but his warehouse and shop, and every part of business that ought to engross both his mind and his time.  That tradesman who does not delight in his family, will never long delight in his business; for, as one great end of an honest tradesman’s diligence is the support of his family, and the providing for the comfortable subsistence of his wife and children, so the very sight of, and above all, his tender and affectionate care for his wife and children, is the spur of his diligence; that is, it puts an edge upon his mind, and makes him hunt the world for business, as hounds hunt the woods for their game.  When he is dispirited, or discouraged by crosses and disappointments, and ready to lie down and despair, the very sight of his family rouses him again, and he flies to his business with a new vigour; ’I must follow my business,’ says he, ’or we must all starve, my poor children must perish;’ in a word, he that is not animated to diligence by the very sight and thought of his wife and children being brought to misery and distress, is a kind of a deaf adder that no music will charm, or a Turkish mute that no pity can move:  in a word, he is a creature not to be called human, a wretch hardened against all the passions and affections that nature has furnished to other animals; and as there is no rhetoric of use to such a kind of man as that, so I am not talking to such a one, he must go among the incurables; for, where nature cannot work, what can argument assist?

FOOTNOTES: 

[19] [Now, as in Defoe’s time, a common observer is apt to be impressed with the idea, that expenses, with a large part of the community, exceed gains.  Certainly, this is true at all times with a certain portion of society, but probably at no time with a large portion.  There is a tendency to great self-deception in all such speculations; and no one ever thinks of bringing them to the only true test—­statistical facts.  The reader ought, therefore, to pay little attention to the complaints in the text, as to an increased extravagance in the expenses of tradesmen, and only regard the general recommendation, and the reasons by which that recommendation is enforced, to live within income.]

[20] [There can be little doubt, that the calculation of this experienced gentleman is grossly inconsistent with the truth.  Nevertheless, this part of Defoe’s work contains some curious traits of manners, which are probably not exaggerated]

[21] [Defoe, from his having been employed for several years in Scotland at the time of the Union, must have well known how rare was then the use of white or wheaten bread in that country.]

CHAPTER XI

OF THE TRADESMAN’S MARRYING TOO SOON

It was a prudent provision which our ancestors made in the indenture of tradesmen’s apprentices, that they should not contract matrimony during their apprenticeship; and they bound it with a penalty that was then thought sufficient.  However, custom has taken off the edge of it since; namely, that they who did thus contract matrimony should forfeit their indentures, that is to say, should lose the benefit of their whole service, and not be made free.