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. [Sidenote: A pretty Instance of Unselfish Thrift.] Thrift may be one of the noblest forms of altruism. I know all the details about a very pretty instance that occurred in England two generations before mine. A lady, well-to-do and childless, had three little penniless nieces. By pure self-denial she saved three fortunes for them, enough to keep them in comfort all their days. This self-denial was all the harder in her case that she belonged to an aristocratic family, and might have excusably spent her income for the maintenance of her rank. [Sidenote: Dowries for Daughters.] [Sidenote: The Dowry an Education in Thrift.] The strongest motive for French thrift is to provide dowries for daughters. It being an accepted rule that every girl must have a dowry, a Frenchman is not discouraged by the smallness of the sum he is able to put by. This enables him to begin, and if a little prosperity comes to him it is a satisfaction to make the dowry larger. Whilst saving the dowry he learns the art of saving, and applies it afterwards to other purposes. [Sidenote: Two English Discouragements to Saving.] [Sidenote: Gentlemen and Ladies.] [Sidenote: The Great Renunciation for an Englishman.] In England there are two terrible discouragements to saving. The first is the exacting character of English opinion with regard to style of living, the contempt felt for people who are not gentlemen and ladies, and the vulgar belief that one cannot be a gentleman or a lady without leading an expensive life. “It costs a great deal of money to be a gentleman,” says an English writer, “and a great deal more to be a lady.” Well, if this is so, why not leave gentlemanhood and ladyhood to rich people, and why not be content with simple manhood and womanhood? Nothing can be more admirable than the life of an Englishman who saves money from a sense of duty when the saving implies the great renunciation, the renunciation of the title of “gentleman.” A Frenchman, who may live as he likes, knows nothing of that sacrifice. [Sidenote: English Contempt for small Sums of Money.] [Sidenote: £300 a Year.] [Sidenote: £500 a Year.]