The working-man

Preface

If this little book shall be read with pleasure in the shop of the mechanic, during intervals of labour, or in the evening when work is over, the author's purpose will be in some degree answered. As the title shows, it is an offering to the working-man. The apprentice, the journeyman, and the master-mechanic will here find recreation and perhaps improvement. But it aims not so much at systematic instruction, as to quicken, to cheer, and to amuse.

It is no part of the plan of the work to bring down every thing to the level of the meanest capacity. Were this attempted, it would be lost upon the stupid and ignorant ; while to persons of sense and improvement, all that is said will be clear enough, without any such degradation of the style. Even children are offended with the

4 PREFACE.

extreme of forced simplicity; especially as some of them know that if they never hear a hard word, they will never get beyond the easy ones. All our knowledge is gained by mingling things yet unknown with such as are known already. It is thus we learn both to talk and to read. To attempt nothing but what is known, is to shun the water till one has learned to swim. In this persuasion, the author has not scrupled to introduce some things for the special benefit of more advanced readers ; as, for example, the short essays on the cultivation of memory. For the same reason, a pretty free use has been made of the stores of English poetry. The working-man, no less than others, has a right to these treasures of his mother tongue, and may enjoy them with the greater freedom, as they require no previous scientific training to make them intelligible.

By some readers it will be seen at once that the following work is a sequel to the American Mechanic; a third edition of which has lately come from the press. The unexpected favour with which that little volume was received, has encouraged the writer to persevere in his endea-

PREFACE. 5

vour to afford pleasing instruction to the industrious classes. He has here attempted a book which may equally suit the family and the common school, but with a perpetual reference to such as labour with their hands. To them and to their households it is offered with the best wishes of their friend,

Charles Quill.

Contents

Page

I. The Working-man's Home 9

II. The Working-man's Dwelling 14

II

THE WORKING-MAN ? S DWELLING.

" When we mean to build, We first survey the plat, then draw the model ; And when we see the figure of the house, Then must we vote the cost of the erection."

King Henry IV. part 2.

There is such a satisfaction in having a house of one's own, that most Americans begin to think of building as soon as they are rich enough. It is proverbial that this becomes a mania, even in the country, with men of wealth In quantity, therefore, we have no lack ; the defects are in the quality of our architecture. For want of observing the plain dictate of reason contained in my motto, many great houses are finished less splendidly than they were begun. As I seldom take a walk without seeing the dwelling of some mechanic going forward, I am anxious to make a few suggestions on this point.

A good site is almost every thing: in such a land as ours, few are compelled to build in bad situations. Yet half the houses we see in the country are disadvantageously placed. How littlo advantage is taken of native groves ! I have in

THE WORKING-MAN ? S DWELLING. 15

my eye a very costly edifice, just near enough to a beautiful copse to tempt the belief that the proprietor wished to avoid its shades, while he is making a strenuous effort to bring forward some starveling trees in a miserable clay before his door ! The general design is next in importance : this is what strikes the distant beholder. The eye is shocked when, in a clever building, the door has three windows on one side and five on the other. The proportions of length and height, the pitch of roof, the number, and size, and arrangement of lights, are all matters which demand careful study, in order to produce a good effect ; but in most cases they are left to chance or whim. Symmetry is as cheap as disproportion, and rich men should not monopolize all neatness and taste. A good plan gives beauty to the plainest materials, while no expense can render a false proportion elegant. A well-designed cottage, of the humblest dimensions and simplest fabric, fills the eye, and gives repose to the mind. But finery cannot hide bad taste ; it oftener betrays it. We may here apply Crabbe's couplet —

" Faults that in dusty pictures rest unknown, Are in an instant through the varnish shown."

Men who come suddenly to wealth are greatly in danger of falling into this trap. The showy in architecture is usually coupled with the vulgar; just as in dress the finest are not the truly well-bred. Pope has satirized this abuse of ornament:

" Load some vain church with old theatric state Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate ; Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all On some patched dog-hole eked with ends of wall,

" Then clap four slices of pilaster on't, That laced with bits of rustic makes a front ; Shall call the winds through long arcades to roar, Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door."

Some of our builders, I hope, will read these essays : their influence is of great moment. If well instructed, they will tell such as apply to them, that the word Architecture is not confined to the massy piles of public edifices, but that the very same principles which draught the Birmingham Town Hall, or the Madelaine, can descend to plan the cottage, or the rustic bridge. These principles ought to be studied, not only in our colleges, but our lyceums, and other institutions for the instruction of working-men. Books of architectural plans should be compiled and abstracted from the more costly European publications. I am sure any one who is familiar with the Tailor's Magazine, will grant that there is no insuperable obstacle in the way of a builder's periodical. And not architects alone, but all planners and proprietors should familiarize their eye to the contemplation of good models.

