William Cobbett

“ Who, amongst all the classes of men, experience, on an average, so little of real pleasure, and so much of real pain as the rich and the lofty? Pope gives us, as the materials for happiness, 'health, peace, and competence.' Aye, but what is peace, and what is competence? If, by peace, he mean that tranquillity of mind which innocence and good deeds produce, he is right and clear so far; for we all know that, without health, which has a well-known positive meaning, there can be no happiness. But competence is a word of unfixed meaning. ”

“ That is the music which is 'the food of love;' and not the formal, pedantic noises, an affectation of skill in which is now-a-days the ruin of half the young couples in the middle rank of life. Let any man observe, as I so frequently have, with delight, the excessive fondness of the labouring people for their children. Let him observe with what pride they dress them out on a Sunday, with means deducted from their own scanty meals. Let him observe the husband, who has toiled all the week like a horse, nursing the baby, while the wife is preparing the bit of dinner. ”

“ But, some one may say, slaves are private property, and may be bought and sold, out and out, like cattle. And, what is it to the slave, whether he be property of one or of many; or, what matters it to him, whether he pass from master to master by a sale for an indefinite term, or be let to hire by the year, month, or week? It is, in no case, the flesh and blood and bones that are sold, but the labour; and, if you actually sell the labour of man, is not that man a slave, though you sell it for only a short time at once? ”

“ I have known many a clever man rejected in the way of promotion only because he was addicted to gaming. Men, in that state of life, cannot ruin themselves by gaming, for they possess no fortune, nor money; but the taste for gaming is always regarded as an indication of a radically bad disposition; and I can truly say, that I never in my whole life knew a man, fond of gaming, who was not, in some way or other, a person unworthy of confidence. This vice creeps on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it becomes an ungovernable passion, swallowing up every good and kind feeling of the heart. ”

“ My American friend said, 'If I had been he, I would, in the first place, have married the poorest and prettiest girl in all France.' If he had done this, he would, in all probability, have now been on an imperial throne, instead of being eaten by worms at the bottom of a very deep hole in Saint Helena; whence, however, his bones convey to the world the moral, that to marry for money, for ambition, or from any motive other than the one pointed out by affection, is not the road to glory, to happiness, or to peace. ”

“ How many fathers have been ruined, how many mothers and families brought to beggary, how many industrious and virtuous groups have been pulled down from competence to penury, from the desire to prevent one from bringing shame on the parent! So that, contrary to every principle of justice, the bad is rewarded for the badness; and the good punished for the goodness. Natural affection, remembrance of infantine endearments, reluctance to abandon long-cherished hopes, compassion for the sufferings of your own flesh and blood, the dread of fatal consequences from your adhering to justice ”

“ And, what can be more just than that signal punishment should follow such a crime; a crime directly against the voice of nature itself? Youth has its passions, and due allowance justice will make for these; but, are the delusions of the boozer, the gamester, or the harlot, to be pleaded in excuse for a disregard of the source of your existence? Are those to be pleaded in apology for giving pain to the father who has toiled half a lifetime in order to feed and clothe you, and to the mother whose breast has been to you the fountain of life? ”

“ It is not laziness, but pernicious fashion, that you will have to combat. But the truth is, that there ought to be no combat at all; this important matter ought to be settled and fully agreed on beforehand. If she really love you, and have common sense, she will not hesitate a moment; and if she be deficient in either of these respects; and if you be so mad in love as to be unable to exist without her, it is better to cease to exist at once, than to become the toiling and embarrassed slave of a wasting and pillaging servant. ”

“ It is the duty of every man to defend his country against an enemy, a duty imposed by the law of Nature as well as by that of civil society, and without the recognition of this duty, there could exist no independent nation and no civil society. Yet, how are you to maintain that this is the duty of every man, if you deny to some men the enjoyment of a share in making the laws? Upon what principle are you to contend for equality here, while you deny its existence as to the right of sharing in the making of the laws? The poor man has a body and a soul as well as the rich man ”

