[A] Many of my working readers have disputed this statement eagerly, feeling the good effect of work in themselves; but observe, I only say, _simply_ or _totally_ manual work; and that, alone, _is_ degrading, though often in measure, refreshing, wholesome, and necessary. So it is highly necessary and wholesome to eat sometimes; but degrading to eat all day, as to labor with the hands all day. But it is not degrading to think all day--if you can. A highly-bred court lady, rightly interested in politics and literature, is a much finer type of the human creature than a servant of all work, however clever and honest. Granting this, it follows as a direct consequence that it is the duty of all persons in higher stations of life, by every means in their power to diminish their demand for work of such kind, _and to live with as little aid from the lower trades_, as they can possibly contrive. 128. I suppose you see that this conclusion is not a little at variance with received notions on political economy? It is popularly supposed that it benefits a nation to invent a want. But the fact is, that the true benefit is in extinguishing a want--in living with as few wants as possible. I cannot tell you the contempt I feel for the common writers on political economy, in their stupefied missing of this first principle of all human economy--individual or political--to live, namely, with as few wants as possible, and to waste nothing of what is given you to supply them. 129. This ought to be the first lesson of every rich man's political code. "Sir," his tutor should early say to him, "you are so placed in society,--it may be for your misfortune, it _must_ be for your trial--that you are likely to be maintained all your life by the labor of other men. You will have to make shoes for nobody, but some one will have to make a great many for you. You will have to dig ground for nobody, but some one will have to dig through every summer's hot day for you. You will build houses and make clothes for no one, but many a rough hand must knead clay, and many an elbow be crooked to the stitch, to keep that body of yours warm and fine. Now remember, whatever you and your work may be worth, the less your keep costs, the better. It does not cost money only. It costs degradation. You do not merely employ these people. You also tread upon them. It cannot be helped;--you have your place, and they have theirs; but see that you tread as lightly as possible, and on as few as possible. What food, and clothes, and lodging, you honestly need, for your health and peace, you may righteously take. See that you take the plainest you can serve yourself with--that you waste or wear nothing vainly--and that you employ no man in furnishing you with any useless luxury."