[Gutenberg 4629] • Home Scenes and Home Influence; a series of tales and sketches

Excerpt: "It is possible," thought I, "in seeking after comfort, to get into the wrong road. I am afraid my young friends are about committing this error." I not only suggested as much to Brainard soon afterwards, but actually presented a serious remonstrance against the course of life he had adopted. But he only smiled at the fears I expressed, and said he understood perfectly the nature of the ground he was treading. Thus it is with most young persons. Be their views true or false, they act upon them, in spite of all counsel from the more experienced, and in the end reap their harvest of trouble or pleasure, as the ease may be. Pride, which stimulates the desire to make a certain appearance in the world, is generally more at fault than a wish to secure the comforts of which my friend talked so much. I had another acquaintance, by the name of Tyler, who was married about the same time with Brainard. His tastes were as well cultivated as those of the former, and his income was as large; yet, in beginning the world, he had shown more prudence and a wise forecast. I found him in a small, neat house, at a rent of one hundred and seventy dollars. His furniture was not costly, but in good taste and keeping with the house and his circumstances. As for real comfort, as far as I could see, the preponderance was rather in his favour. "This is really comfortable," said I, glancing around the room in which he received me on the occasion of my first visit. "We think so," replied my friend, smiling. "Nothing very elegant, but as good as we can afford, and with that we have made up our minds to be content." "If all the world were as wise, all the world would be happier," I remarked. "Perhaps so," returned Tyler. "Brainard tried to get me into a house like the one he occupies; but I thought it more prudent to cut my garment according to my cloth. The larger your house, the more costly your furniture and the higher your regular expenses. He talked about having things comfortable, as he called it, and enjoying life as he went along; but it would be poor comfort for me to know that I was five or six hundred dollars in debt, and all the while living beyond my income." "In debt? What do you mean by that?" said I. "It isn't possible that Brainard has gone in debt for any of his fine furniture?" "It is very possible." "To the extent of five or six hundred dollars?" "Yes. The rose-wood piano he bought for his wife cost four hundred dollars. It was purchased on six months' credit." "Foolish young man!" said I. "You may well say that. He thinks a great deal about the comforts of life; but he is going the wrong way to secure them, in my opinion. His parlour furniture, including the new piano, cost nearly one thousand dollars; mine cost three hundred; and I'm sure I would not exchange comforts with him. It isn't what is around us so much as what is within us, that produces pleasure. A contented mind is said to be a continual feast. If, in seeking to have things comfortable, we create causes of disquietude, we defeat our own ends." "I wish our friend Brainard could see things in the same light," said I. "Nothing but painful experience will open his eyes," remarked Tyler. And he was correct in this. Brainard continued to take his comfort for a few months, although there was a gradual sinking in the thermometer of his feelings as the time approached when the notes given for a part of his furniture would fall due. The amount of these notes was six hundred dollars, but he had not saved fifty towards meeting the payments. The whole of his income had been used in taking[...]