It is too much to ask that everyone should at once recognise what sort of expenditure will really be repaying and fill their lives with genuine happiness and what is only empty, disappointing, and superfluous. But they are wrong when they suppose, as they so often do, that they are suffering from want of money; and they are wrong in believing that more money will cure their discontent. The problem for them is more than half solved once they come to realise that they are showing themselves to be incapable of the responsibility they already possess, and that more money would only mean an increase of responsibilities without any fresh acquisition of knowledge as to how to discharge them. All around them they observe an implicit obedience in small matters as well as great to what we may call the law of gain. They join in obeying this law, which is nothing more than an artificial convention of an ill-organised society.
The word convention has frequently been used, for it best describes the fixed authority for conduct and ethics which has been set up by the tacit consensus of public opinion, and which people accept and obey without inquiry. This force—for it amounts to a force—drives the great body of uneducated, under-educated, and ill-educated people, who never stop to inquire or investigate. If a stick is put across a gap in a hedge and a flock of sheep is driven through, the first few sheep will jump the stick, and then, even after the stick has been removed, the rest of the flock will all jump when they come to the gap, and not one will stop to see if there is any reason or necessity for the jump. So it is with human beings, who find it easier to do as others do rather than take the trouble to exercise any separate powers of discrimination which might convince them of the necessity of striking out a different line of their own. One line of conduct may suit a large number of individuals, but it is inconceivable that it should suit all, and there is a great revivification of the faculties in a man when he first realises that what may be right for others need not be right for him.
A lady once remarked, with a sigh, while arranging her drawing-room, “One must have a silver table,” meaning that a small table on which could be displayed various gimcracks of silver was a necessity of fashion in the disposition of drawing-room furniture. If she had said, “I won’t have a silver table,” or, “I’m going to have twenty silver tables,” she would have been an exceptional and original being exercising an independent judgment at the risk of being thought eccentric. But her only desire, and the only desire of the majority of her fellows, is to conform.
Another cause of mischief is that most people have their eyes turned towards those who are better off than they are themselves, and they continually and instinctively make mental comparisons which serve only to increase their longing. Seldom do they turn their eyes to the millions who are less fortunate in the way of wealth and make comparisons in that direction, else they might come to the unpleasant conclusion that they have themselves already more than enough, and perhaps too much. To live simply they foolishly suspect means something disagreeable, unattractive, tedious, and arduous; whereas if they only gave it a trial, they might find that the very simplification of their manner of living would set free their energies and attract them to new and absorbing interests, and a kind of happiness might become theirs which far surpasses in intensity the greatest pleasures wealth ever bought, and which, instead of being transitory and ephemeral, is lasting.
“The superior worth of simplicity of life,” says J. S. Mill, “the enervating and demoralising effect of the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas which have never been entirely absent from cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote; and they will in time produce their effect, though at present needing to be asserted as much as ever, and to be asserted by deeds, for words on this subject have nearly exhausted their power.”
Asceticism, pedantry, intentional unconventionality, and the affected “simple life” have all served to damage the force of the arguments in favour of plain living; and it is often supposed that it is jealousy of the rich that causes the occasional outbursts against luxury. But anyone who can watch for a moment and analyse social phenomena will very soon come to the conclusion that there is nothing in the lives of the rich of which anyone need be envious. Millionaires themselves are the first to admit that their money brings them no happiness. The confession has been made by one of them that the very fact of being able without the least difficulty to satisfy his smallest or his largest fancies was in itself the very antithesis of pleasure. He had learnt that the continuous craving to satisfy human wants, far from being a misfortune, constituted an intrinsic element in the production of happiness. The hope perhaps long deferred, that some particular want might eventually be satisfied was a treasure he had for ever lost the power to appreciate. It is delay, and not immediate satisfaction, that enhances the value of acquisition. “Millionaires who laugh are rare,” says Andrew Carnegie.
Superabundance, surfeit, the cloying sweetness of excess, the consequent lack of restraint and reserve must encourage the development of moral sickness, nausea, and intellectual inertia. In all professions, arts, trades, and crafts the fixing of a limit within which to operate is the secret of the attainment of a high quality of work because it is the recognition of human limitations. The same principle holds good for every human being in the administration of his worldly possessions and the management of his own life. Economy should be the key-note rather than profusion, strength lies in reserve rather than in excess.
We are only saying to a man who is sitting before a table laden with a vast quantity of different dishes heaped with all kinds of appetising foods: “Being an ordinary mortal your digestion will not stand more than a limited quantity of that food. If you continually eat more than what is good for you, you will be ill. A certain amount of food will nourish you, a larger amount will simply make you sick. We do not say your food is too good, nastier food would be better for you, nor do we say that you must never have a feast: but we assure you that if you habitually gorge the surfeit will injure your digestive powers, will destroy your own enjoyment of the meal, and at the same time, by this thoughtless waste, you are depriving many who have an insufficient quantity of what is rightfully theirs. In any case, you can never manage to eat all these dishes by yourself. What good are they to you? To propose that you should be relieved of some of your superfluity is the suggestion of a friend and not of an enemy. Just reflect as you see this huge meal spread before you that the great majority of your fellow-men have not more than one meagre and inadequate dish.” He would probably reply: “I am the best judge of what is good for me. The food is mine. If I do not eat it I am not going to allow anyone to deprive me of it, but I can always give part of it away if and when I feel inclined”—and he will continue with a dull gaze of satiated weariness to regard the piles of food before him.
This is a fair metaphor, because we have all been forced to learn the precise nature of our limitations with regard to the consumption of food. Is it unreasonable to hope that in time we may become as conscious of our limitations in the consumption of other materials no less important?
If the rich protest that they have a perfect right to amass what fortune they like, and that it is tyranny and an infringement of their liberty to deny them this right, they can be told plainly that their liberty will only be respected if they in their turn will respect the liberty of others, which cannot be effectually secured except by restraining license. As it is, they are manifestly depriving others of their liberty and elementary rights by the outrageous license they now allow themselves. No one cries out louder than a rich man if by any chance he loses part of his fortune. The reduction of his income from fifty to thirty, or from twenty to ten thousand a year is a catastrophe for which he unceasingly asks the sympathy and commiseration of his friends. The dismissal of the second footman is a hardship which requires courage to face, the sale of a corner of the estate is the sign of ruin! He stands in striking contrast to those who, having to face genuine poverty, often show fortitude and pluck in the face of bitter misfortunes.