Chapter III: Happy Labour, Happy Life

Si modo dignum aliquid elaborare et efficere velint, relinquenda conversatio amicorum et jucunditas urbis, deserenda cetera officia, utque ipsi dicunt, in nemora et lucos, id est, in solitudinem recedendum est.

TACITUS.--_De Oratoribus._

The splendours of the first day were never renewed. Exhausted munificence sank quietly back into ancient close-fistedness. Mrs. Tring had given one banquet, but every day was not to be a holiday, as Mrs. Merryweather and Miss Bachelor mournfully confessed, when, on the succeeding morning, they found themselves returned to the salt butter, drenched tea, and implacable coffee, from which they had been one morning released. Still more dolorous was the aspect of the dinner. A return was made to the primitive allowance of one potato for each person, and the bread was as stale as before.

Cecil was of course chary of making complaints, but as he could not eat salt butter, quietly contented himself with dry toast: a proceeding which gained him the respect of Mrs. Tring, as it saved just so much butter. It was an ill-advised act, however, as it gave her the courage to make several other petty retrenchments--too petty for him to speak about--yet, nevertheless, annoying. He had not been there a fortnight before he determined on not staying beyond the three months for which he had taken his room. Having thus made up his mind that the annoyances were but temporary, he was enabled to bear them with tolerable stoicism.

Mrs. Tring had to make a living out of her boarders, and as she accepted such very low terms, the reader may imagine what nice calculations and minute economies were necessary. The house was, indeed, a field of battle, wherein, by adroit generalship, she every day gained a victory. The living was pitiable, and Cecil was forced, in self-defence, to keep a small provision in a store closet, from which he and his wife satisfied the appetite which Mrs. Tring's fare had stimulated, not appeased. It sometimes went so far as his sending out for a chop, which he cooked in his little room, over his dwarf fire. Nevertheless, with all the extra expenses into which scanty fare forced him, the place was remarkably convenient from its cheapness; and they both supported the little discomforts with happy light-heartedness.

Cecil was full of projects. He had begun a picture of considerable pretensions, the conception of which was not without grandeur: it was Nero playing while he gazed upon the blazing city of Rome. He had also sketched the libretto of a comic opera, of which he was to write both words and music. Gay and lighthearted as the hopeful and employed always are, the best qualities of his nature were brought out, and Blanche adored him, if possible, more than ever. Work--which was given to man that he might learn to know his excellence, and to know the pleasure which attends the full development of every faculty--work crowded the hours with significance, and gave to life a purpose; and Love illumined with its sunshine the difficult path which stretched itself before him. Never, no never, had Cecil known happiness till that time. He had squandered the riches of his nature as he had squandered the heritage of his parents; and now he came to know the value of what he had lost. A serious ambition occupied him, a happy affection blessed him.

Oh! who shall paint the luminous picture of their quiet life, which, to ordinary eyes, was so prosaic and insignificant! In that miserable house, where meanness hourly struggled with adversity, there was a small room, which was parlour, bed-room, and sometimes kitchen, all in one; and from the contemplation of which, when you were told that in it lived a pair who had been reared in luxury and refinement, you would have turned away with painful pity. Yet were the secret history of that seemingly unfortunate pair known, your pity would change into envy, as those four miserable walls changed into a temple of Love, Youth, and Hope.

Poverty--a word of terror--is only terrible to the rich. The poor are not really the unhappy, for happiness is wholly independent of our worldly goods and chattels. If poverty has its hardships, wealth has its annoyances. If wealth can satisfy caprices, when satisfied they do not give the same delight as the cheap enjoyments from time to time indulged in by the poor. All things are precious in proportion to the difficulty of obtaining them, and the very facilities of wealth take from enjoyments their zest.

What makes poverty terrible is its proximity to want. And as want itself is often a thing of degree, the rich imagine that any deprivation of their accustomed indulgences must necessarily be a serious evil. But, in truth, the human mind is so constituted as to adapt itself to every condition, and to draw from its own health the requisites of happiness.

Blanche and Cecil were poor, but they had visions of future wealth and prosperity; meanwhile they had the glorious certainty of mutual affection, which irradiated their humble home, and made each hour of their lives worth more than all Peru could purchase.