THE WORKING-MAN'S DWELLING. 17

The day it is to be hoped will come, when even the day-labourer will not think it necessary to be slovenly because he is poor, and when the most incessant drudges shall begin to see that there are some good things besides coin and bank-notes. The practical man whose views are enlarged will not fail to see that pleasures of imagination and taste have also their price. Decoration naturally comes after use ; we build our houses before we deck them. But in the advancement of society, there is a stage at which men always set a value upon ornament ; and though these circumstances may breed luxury, they have fruits which are desirable, such as increased contentment, placid joy, refined taste, cheerful reflection, and the love of home.

Along the bank of a half-finished canal I saw, the other day, a settlement, which, at a furlong's distance, showed the origin of its tenants. Extemporaneous huts, barrel chimneys, floors without boards, windows without glass, and a dunghill at the entrance ; these afforded the symptoms of a hovel. Here was no decoration ; and I argue concerning this settlement, that there are no intellectual pleasures, no taste, no gentleness, no fireside happiness.

Let me change the scene. I knew a family of

English people, no richer than those just noticed,

who lived in a dwelling no larger than one of

these — but how different ! I see it yet in memory,

2* its whitened palings and beaten walk to the door, its tight sides and close roof, and especially its edge of summer flowers around a plot of the cleanest grass, and its roses and woodbine creeping over every window. They were poor, but they were tidy. More than this ; they were fond of natural beauty, and fond of home, and therefore always aiming to make home lovely.

Every reader has many times seen the same thing, and some have already learned the connexion between simple decoration and domestic virtue and peace. Why does an English cottage strike an American with surprise 1 Why does he look, as at a strange thing, upon the French peasantry taking their evening repast beneath their trees and vines ? Because we Americans are so particularly practical, and so possessed of the demon of trade, that nothing is valuable which cannot be sold. Value is becoming equivalent to vendibility. Valuable means saleable: worth means money. If a flower, or a hedge-row, or a cascade, or a bust, or a prospect, add to the price under the hammer, these things are valuable, and are straightway inserted in the lithographic view of the auctioneer. They are useful. Usefulness is that quality of things whereby they bring money.

IIL

THE GARDEN AND GROUNDS.

41 Tall thriving trees confess the fruitful mould, The reddening apple ripens here to gold ; Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows, With deeper red the full pomegranate glows, &c* Homer's Odyssey, book vii.

It was certainly an exaggeration of Mrs. Trollope to say, that no one could ever hear two Americans talk five minutes without the word dollar. So Bonaparte exaggerated when he called the British " a nation of shopkeepers." Be it so. Caricatures often tell the truth. Even the hideous concave mirror, though it exaggerate ever so much, shows me some grand blemishes of my face. I have tried the experiment, in walking the crowded streets of our cities, to catch the predominant word of the passers-by. The catalogue is limited, and consists of such as these, " Ten per cent." — " doing a good business" — " money market" — "operations in property" — "exchange" — " stock" — " thousand dollars" — " credit" — " profits" — " fortune," &c. &c.

If a man is so practical that he will not wash his face without " value received," I entertain no hopes of bringing him over. I have no purchase for my instrument. Now cleanliness is a sort of decoration; negative, perhaps, but the condition of all the rest. Neatness follows very closely : a cleanly child is usually neat. The cleanly housewife is sure to produce in her cottage a certain trim and symmetrical arrangement which gratifies the eye. This is neatness budding into beauty. This transition ought to be seized upon wherever it appears. The pleasant little children who are yonder playing in the dust may be taught to keep themselves clean, and then to be neat. This is the path towards decoration. Taste needs development. These creatures may be bred to enjoy ornament : and thus we may get a race of people, even among the poor, who will begin to beautify the land. I live in the hope of seeing cottages along our multiplied and dirty railways, each adorned not only with a white surface and a close fence, but with roses, pinks, tulips, and all the pretty vegetable gifts of a loving Providence ; gifts which our yeomanry have too much banished to green-houses and ballads.

