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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Simple Life, by Charles Wagner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Simple Life
+
+Author: Charles Wagner
+
+Translator: Mary Louise Hendee
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2007 [EBook #23092]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SIMPLE LIFE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Sarah Jensen, Matt Mello and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE SIMPLE LIFE
+
+  By CHARLES WAGNER
+  _Author of The Better Way_
+
+  _Translated from the French by Mary Louise Hendee_
+
+
+  GROSSET & DUNLAP
+  Publishers, New York
+
+
+  Copyright, 1901, by
+  McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+                                                           Page
+
+     I. OUR COMPLEX LIFE                                      1
+
+    II. THE ESSENCE OF SIMPLICITY                            15
+
+   III. SIMPLICITY OF THOUGHT                                22
+
+    IV. SIMPLICITY OF SPEECH                                 39
+
+     V. SIMPLE DUTY                                          52
+
+    VI. SIMPLE NEEDS                                         68
+
+   VII. SIMPLE PLEASURES                                     80
+
+  VIII. THE MERCENARY SPIRIT AND SIMPLICITY                  96
+
+    IX. NOTORIETY AND THE INGLORIOUS GOOD                   111
+
+     X. THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF THE HOME                  128
+
+    XI. SIMPLE BEAUTY                                       139
+
+   XII. PRIDE AND SIMPLICITY IN THE INTERCOURSE OF MEN      151
+
+  XIII. THE EDUCATION FOR SIMPLICITY                        167
+
+   XIV. CONCLUSION                                          188
+
+
+
+
+THE SIMPLE LIFE
+
+I
+
+OUR COMPLEX LIFE
+
+
+At the home of the Blanchards, everything is topsy-turvy, and with
+reason. Think of it! Mlle. Yvonne is to be married Tuesday, and to-day
+is Friday!
+
+Callers loaded with gifts, and tradesmen bending under packages, come
+and go in endless procession. The servants are at the end of their
+endurance. As for the family and the betrothed, they no longer have a
+life or a fixed abode. Their mornings are spent with dressmakers,
+milliners, upholsterers, jewelers, decorators, and caterers. After that,
+comes a rush through offices, where one waits in line, gazing vaguely at
+busy clerks engulfed in papers. A fortunate thing, if there be time when
+this is over, to run home and dress for the series of ceremonial
+dinners--betrothal dinners, dinners of presentation, the settlement
+dinner, receptions, balls. About midnight, home again, harassed and
+weary, to find the latest accumulation of parcels, and a deluge of
+letters--congratulations, felicitations, acceptances and regrets from
+bridesmaids and ushers, excuses of tardy tradesmen. And the
+_contretemps_ of the last minute--a sudden death that disarranges the
+bridal party; a wretched cold that prevents a favorite cantatrice from
+singing, and so forth, and so forth. Those poor Blanchards! They will
+never be ready, and they thought they had foreseen everything!
+
+Such has been their existence for a month. No longer possible to
+breathe, to rest a half-hour, to tranquillize one's thoughts. _No, this
+is not living!_
+
+Mercifully, there is Grandmother's room. Grandmother is verging on
+eighty. Through many toils and much suffering, she has come to meet
+things with the calm assurance which life brings to men and women of
+high thinking and large hearts. She sits there in her arm-chair,
+enjoying the silence of long meditative hours. So the flood of affairs
+surging through the house, ebbs at her door. At the threshold of this
+retreat, voices are hushed and footfalls softened; and when the young
+_fiancés_ want to hide away for a moment, they flee to Grandmother.
+
+"Poor children!" is her greeting. "You are worn out! Rest a little and
+belong to each other. All these things count for nothing. Don't let them
+absorb you, it isn't worth while."
+
+They know it well, these two young people. How many times in the last
+weeks has their love had to make way for all sorts of conventions and
+futilities! Fate, at this decisive moment of their lives, seems bent
+upon drawing their minds away from the one thing essential, to harry
+them with a host of trivialities; and heartily do they approve the
+opinion of Grandmamma when she says, between a smile and a caress:
+
+"Decidedly, my dears, the world is growing too complex; and it does not
+make people happier--quite the contrary!"
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I also, am of Grandmamma's opinion. From the cradle to the grave, in his
+needs as in his pleasures, in his conception of the world and of
+himself, the man of modern times struggles through a maze of endless
+complication. Nothing is simple any longer: neither thought nor action;
+not pleasure, not even dying. With our own hands we have added to
+existence a train of hardships, and lopped off many a gratification. I
+believe that thousands of our fellow-men, suffering the consequences of
+a too artificial life, will be grateful if we try to give expression to
+their discontent, and to justify the regret for naturalness which
+vaguely oppresses them.
