This article in the series inspired by Stella Gibbons’s My American contains some minor material of particular interest.
Stella Gibbons obviously knew the value of money. Some of her books describe the big difference that a small increase in someone's wages - or even a few extra coins - can make.
She informs us that the Beeding children were rather afraid of their mother – until they became old enough to leave school and start earning some money for themselves:
“All three were larger, more self-confident, less afraid of their mother than they had been three years ago. Mona and Maurice’s weekly pay envelopes had done that for them...Dora had recently been given a rise of five shillings a week and promoted to taking letters in Spanish, which had considerably increased her ambition and self-respect.”
There are some good points here. I know from experience that having an income of one's own – money that has been fairly earned from suitable work, reflects competence and is a by-product of self-improvement – does indeed increase morale and self-assurance. A certain amount of independence is no bad thing; people treat you better when they know that you have other options.
Stella Gibbons balances the positive effect that earning a wage has on the young Beedings with an account of Amy Lee's increasing unhappiness after she becomes very wealthy:
“It is commonly admitted that money is delightful: but it must also be admitted that money is not much use if you happen to want things which money cannot buy. There is no extraordinary merit in wanting such things; to want them does not give you the right to despise other people who want the things that money can buy; it only means that your money, though useful, will not be more important to you than anything else in the world.
Amy did not know what she wanted; but she was already sure that money could not buy it. She was deeply unhappy, and her unhappiness grew deeper every week. Her luxurious home, her lovely clothes, the charming and intelligent people to whom Lady Welwoodham had introduced her, did not make her one atom less unhappy.”
