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1I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with
2the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. You
3will export such articles as the country affords, purely native products, much ice and pine timber and a little granite,
4always in native bottoms. These will be good ventures. To oversee all the details yourself in person; to be at once
5pilot and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to read every letter received, and
6write or read every letter sent; to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be upon many parts of the
7coast almost at the same time;--often the richest freight will be discharged upon a Jersey shore;--to be your own
8telegraph, unweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking all passing vessels bound coastwise; to keep up a steady despatch
9of commodities, for the supply of such a distant and exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of the state of the
10markets, prospects of war and peace every where, and anticipate the tendencies of trade and civilization,--taking
11advantage of the results of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and all improvements in navigation;--charts to
12be studied, the position of reefs and new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables
13to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a
14friendly pier,--there is the untold fate of La Perouse;--universal science to be kept pace with, studying the lives of
15all great discoverers and navigators, great adventurers and merchants, from Hanno and the Phœnicians down to our day; in
16fine, account of stock to be taken from time to time, to know how you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties of a
17man,--such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a
18universal knowledge. I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for business, not solely on account of the
19railroad and the ice trade; it offers advantages which it may not be good policy to divulge; it is a good port and a
20good foundation. No Neva marshes to be filled; though you must every where build on piles of your own driving. It is
21said that a flood-tide, with a westerly wind, and ice in the Neva, would sweep St. Petersburg from the face of the
22earth. As this business was to be entered into without the usual capital, it may not be easy to conjecture where those
23means, that will still be indispensable to every such undertaking, were to be obtained. As for Clothing, to come at once
24to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and a regard for the opinions
25of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility. Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of clothing is,
26first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and he may judge how much
27of any necessary or important work may be accomplished without adding to his wardrobe. Kings and queens who wear a suit
28but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that
29fits. They are no better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on. Every day our garments become more assimilated
30to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's character, until we hesitate to lay them aside, without such delay
31and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies. No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for
32having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least
33clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. But even if the rent is not mended, perhaps the worst vice
34betrayed is improvidence. I sometimes try my acquaintances by such tests as this;--who could wear a patch, or two extra
35seams only, over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should
36do it. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon. Often if an
37accident happens to a gentleman's legs, they can be mended; but if a similar accident happens to the legs of his
38pantaloons, there is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected. We know but
39few men, a great many coats and breeches. Dress a scarecrow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who would not
40soonest salute the scarecrow? Passing a cornfield the other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the
41owner of the farm. He was only a little more weather-beaten than when I saw him last. I have heard of a dog that barked
42at every stranger who approached his master's premises with clothes on, but was easily quieted by a naked thief. It is
43an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes. Could you,
44in such a case, tell surely of any company of civilized men, which belonged to the most respected class? When Madam
45Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels round the world, from east to west, had got so near home as Asiatic Russia, she
46says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a travelling dress, when she went to meet the authorities, for
47she "was now in a civilized country, where ---- -- people are judged of by their clothes." Even in our democratic New
48England towns the accidental possession of wealth, and its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for the
49possessor almost universal respect. But they yield such respect, numerous as they are, are so far heathen, and need to
50have a missionary sent to them. Beside, clothes introduced sewing, a kind of work which you may call endless; a woman's
51dress, at least, is never done. A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it
52in; for him the old will do, that has lain dusty in the garret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero
53longer than they have served his valet,--if a hero ever has a valet,--bare feet are older than shoes, and he can make
54them do. Only they who go to soirées and legislative halls must have new coats, coats to change as often as the man
55changes in them. But if my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they
56not? Who ever saw his old clothes,--his old coat, actually worn out, resolved into its primitive elements, so that it
57was not a deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer still, or shall
58we say richer, who could do with less? I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new
59wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before
60you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.
61Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised
62or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old
63bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds
64to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and
65expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false
66colors, and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.
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