“ I have before urged upon young married men, in the middle walks of life, to keep the servants out of the house as long as possible; and when they must come at last, when they must be had even to assist in taking care of children, let them be assistants in the most strict sense of the word; let them not be confided in; let children never be left to them alone; and the younger the child, the more necessary a rigid adherence to this rule. I shall be told, perhaps, by some careless father, or some play-haunting mother, that female servants are women, and have the tender feelings of women. ”

“ This sobriety is a title to trust-worthiness; and this, young man, is the treasure that you ought to prize far above all others. Miserable is the husband, who, when he crosses the threshold of his house, carries with him doubts and fears and suspicions. I do not mean suspicions of the fidelity of his wife, but of her care, frugality, attention to his interests, and to the health and morals of his children. Miserable is the man, who cannot leave all unlocked, and who is not sure, quite certain, that all is as safe as if grasped in his own hand. ”

“ MONEY! Wealth acquired in consequence of this banishment of these poor children; these victims of this, I will not call it avarice, but over-eager love of gain! wealth, thus acquired! What wealth can console these parents for the loss of reason in these children! Where is the father and the mother, who would not rather see their children ploughing in other men's fields, and sweeping other men's houses, than led about parks or houses of their own, objects of pity even of the menials procured by their wealth? ”

“ Why, it ought, and it, doubtless, would be said of him, that his conduct was a libel on both man and womankind; that his name ought, for ever, to be synonymous with baseness and nastiness, and that in no age and in no nation, not marked by a general depravity of manners, and total absence of all sense of shame, every associate, male or female, of such a man, or of his filthy mate, would be held in abhorrence. Public morality would drive such a hateful pair from society, and strict justice would hunt them from the face of the earth. ”

“ To those who labour, we, who labour not with our hands, owe all that we eat, drink and wear; all that shades us by day and that shelters us by night; all the means of enjoying health and pleasure; and, therefore, if we possess talent for the task, we are ungrateful or cowardly, or both, if we omit any effort within our power to prevent them from being slaves; and, disguise the matter how we may, a slave, a real slave, every man is, who has no share in making the laws which he is compelled to obey. ”

“ Extravagance in dress, in the haunting of play-houses, in horses, in everything else, is to be avoided, and, in youths and young men, extravagance in dress particularly. This sort of extravagance, this waste of money on the decoration of the body, arises solely from vanity, and from vanity of the most contemptible sort. It arises from the notion, that all the people in the street, for instance, will be looking at you as soon as you walk out; and that they will, in a greater or less degree, think the better of you on account of your fine dress. ”

“ Nothing is much more disgusting than what the sensible country people call a maw-mouthed woman. A maw-mouthed man is bad enough: he is sure to be a lazy fellow: but, a woman of this description, in addition to her laziness, soon becomes the most disgusting of mates. In this whole world nothing is much more hateful than a female's under jaw, lazily moving up and down, and letting out a long string of half-articulate sounds. It is impossible for any man, who has any spirit in him, to love such a woman for any length of time. ”

“ A labourer's cottage, on a Sunday; the husband or wife having a baby in arms, looking at two or three older ones playing between the flower-borders going from the wicket to the door, is, according to my taste, the most interesting object that eyes ever beheld; and, it is an object to be beheld in no country upon earth but England. In France, a labourer's cottage means a shed with a dung-heap before the door; and it means much about the same in America, where it is wholly inexcusable. ”

“ A slave is, in the first place, a man who has no property; and property means something that he has, and that nobody can take from him without his leave, or consent. Whatever man, no matter what he may call himself or any body else may call him, can have his money or his goods taken from him by force, by virtue of an order, or ordinance, or law, which he has had no hand in making, and to which he has not given his assent, has no property, and is merely a depositary of the goods of his master. A slave has no property in his labour ”

“ Let him observe them both abstaining from a sufficiency, lest the children should feel the pinchings of hunger. Let him observe, in short, the whole of their demeanour, the real mutual affection, evinced, not in words, but in unequivocal deeds. Let him observe these things, and, having then cast a look at the lives of the great and wealthy, he will say, with me, that, when a man is choosing his partner for life, the dread of poverty ought to be cast to the winds. ”