The ways of adorning a house by rural aids are various, and so well known as scarcely to need enumeration. They may be adapted to the lowliest habitation of civilized man, no less than to the villa or the chateau. Nothing but love for domestic beauty and ordinary tact are required to rear a thousand tasteful abodes along all our highways. And if but one provident householder will begin, we shall find that, humble as his habitation may be, he will soon be imitated by his neighbours. Fashion itself, the cause of so many follies, may be brought in aid of virtuous enjoyment. Let some working-man make the trial, by holding up before his mind rural decoration as a distinct object. Let him secure to himself a house and garden where he is willing to spend his life. Let him, as his means allow, have it tight and finished, and by all means duly enclosed. This is the frame- work; after this ensue the details. Let him learn the economy of a little timely paint, and of a fence or hedge which will withstand the assaults of wind and beasts. From day to day, as he may be able to snatch a moment for breathing the fresh air, let him remove unsightly objects and make an entrance upon positive ornament. How easy it is to set out clumps or rows of trees, for shade and fruit, flowering shrubs or evergreen hedges ! How agreeable to the wife and the little ones, to be called out to join in dropping the cheap flower-seed or training the luxuriant vine !

To men whose life is spent in labour, the subject is peculiarly interesting. The confinement of their daily toils creates the want of just such relaxation and refreshment as have been indicated. And let it be remembered that in our country even the poor man should cultivate his taste, because every poor man may look forward to the time when he shall be rich. Let him educate his

22 THE WORKING-MAE".

faculties, that his ignorance may not some day disgrace his wealth. It is common to sneer at the mechanic, and to consider the youth who becomes an apprentice as degraded. This is very short-sighted. I know no class of society whom success makes so truly independent, or who in the decline of life have so much leisure as mechanics. Compare them, in this respect, with professional men. The lawyer or the physician, however wealthy he may become, finds still increasing labours ; the more riches, the more toil. Unless he relinquishes his business altogether, he must do the work himself. He cannot send his foreman to plead a cause, or to set a leg ; nor can he, like the rich mechanic, sit in his parlour or his arbour, and know that all his great concerns are well conducted by proxy. Working-men should look to this, and from the time when they first enter a habitation of their own, should cultivate the delights of domestic ornament.

Among these ornaments, the highest rank is due to Gardening ; including in that term the rearing of valuable trees. Children should be early taught that when they set out a fine tree, or insert a graft, they are doing a favour to posterity, and beginning that which shall continue to make others happy when they are in their graves. It has always been pleasant to me to see the house of the industrious citizen embowered in flowering vines and trees. And on Saturday evening, a season when so many forsake their work only for the porter-house or the tavern, the man who possesses such a retreat will have a strong inducement to seek his delightful home, and meet his little household among the smiles of natural scenery.

There are many very precious maxims of life which need to be pointed out ; they are overlooked by the mass of people. Once indicated, they are believed and embraced. Among these is the following: Simple ornament hinders no good use. The watch runs as well in a comely case, as it would in a deal box. The draught is just as savoury out of a chased tankard. And every good of household life is unimpaired by nestling among green foliage, climbing honeysuckles, and parterres of flowers. I long to see this acted upon by our people. I long to see them snatching a few hours from the noisy throng of idlers, and the delirious mirth of the bar-room, and spending them on the little innocent decorations of humble but delightful home.

The time required for beautifying a house and enclosure is really so little, that it scarcely admits of being brought into a calculation. A few minutes at daybreak, in the spring and autumn, will in the course of a year work wonders. A few snatches of time after labour is ended may be spared by the busiest man. If his w r ork has lain within doors, or has been of the sedentary kind, a little exercise and air, enjoyed in pruning his hedge or trimming his vines, will be restorative to his health and spirits. This is better than mere repose. Nature abhors a vacuum of employment. Is not this positive gain? Health is "the poor man's riches :" that which conduces to it is worth more than money. Even those who are athletic, or who work at trades which give them constant motion, do not the less need something of this sort. It is not mere muscular exertion which preserves and restores health. There may be great bodily effort with no better result than fatigue. What every man requires when the day is done, is gentle recreation, something between work and play, which shall break the train of moody thought, repair the waste of nervous elasticity, and put the jaded mind in good humour with itself and others.

When the artizan, after his evening repast, goes out to water his flowers, every thing he touches is his own ; and nothing so much his own as the tree he planted or the shades he gathered. He is refreshed and tranquillized, and grows into the love of home. These pleasures are mightily increased, when he sees around him his little children partaking in his toils and joys, and cheering one another with the merry laugh to work or sport; while the wife's voice, heard within, as she sings contentedly over the cradle, adds a lovely music to the scene. This is a picture, of which the original may be found in many a poor bu* happy family ; would that it were so in all ! Under such shades as these, domestic quiet loves to dwell ; and in such a spot religion finds its sanctuary.

