: Essays 1
gant and ruin themselves. Law cannot prevent this;
and perhaps it is not always an evil to the public.
 A shilling spent idly by a fool may be picked
up by a wiser person, who knows better what to do
with it. It is therefore not lost. A vain, silly fellow
builds a fine house, furnishes it richly, lives in it expensively,
 and in a few years ruins himself; but the
masons, carpenters, smiths, and other honest tradesmen
 have been by his employ assisted in maintaining
and raising their families; the farmer has been paid
for his labor, and encouraged, and the estate is now
in better hands. In some cases, indeed, certain
modes of luxury may be a public evil, in the same
manner as it is a private one. If there be a nation,
for instance, that exports its beef and linen, to pay
for the importation of claret and porter, while a
great part of its people live upon potatoes, and wear
no shirts, wherein does it differ from the sot, who
lets his family starve, and sells his clothes to buy
drink? Our American commerce is, I confess, a
little in this way. We sell our victuals to the Islands
for rum and sugar—the substantial necessaries of
life for superfluities. But we have plenty, and live
well nevertheless, though, by being sober, we might
be richer.
The vast quantity of forest land we have yet to
clear and put in order for cultivation will, for a long
time keep the body of our nation laborious and
frugal.
Forming an opinion of our people and their manners
 by what is seen among the inhabitants of the
seaports, is judging from an improper sample. The

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