You see the same contrast in cottage life.  The lot of poverty is sweetened by taste.  It selects the healthiest, openest neighbourhood, where the air is pure and the streets are clean.  You see, at a glance, by the sanded doorstep, and the window-panes without a speck,—­perhaps blooming roses or geraniums shining through them,—­that the tenant within, however poor, knows the art of making the best of his lot.  How different from the foul cottage-dwellings you see elsewhere; with the dirty children playing in the gutters; the slattern-like women lounging by the door-cheek; and the air of sullen poverty that seems to pervade the place.  And yet the weekly income in the former home may be no greater, perhaps even less, than in that of the other.

How is it, that of two men, working in the same field or in the same shop, one is merry as a lark,—­always cheerful, well-clad, and as clean as his work will allow him to be,—­comes out on Sunday mornings in his best suit, to go to church with his family,—­is never without a penny in his purse, and has something besides in the savings bank,—­is a reader of books and a subscriber to a newspaper, besides taking in some literary journal for family reading; whilst the other man, with equal or even superior weekly wages, comes to work in the mornings sour and sad,—­is always full of grumbling,—­is badly clad and badly shod,—­is never seen out of his house on Sundays till about midday, when he appears in his shirt-sleeves, his face unwashed, his hair unkempt, his eyes bleared and bloodshot,—­his children left to run about the gutters, with no one apparently to care for them,—­is always at his last coin, except on Saturday night, and then he has a long score of borrowings to repay,—­belongs to no club, has nothing saved, but lives literally from hand to mouth,—­reads none, thinks none, but only toils, eats, drinks, and sleeps;—­why is it that there is so remarkable a difference between these two men?

Simply for this reason,—­that the one has the intelligence and the art to extract joy and happiness from life,—­to be happy himself, and to make those about him happy; whereas the other has not cultivated his intelligence, and knows nothing whatever of the art of either making himself or his family happy.  With the one, life is a scene of loving, helping, and sympathizing,—­of carefulness, forethought, and calculation—­of reflection, action, and duty;—­with the other, it is only a rough scramble for meat and drink; duty is not thought of, reflection is banished, prudent forethought is never for a moment entertained.

But look to the result; the former is respected by his fellow-workmen and beloved by his family,—­he is an example of well-being and well-doing to all who are within reach of his influence; whereas the other is as unreflective and miserable, as nature will allow him to be,—­he is shunned by good men,—­his family are afraid at the sound of his footsteps, his wife perhaps trembling at his approach,—­he dies without leaving any regrets behind him, except, it may be, on the part of his family, who are left to be maintained by the charity of the public, or by the pittance doled out by the overseers.