Chapter 9: Every Man Should Sweep Before His Own Door

Chapter 9.
Every Man Should Sweep Before His Own Door

He is a wise man who has wit enough for his own affairs. It is a common thing for people to mind Number I, but not so common to see people mend it. When it comes to spending money on labor or improvements, they think that repairs should begin at Number 2, and Number 3, and go on till all the houses up to Number 50, are touched tip before any hint should be given to Number I. Now, this is very stupid, for if charity should begin at home, certainly reformation should begin there too. It is waste of time to go far away to make a clearance; there's nothing like sweeping the snow from your own door. Let every dog carry his own tail. Mind your own business, and mend your own manners, and if every man does the same all will be minded and mended, as the old song says:

"Should every man defend his house, Then all would be defended;

If every man would mend a man, Then all mankind were mended."

A man who does not look well to his own concerns is not fit to be trusted with other people's. Lots of folks are so busy abroad that they have no time to look at home. They say the cobbler's wife goes barefoot, and the baker's child gets no buns, and the sweep's house has sooty chimneys. This comes of a man's thinking that he is everybody except himself. All the wit in the world is not in one head, and therefore the wisest man living is not bound to look after all his neighbors' matters. There are wonderful people about, whose wisdom would beat Solomon into fits; and yet they have not sense enough to keep their own kettle from boiling over. They could manage the nation, and yet can't keep their boys out of the farmer's orchard; they could teach the parson, but they can't learn themselves. They poke their noses into other people's concerns, where they are as welcome as water in one's shoes, but as for setting their own house to rights, they like the job about as much as a pig likes having a ring put in his nose. The meddlesome man will not begin to darn his own stockings because he has left his needle sticking in his cousin's socks. He will be as gray as grannum's cat before he improves, and yet he struts like a crow in a gutter, and thinks himself cock of the walk. A man's own selfishness and conceit ought to make him see to his own ways if nothing else does.

There's but one wise man in the world, And who d'ye think it be?

'Tis this man, that man, t'other man, Every man thinks 'tis he.

Now, if this be so, why doe's not this wise man do the wise thing and set his own wise self in the way of growing wiser? Every cat cleans its own fur, and licks its own kittens: when will men and women mind their own minds, and busy themselves with their own business? Boil your own potatoes, and let me roast mine if I like; I won't do it with your firing. "Every man to his tent," was the old cry in Israel, and it's not a bad one for England, only Nelson gave us better—

ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY.