Money,
land, luxury, so far as they are money, land, and luxury, are worthless.
It is only as fast and as far as they are turned into life that they
acquire value.
So you are thriftless when you eagerly seize the first opportunity
to fritter away your time over old clothes. You precipitate yourself
unnecessarily against a disagreeable thing. For you are not going to put
your stockings on. Perhaps you will not need your buttons for a week,
and in a week you may have passed beyond the jurisdiction of buttons.
But even if you should not, let the buttons and the holes alone all the
same. For, first, the pleasant and profitable thing which you will do
instead is a funded capital which will roll you up a perpetual interest;
and secondly, the disagreeable duty is forever abolished. I say forever,
because, when you have gone without the button awhile, the inconvenience
it occasions will reconcile you to the necessity of sewing it on,--will
even go farther, and make it a positive relief amounting to positive
pleasure. Besides, every time you use it, for a long while after you
will have a delicious sense of satisfaction, such as accompanies the
sudden complete cessation of a dull, continuous pain. Thus what was at
best characterless routine, and most likely an exasperation, is turned
into actual delight, and adds to the sum of life.
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