i pass to another aspect of mr. omicron’s private reflections consequent upon mrs. omicron’s dreadful failure of tact in asking him about the ring after the mutton had proved to be underdone and the coffee to be inadequate. “she only thinks of spending,” reflected mr. omicron, resentfully. a more or less true reflection, no doubt, but there would have been a different colour to it if mr. omicron had exercised the greatest of his faculties. suppose you were to unscale your eyes, mr. omicron—that is to say, use your imagination—and try to see that so far as finance is concerned your wife’s chief and proper occupation in life is to spend. conceive what you would say if she announced one morning: “henry, i am sick of spending. i am going out into the world to earn.” can you not hear yourself employing a classic phrase about “the woman’s sphere”? in brief, there would occur an altercation and a shindy.
your imagination, once set in motion, will show you that your conjugal existence is divided into two great departments—the getting and the spending departments. wordsworth chanted that in getting and spending we lay waste our powers. we could not lay waste our powers in a more satisfying manner. the two departments, mutually indispensable, balance each other. you organized them. you made yourself the head of one and your wife the head of the other. you might, of course, have organized them otherwise. it was open to you in the hottentot style to decree that your wife should do the earning while you did the spending. but for some mysterious reason this arrangement did not appeal to you, and you accordingly go forth daily to the office and return therefrom with money. the theory of your daily excursion is firmly based in the inherent nature of things. the theory is the fundamental cosmic one that money is made in order that money may be spent—either at once or later. even the miser conforms to this theory, for he only saves in obedience to the argument that the need of spending in the future may be more imperious than is the need of spending at the moment.
the whole of your own personal activity is a mere preliminary to the activity of mrs. omicron. without hers, yours would be absurd, ridiculous, futile, supremely silly. by spending she completes and justifies your labour; she crowns your life by spending. you married her so that she might spend. you wanted some one to spend, and it was understood that she should fill the situation. she was brought up to spend, and you knew that she was brought up to spend. spending is her vocation. and yet you turn round on her and complain, “she only thinks of spending.”
“yes,” you say, “but there is such a thing as moderation.” there is; i admit it. the word “extravagance” is no idle word in the english language. it describes a quality which exists. let it be an axiom that mrs. omicron is human. just as the tendency to get may grow on you, until you become a rapacious and stingy money-grubber, so the tendency to spend may grow on her. one has known instances. a check-action must be occasionally employed. agreed! but, mr. omicron, you should choose a time and a tone for employing it other than you chose on this evening that i have described. a man who mixes up jewelled rings with undertone mutton and feeble coffee is a clumsy man.
exercise your imagination to put yourself in the place of mrs. omicron, and you will perceive that she is constantly in the highly delicate difficulty of having to ask for money, or at any rate of having to suggest or insinuate that money should be given to her. it is her right and even her duty to ask for money, but the foolish, illogical creature—like most women, even those with generous and polite husbands—regards the process as a little humiliating for herself. you, mr. omicron, have perhaps never asked for money. but your imagination will probably be able to make you feel how it feels to ask for money. a woman whose business in life it is to spend money which she does not and cannot earn may sometimes have to face a refusal when she asks for money. but there is one thing from which she ought to be absolutely and eternally safe—and that is a snub.
