savage race before it was degraded by contact with the civilized
man. Yet I have no doubt that that people's rulers are as wise as
the average of civilized rulers. Their condition only proves what
squalidness may consist with civilization. I hardly need refer now
to the laborers in our Southern States who produce the staple
exports of this country, and are themselves a staple production of
the South. But to confine myself to those who are said to be in
moderate circumstances.
Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and
are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they
think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if
one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for
him, or, gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck
skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him
a crown! It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and
luxurious than we have, which yet all would admit that man could not
afford to pay for. Shall we always study to obtain more of these
things, and not sometimes to be content with less? Shall the
respectable citizen thus gravely teach, by precept and example, the
necessity of the young man's providing a certain number of
superfluous glow-shoes, and umbrellas, and empty guest chambers for
empty guests, before he dies? Why should not our furniture be as
simple as the Arab's or the Indian's? When I think of the
benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers
from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind
any retinue at their heels, any carload of fashionable furniture.
Or what if I were to allow -- would it not be a singular allowance?
-- that our furniture should be more complex than the Arab's, in
proportion as we are morally and intellectually his superiors! At
present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it, and a good