Contrast with this a case which we are often called to witness. The mechanic or labourer has worked hard all day. At the close of his toils he turns his face homewards. But he has not provided or cherished at his dwelling any strong attraction. No refinement of taste has ever softened his spirit. It has been too much his practice to pass his leisure hours elsewhere. He feels the need of some relaxation. He is languid from fatigue, and sullen from the disgust of labour. In such a condition he is easily attracted to the bar-room. There, amidst the odours of liquor and tobacco, he forgets his previous listlessness and anxiety, to become the victim of an unnatural and dangerous excitement. The glass, the jest, and the song make the evening fly swiftly. Late at night he wends his way home, if not drunk, yet humbled, discontented, and peevish. No children greet him with their joyous laugh ; the neglected little creatures are asleep, and the sad wife is awake only through anxious expectation of her husband. Am I extravagant in tracing much of the misery in such a case to the want of taste for those little things which make one's home desirable ? As a general observation, I have never seen idle or profligate sons issuing from within the cottage paling which has been adorned by 3 their own infant hands. And, on the other hand, it would require a stoical love of virtue for its own sake, to make any youth love the foul, smoky, fenceless cabin of a thriftless father. Sweeten home, and you close nine out of ten doors to temptation.

HUSBAND AND WIFE. 27

IV. Husband And Wife

" Sufficiency, content, Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books, Ease and alternate labour, useful life, Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven ! These are the matchless joys of virtuous love."

Thomsox.

It is well known to all readers of fiction, that the novel commonly ends, as soon as the happy pair are united at the altar ; and it would be thought a singular romance in which the interest should be made to turn mainly upon the pleasures of married life. But whatever it may be in fiction, wedlock is the source of the richest happiness in real life. Its joys indeed are not of the sort which the novelist loves to dwell on ; they are less like the lightning or the meteor than the sunset or the dawn. They are not the raptures of the lover, which are often founded in mere sense, and vanish when youth and beauty are gone ; but the steady glow of a true love that outlasts every external charm, and holds on its constant light even amidst wrinkles and old age.

Trite as the subject is, I must be allowed to spend a little time upon it, as it is nearly connected with the happiness of the working-man's home. What is life, especially to the artisan, without home ? and what is home, without gentle woman, the friend, the wife, the mother ? The English nobleman, and those who ape his manners, may trample on these domestic pleasures ; but it is like treading down the lily of the valley, the cowslip, and the violet. Husband and wife, in high life, may affect great coldness, live apart, maintain separate equipages, and flaunt at different watering-places ; they have debauched all taste for the joys of nature and of virtue: but husband and wife, in our happier sphere, are necessary to one another, and cannot be severed without loss and anguish.

In our favoured land there can scarcely be said to be any check to marriage. Our young people marry early, and are free from that sullen, brooding prudence which is inculcated by painful necessity on the peasantry of the old country. Matrimony is therefore more an affair of the heart; and this, in spite of all sneers at lovemarriages, I shall ever hold to be a great advantage. What was said on this subject by Franklin, seventy years ago, is still true, that early marriages stand the best chance of happiness. The temper and habits are plastic and easily run together ; the want of personal experience is supplied by that of elder friends who still survive. " Late children," says the Spanish proverb, " are early orphans." " With us in America," Dn Franklin

HUSBAND AND WIFE. 29

torote in 1768, " marriages are generally in the morning of life ; our children are therefore educated and settled in the world by noon ; and thus, our business being done, we have an afternoon and evening of cheerful leisure to ourselves. By these early marriages we are blessed with more children ; * * * * * * hence the swift progress of population among us, unparalleled in Europe."

Profane jesters and rakes have succeeded in getting afloat in society too many idle and wicked sayings about the state of matrimony. It is a truth at once of Scripture and observation, that " he that findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord." I am so far from having any fears of infusing into my readers any unduly romantic notions in regard to marriage, that I am convinced the households of our working-men would be invested with a new charm if the mutual regards of husband and wife could be hallowed with more of these tender, respectful, and sacred sentiments.

Poor Sedley ! what I have just written brings him to my mind. Though what the world would call but a common man, he had a heart worthy of a knight-errant. He is now gone ; but I am sure there is many a woman living who remembers the chaste but tender respect, almost passionate, if it had not been almost courtly, with which he regarded the sex. And as for Isabel his wife, though at the time I mean she was neither beautiful nor young, she seemed in Sedley's eyes to be the 3* representative of all the virtues. I never heard from them a fondling expression, or observed the slightest indication of that conjugal mellowness which is a sort of perpetuated honey-moon. But then respect and love breathed from every action.

