But my chit-chat is drawing to a close. It was not without a certain regret that we bade farewell to Utrera, for during the whole of our stay there we had experienced nothing but kindness from all with whom we had come in contact, and the memory of our sojourn in that little out-of-the-way Andalusian town, if not fraught with brilliant recollections, will, at all events take its rank with that portion of the past which has been too peaceful to rise up again to trouble us. And it were well if we could say the same for every part of our storm-ridden lives.
THE END.
THE SECRET OF ECONOMY.
Apparently, there has been much to say and write lately upon domestic economy. From the time, indeed, that the question of the possibility of marriage upon three hundred a-year was mooted, the subject has never fairly been dropped.
Men with incomes of less than three hundred a-year do not seem to like the idea, that they are bound in consequence to renounce all thoughts of matrimony, and inquiries respecting the matter from aggrieved bachelors are constantly cropping up in those corners of the weekly papers devoted to correspondence. They have even gone so far lately as to suggest, since it seems impossible in this century of riots and rinderpest to curtail one’s expenses, whether it may not be both lawful and feasible to curtail one’s family.
The question of, on how much, or on how little, a certain number of persons can exist, is certainly one which affects the mass, but which, to be answered with fairness, must be put individually. There are women and women. What one housekeeper can accomplish on three hundred a-year, another cannot effect on three thousand, for it is not incompatible with many luxuries to possess very little comfort; and comfort is, after all, the essence of domestic felicity.
Yet, it is not fair to lay the whole blame of the impossibility of marriage in these days upon a moderate income, on the extravagance of women, for the difficulty is just as often attributable to the disinclination of men to resign the luxuries to which they have been accustomed. For every really extravagantly disposed female mind there may be found two thriftily disposed ones; and had such minds but been endued with the proper knowledge to carry out their efforts to do well, existence might not be found so difficult a matter as it appears to be at present.