Character and Conduct – 20 December – Expenditure

I WILL take heart to lay down what I hold to be a fundamental rule, that, while we endeavour to gain the largest and keenest power of appreciating all that is noblest in nature and art and literature, we must seek to live on as little as will support the full vigour of our life and work.   The standard cannot be fixed.   It will necessarily vary, within certain limits, according to the nature and office of each man.   But generally we shall strive diligently to suppress all wants which do not tend through their satisfaction to create a nobler type of manhood, and individually we shall recognise no wants which do not express what is required for the due cultivation of our own powers and the fulfilment of that which we owe to others.   We shall guard ourselves against the temptations of artificial wants which the ingenuity of producers offers in seductive forms.   We shall refuse to admit that the caprice of fashion represents any valuable element in our constitution, or calls into play any faculties which would otherwise be unused, or encourages industry.   On the contrary, we shall see in the dignity and changelessness of Eastern dress a typical condemnation of our restless inconstancy.   We shall perceive, and act as perceiving, that the passion for novelty is morally and materially wasteful:  that it distracts and confuses our power of appreciating true beauty:  that it tends to the constant displacement of labour:  that it produces instability both in the manufacture and in the sale of goods to the detriment of economy.   We shall, to sum up all in one master-principle, estimate value and costs in terms of life, as Mr. Ruskin has taught us;  and, accepting this principle, we shall seek nothing of which the cost to the producer so measured exceeds the gain to ourselves.

Christian Social Union Addresses, Bishop WESTCOTT

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These quotes are from ‘Character and Conduct’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1905 as a follow up to her volume of Daily Readings for members of the Being and Doing Guild who asked for an additional volume

In her preface Whishaw writes:

‘This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it.’

It is my hope in publishing them here is that readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.