“ It is cold comfort for a hungry man, to tell him how delightfully his wife plays and sings: lovers may live on very aërial diet; but husbands stand in need of the solids; and young women may take my word for it, that a constantly clean board, well cooked victuals, a house in order, and a cheerful fire, will do more in preserving a husband's heart, than all the 'accomplishments,' taught in all the 'establishments' in the world. ”

“ A very good rule would be, to have nothing to eat, in a farmer's or tradesman's house, that the mistress did not know how to prepare and to cook; no pudding, tart, pie or cake, that she did not know how to make. Never fear the toil to her: exercise is good for health; and without health there is no beauty; a sick beauty may excite pity, but pity is a short-lived passion. Besides, what is the labour in such a case? And how many thousands of ladies, who loll away the day, would give half their fortunes for that sound sleep which the stirring house-wife seldom fails to enjoy. ”

“ Rely you upon your merit, and upon nothing else. Without a knowledge of grammar, it is impossible for you to write correctly, and it is by mere accident if you speak correctly; and, pray bear in mind, that all well-informed persons judge of a man's mind (until they have other means of judging) by his writing or speaking. The labour necessary to acquire this knowledge is, indeed, not trifling: grammar is not, like arithmetic, a science consisting of several distinct departments, some of which may be dispensed with: it is a whole, and the whole must be learned, or no part is learned. ”

“ By 'good temper,' I do not mean easy temper, a serenity which nothing disturbs, for that is a mark of laziness. Sulkiness, if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a temper to be avoided by all means. A sulky man is bad enough; what, then, must be a sulky woman, and that woman a wife; a constant inmate, a companion day and night! Only think of the delight of sitting at the same table, and sleeping in the same bed, for a week, and not exchange a word all the while! ”

“ And how comes it, then, that we see hale and even clever youths voluntarily bending their necks to this slavery; nay, pressing forward in eager rivalship to assume the yoke that ought to be insupportable? The cause, and the only cause, is, that the deleterious fashion of the day has created so many artificial wants, and has raised the minds of young men so much above their real rank and state of life, that they look scornfully on the employment, the fare, and the dress, that would become them; and, in order to avoid that state in which they might live free and happy, they become showy slaves. ”

“ In the schools of those best of teachers the JESUITS, there is perfect equality as to rank in life: the boy, who enters there, leaves all family pride behind him: intrinsic merit alone is the standard of preference; and the masters are so scrupulous upon this head, that they do not suffer one scholar, of whatever rank, to have more money to spend than the poorest. These wise men know well the mischiefs that must arise from inequality of pecuniary means amongst their scholars: they know how injurious it would be to learning, if deference were, by the learned, paid to the dunce ”

“ Love of one's native soil is a feeling which nature has implanted in the human breast, and that has always been peculiarly strong in the breasts of Englishmen. God has given us a country of which to be proud, and that freedom, greatness and renown, which were handed down to us by our wise and brave forefathers, bid us perish to the last man, rather than suffer the land of their graves to become a land of slavery, impotence and dishonour. ”

“ A loose woman is a disagreeable acquaintance: what must she be, then, as a wife? Love is so blind, and vanity is so busy in persuading us that our own qualities will be sufficient to ensure fidelity, that we are very apt to think nothing, or, at any rate, very little, of trifling symptoms of levity; but if such symptoms show themselves now, we may be well assured, that we shall never possess the power of effecting a cure. If prudery mean false modesty, it is to be despised; but if it mean modesty pushed to the utmost extent, I confess that I like it. ”

“ It is, however, of the part which the husband has to act, in participating in these cares and toils, that I am now to speak. Let no man imagine that the world will despise him for helping to take care of his own child: thoughtless fools may attempt to ridicule; the unfeeling few may join in the attempt; but all, whose good opinion is worth having, will applaud his conduct, and will, in many cases, be disposed to repose confidence in him on that very account. To say of a man, that he is fond of his family, is, of itself, to say that, in private life at least, he is a good and trust-worthy man ”