to-morrow, as well as for to-day. It began long before money
was invented.

Thrift means private economy. It includes domestic economy, as well as
the order and management of a family.

While it is the object of Private Economy to create and promote the
well-being of individuals, it is the object of Political Economy to
create and increase the wealth of