unset and revel in its beauty and you will find your voyage through life
much more satisfactory to look back to and full of far sweeter memories
than if by sacrificing any of these pleasures you had attained the
greatest of "positions."

No. 35--Living on your Friends

Thackeray devoted a chapter in "Vanity Fair" to the problem "How to Live
Well on Nothing a Year." It was neither a very new nor a very ingenious
expedient that "Becky" resorted to when she discounted her husband's
position and connection to fleece the tradespeople and cheat an old
family servant out of a year's rent. The author might more justly have
used his clever phrase in describing "Major Pendennis's" agreeable
existence. We have made great progress in this, as in almost every other
mode of living, in the latter half of the Victorian era; intelligent
individuals of either sex, who know the ropes, can now as easily lead the
existence of a multi-millionaire (with as much satisfaction to themselves
and their friends) as though the bank account, with all its attendant
worries, stood in their own names. This subject is so vast, its
ramifications so far-reaching and complicated, that one hesitates before
launching into an analysis of it. It will be better simply to give a few
interesting examples, and a general rule or two, for the enlightenment
and guidance of ingenious souls.

Human nature changes little; all that our educational and social training
has accomplished is a smoothing of the surface. One of the most striking
proofs of this is, that here in our primitive country, as soon as
accumulation of capital allowed certain families to live in great luxury,
they returned to the ways of older aristocracies, and, with other wants,
felt the necessity of a court about them, ladies and gentlemen in
waiting, pages and jesters. Nature abhors a vacuum, so a class of people
immediately felt an irresistible impulse to rush in and fill the void.
Our aristocrats were not even obliged to send abroad to fill these
vacancies, as they were for their footmen and butlers; the native article
was quite ready and willing and, considering the little practice it could
have had, proved wonderfully adapted to the work.

When the mania for building immense country houses and yachts (the owning
of opera boxes goes a little further back) first attacked this country,
the builders imagined that, once completed, it would be the easiest, as
well as the most delightfu