Socially, then, the thrifty man is an acceptable member of the community; but when we inquire closely into the nature of thrift we often find it associated with meanness, and therefore the esteem for it has never been quite without reserve.
French Qualities favourable to Thrift.
French Defects favourable to Thrift.
French Meanness.
To apply this to the English and French, I may begin by admitting, quite frankly, that the French are incomparably superior to the English in thrift. The natural talent for thrift is far commoner in France than in England. The French are prudent as a rule, and very capable of limiting their desires; they have also a great love of independence, a horror of debt, a readiness to accept and avow a modest social position, and they have (in spite of apparent frivolity) a foresight that looks a long way into the future. That is the good side of the French character as regards thrift, but there is a bad side at least equally favourable to it. There is a pettiness in the French mind which adapts it well for dealing with details, and gives it a keen zest for very small economies. An Englishman is astonished by nothing so much as this pettiness when he first knows the French as they really are, and begins to perceive what close and earnest attention they will give to what seem to him ridiculously small matters. In many French people, I do not say in all, there is something worse than pettiness, namely, downright meanness, and this too is highly favourable to thrift. This meanness is not confined to the poorer classes, or to the bourgeoisie, it may be found in all classes.
The English have less both of the Qualities and the Defects.
In England the qualities and the defects which are favourable to thrift are much rarer. The English are not so prudent as the French, not so capable of limiting their desires, not so ready to accept humble positions contentedly, and if they have foresight they too often find reasons for not acting according to its dictates. But, on the other hand, the English have a hearty contempt for pettiness. An Englishman who is mean is a very rare exception. The English nature finds no satisfaction in paying less for anything than it is really worth; it does not wish to pay more, but in consideration for its own self-respect it wishes to give the full value.
Egoism and Altruism in Thrift.
A further examination of the conduct of thrifty people leads to the conclusion that thrift may be either self-denying or denying to other people. A man has a family; he feeds himself luxuriously and his family as poorly as possible; at the year’s end he will have saved more than if he had lived on potatoes and kept his family well. In large families thrift often means refusing things to the wife and children whilst the master is self-indulgent, like the Sultan of Turkey, who wallows in luxury whilst his ragged soldiers starve. The commonest English form of this selfishness is to spend in drink whilst denying necessaries to the children; but this is not thrift, as there are no savings.
A pretty Instance of Unselfish Thrift.