“What we most of us do,” he continued, “is to over-capitalise ourselves. John Smith, honestly worth a hundred a year, claims to be worth two. Result: difficulty of earning dividend, over-work, over-worry, constant fear of being wound up. Now, there is that about your work that suggests to me you would be happier earning five hundred a year than you ever will be earning two thousand. To pay your dividend—to earn your two thousand—you have to do work that brings you no pleasure in the doing. Content with five hundred, you could afford to do only that work that does give you pleasure. This is not a perfect world, we must remember. In the perfect world the thinker would be worth more than the mere jester. In the perfect world the farmer would be worth more than the stockbroker. In making the exchange I had to write myself down. I earn less money, but get more enjoyment out of life. I used to be able to afford champagne, but my liver was always wrong, and I dared not drink it. Now I cannot afford champagne, but I enjoy my beer. That is my theory, that we are all of us entitled to payment according to our market value, neither more nor less. You can take it all in cash. I used to. Or you can take less cash and more fun: that is what I am getting now.”
“It is delightful,” I said, “to meet with a philosopher. One hears about them, of course; but I had got it into my mind they were all dead.”
“People laugh at philosophy,” he said. “I never could understand why. It is the science of living a free, peaceful, happy existence. I would give half my remaining years to be a philosopher.”
“I am not laughing at philosophy,” I said. “I honestly thought you were a philosopher. I judged so from the way you talked.”
“Talked!” he retorted. “Anybody can talk. As you have just said, I talk like a philosopher.”
“But you not only talk,” I insisted, “you behave like a philosopher. Sacrificing your income to the joy of living your own life! It is the act of a philosopher.”
I wanted to keep him in good humour. I had three things to talk to him about: the cow, the donkey, and Dick.
“No, it wasn’t,” he answered. “A philosopher would have remained a stockbroker and been just as happy. Philosophy does not depend upon environment. You put the philosopher down anywhere. It is all the same to him, he takes his philosophy with him. You can suddenly tell him he is an emperor, or give him penal servitude for life. He goes on being a philosopher just as if nothing had happened. We have an old tom-cat. The children lead it an awful life. It does not seem to matter to the cat. They shut it up in the piano: their idea is that it will make a noise and frighten someone. It doesn’t make a noise; it goes to sleep. When an hour later someone opens the piano, the poor thing is lying there stretched out upon the keyboard purring to itself. They dress it up in the baby’s clothes and take it out in the perambulator: it lies there perfectly contented looking round at the scenery—takes in the fresh air. They haul it about by its tail. You would think, to watch it swinging gently to and fro head downwards, that it was grateful to them for giving it a new sensation. Apparently it looks on everything that comes its way as helpful experience. It lost a leg last winter in a trap: it goes about quite cheerfully on three. Seems to be rather pleased, if anything, at having lost the fourth—saves washing. Now, he is your true philosopher, that cat; never minds what happens to him, and is equally contented if it doesn’t.”
I found myself becoming fretful. I know a man with whom it is impossible to disagree. Men at the Club—new-comers—have been lured into taking bets that they could on any topic under the sun find themselves out of sympathy with him. They have denounced Mr. Lloyd George as a traitor to his country. This man has risen and shaken them by the hand, words being too weak to express his admiration of their outspoken fearlessness. You might have thought them Nihilists denouncing the Russian Government from the steps of the Kremlin at Moscow. They have, in the next breath, abused Mr. Balfour in terms transgressing the law of slander. He has almost fallen on their necks. It has transpired that the one dream of his life was to hear Mr. Balfour abused. I have talked to him myself for a quarter of an hour, and gathered that at heart he was a peace-at-any-price man, strongly in favour of Conscription, a vehement Republican, with a deep-rooted contempt for the working classes. It is not bad sport to collect half a dozen and talk round him. At such times he suggests the family dog that six people from different parts of the house are calling to at the same time. He wants to go to them all at once.
I felt I had got to understand this man, or he would worry me.