Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief by James Fenimore Cooper

Author:James Fenimore Cooper [Cooper, James Fenimore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Handkerchiefs -- Fiction
Published: 2000-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI.

And here I will digress a moment to make a single remark on a subject of which popular feeling, in America, under the influence of popular habits, is apt to take an exparte view. Accomplishments are derided as useless, in comparison with what is considered household virtues. The accomplishment of a cook is to make good dishes; of a seamstress to sew well, and of a lady to possess refined tastes, a cultivated mind, and agreeable and intellectual habits. The real VIRTUES of all are the same, though subject to laws peculiar to their station; but it is a very different thing when we come to the mere accomplishments. To deride all the refined attainments of human skill denotes ignorance of the means of human happiness, nor is it any evidence of acquaintance with the intricate machinery of social greatness and a lofty civilization. These gradations in attainments are inseparable from civilized society, and if the skill of the ingenious and laborious is indispensable to a solid foundation, without the tastes and habits of the refined and cultivated, it never can be graceful or pleasing.

{exparte = should be "ex parte"—one-sided (Latin)}

Eudosia had some indistinct glimmerings of this fact, though it was not often that she came to sound and discriminating decisions even in matters less complicated. In the present instance she saw this truth only by halves, and that, too, in its most commonplace aspect, as will appear by the remark she made on the occasion.

"Then, Clara, as to the PRICE I have paid for this handkerchief," she said, "you ought to remember what the laws of political economy lay down on such subjects. I suppose your Pa makes you study political economy, my dear?"

"Indeed he does not. I hardly know what it means."

"Well, that is singular; for Pa says, in this age of the world, it is the only way to be rich. Now, it is by means of a trade in lots, and political economy, generally, that he has succeeded so wonderfully; for, to own the truth to you, Clara, Pa hasn't always been rich."

"No?" answered Clara, with a half-suppressed smile, she knowing the fact already perfectly well.

"Oh, no—far from it—but we don't speak of this publicly, it being a sort of disgrace in New York, you know, not to be thought worth at least half a million. I dare say your Pa is worth as much as that?"

"I have not the least idea he is worth a fourth of it, though I do not pretend to know. To me half a million of dollars seems a great deal of money, and I know my father considers himself poor—poor, at least, for one of his station. But what were you about to say of political economy? I am curious to hear how THAT can have any thing to do with your handkerchief."

"Why, my dear, in this manner. You know a distribution of labor is the source of all civilization—that trade is an exchange of equivalents—that custom-houses fetter

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