Once I found him, when much enfeebled by disease, so much affected as to be in tears. " I am an unlucky fellow," said he, laying his hand on mine ; " I have hurt the feelings of my best friend— of Isabel. No," said he, " I recall the phrase — it is often but another name for anger— and anger never rested in her gentle bosom. Grief — grief — that is the word: I have grieved her. By my sullenness and petulance, the fruit of my diseases, but yet unpardonable, I have grieved her. And I must go," he exclaimed, " and ask her forgiveness, for in fifteen years she has never given me a look of unkindness." It was with difficulty that I persuaded him to lay aside this purpose. He could scarcely believe that a needless explanation is always a source of real pain. When I afterwards found that Isabel gently smiled at his caprices, which she understood better than himself, I was only the more convinced that " a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, and that her price is above rubies."

Left the debauchee prate of the constraint of wedded love, and the zest he has in licentious pleasure ; let the monkish casuist declaim against wedlock as a lower condition in point of morals : I will still repeat the verses of the matchless bard

HUSBAND AND WIFE. 31

— verses which I would that every young American had engraven on his memory :

" Far be it that I should write thee sin or blame, Or think thee unbefitting holiest place. Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets, Whose bed is undented and chaste pronounced, Present or past, as saints and patriarchs used. Here love his constant shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels ; not in the bought smile Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendear'd, Casual fruition ; nor in court amours, Mix'd dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball, Or serenate, which the starved lover sings To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain."

y.

THE WIFE AT HOME.

" For nothing lovelier can be found In woman, than to study household good, And good works in her husband to promote."

MlLT02T.

It has been one of my most serious apprehensions, that in the multitude of our societies and public combinations, men and women might chance to forget that they have any thing to do individually. We have societies to take care of our health, and societies to take care of our kitchens. Almsgiving, so far as practised at all, is practised chiefly by wholesale. Perhaps we may see the day when we shall dine together like the Spartans, and when all cookery and education shall be done upon the large scale.

These thoughts were suggested to my mind with greater force than common, a few days since, upon my making a visit to the house of Mrs. Nelson, the wife of a reputable farmer, a few miles from our village. If I were to attempt a portrait of this excellent lady, I should fill a volume ; I can only give an outline. Mrs. Nelson is, in the American as well as the English

THE

e, a fine woman. Temperance, early risri industry, and, above all, serene cheerfulne--

have leu on her cheek at forty those roses which fashion and excitement often blast before fifteen. But what I took my pen to notice that truly feminine and Christian trait of my good friend — she ^eeper at home."* Though I

have been a church-going man many years, I do not remember to have heard any one of our clergy enlarge upon this Scripture phrase ; and yet the older I grow, the more wisdom there seems to be in it. The best women in the world are those who stay at home ; such is the opinion of the best judges, to wit, their husbands. The worst women are those who have no home, or who love all other places better ; such is the verdict of those who meet them abroad. A wife at the hearth is as indispensable as a steersman at the wheel.

re is scarcely any degree of prudence or firmness which will enable a man to have a wellordered family unless his partner have some of

i :me qualities. Even the success of out-door business is more dependent upon this than is commonly supposed : agreeably to a vulgar proverb, 44 He that would thrive, must ask his wife." In a house where children or apprentices are to be cared for, this is plainly true. A little procrastination, sloth, or want of thrift in the woman will suffice to make every thing go wrong. Who can

* Titus ii. 5.

count up the cases where poor fellows have been ruined by their wives ?

This is a hard saying, but if it were softened it would be less true. Surely it is no disrespect to the better sex to point out those rare exceptions, which, like the dim tarnish on the face of the moon, make the other tracts look all the brighter. After you shall have exaggerated to the utmost the number and the faults of idle, gadding, gossiping women, we shall still have a million of American housewives, brightening a million homes and hearts. Mrs. Nelson is one of them. Her husband is not the meekest man in the county, nor by nature the most hospitable, but she makes up for all, like the credit side of an account. In the exercise of the passive virtues, she finds her greatest happiness. She holds it to be one of the very first duties of life to render her home delightful, first to her husband, next to her children, and then to all who may enter her hospitable doors. Early in life, she observed that several of her husband's intimate acquaintances were becoming irregular in their habits ; she talked it over with Nelson. He, being a rough man, declared it to be his intention to break off all connexion with Lang and Shepherd on the spot. " O, no, husband !" said she ; " that would be cruel : remember the proverb, i a soft word breaketh the bone.' Let me alone to bring them to their bearings ; at any rate give me a month for an experiment." < « You !" he exclaimed, in astonishment ; " Mary,