+
+Let us first speak of a series of facts that put into relief the truth
+we wish to show.
+
+The complexity of our life appears in the number of our material needs.
+It is a fact universally conceded, that our needs have grown with our
+resources. This is not an evil in itself; for the birth of certain needs
+is often a mark of progress. To feel the necessity of bathing, of
+wearing fresh linen, inhabiting wholesome houses, eating healthful food,
+and cultivating our minds, is a sign of superiority. But if certain
+needs exist by right, and are desirable, there are others whose effects
+are fatal, which, like parasites, live at our expense: numerous and
+imperious, they engross us completely.
+
+Could our fathers have foreseen that we should some day have at our
+disposal the means and forces we now use in sustaining and defending our
+material life, they would have predicted for us an increase of
+independence, and therefore of happiness, and a decrease in competition
+for worldly goods: they might even have thought that through the
+simplification of life thus made possible, a higher degree of morality
+would be attained. None of these things has come to pass. Neither
+happiness, nor brotherly love, nor power for good has been increased.
+In the first place, do you think your fellow-citizens, taken as a whole,
+are more contented than their forefathers, and less anxious about the
+future? I do not ask if they should find reason to be so, but if they
+really are so. To see them live, it seems to me that a majority of them
+are discontented with their lot, and, above all, absorbed in material
+needs and beset with cares for the morrow. Never has the question of
+food and shelter been sharper or more absorbing than since we are better
+nourished, better clothed, and better housed than ever. He errs greatly
+who thinks that the query, "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink,
+and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" presents itself to the poor alone,
+exposed as they are to the anguish of morrows without bread or a roof.
+With them the question is natural, and yet it is with them that it
+presents itself most simply. You must go among those who are beginning
+to enjoy a little ease, to learn how greatly satisfaction in what one
+has, may be disturbed by regret for what one lacks. And if you would see
+anxious care for future material good, material good in all its
+luxurious development, observe people of small fortune, and, above all,
+the rich. It is not the woman with one dress who asks most insistently
+how she shall be clothed, nor is it those reduced to the strictly
+necessary who make most question of what they shall eat to-morrow. As an
+inevitable consequence of the law that needs are increased by their
+satisfaction, _the more goods a man has, the more he wants_. The more
+assured he is of the morrow, according to the common acceptation, the
+more exclusively does he concern himself with how he shall live, and
+provide for his children and his children's children. Impossible to
+conceive of the fears of a man established in life--their number, their
+reach, and their shades of refinement.
+
+From all this, there has arisen throughout the different social orders,
+modified by conditions and varying in intensity, a common agitation--a
+very complex mental state, best compared to the petulance of a spoiled
+child, at once satisfied and discontented.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If we have not become happier, neither have we grown more peaceful and
+fraternal. The more desires and needs a man has, the more occasion he
+finds for conflict with his fellow-men; and these conflicts are more
+bitter in proportion as their causes are less just. It is the law of
+nature to fight for bread, for the necessities. This law may seem
+brutal, but there is an excuse in its very harshness, and it is
+generally limited to elemental cruelties. Quite different is the battle
+for the superfluous--for ambition, privilege, inclination, luxury. Never
+has hunger driven man to such baseness as have envy, avarice, and thirst
+for pleasure. Egotism grows more maleficent as it becomes more refined.
+We of these times have seen an increase of hostile feeling among
+brothers, and our hearts are less at peace than ever.[A]
+
+After this, is there any need to ask if we have become better? Do not
+the very sinews of virtue lie in man's capacity to care for something
+outside himself? And what place remains for one's neighbor in a life
+given over to material cares, to artificial needs, to the satisfaction
+of ambitions, grudges, and whims? The man who gives himself up entirely
+to the service of his appetites, makes them grow and multiply so well
+that they become stronger than he; and once their slave, he loses his
+moral sense, loses his energy, and becomes incapable of discerning and
+practicing the good. He has surrendered himself to the inner anarchy of
+desire, which in the end gives birth to outer anarchy. In the moral life
+we govern ourselves. In the immoral life we are governed by our needs
+and passions. Thus little by little, the bases of the moral life shift,
+and the law of judgment deviates.
+
+For the man enslaved to numerous and exacting needs, possession is the
+supreme good and the source of all other good things. It is true that in
+the fierce struggle for possession, we come to hate those who possess,
+and to deny the right of property when this right is in the hands of
+others and not in our own. But the bitterness of attack against others'
+possessions is only a new proof of the extraordinary importance we
+attach to possession itself. In the end, people and things come to be
+estimated at their selling price, or according to the profit to be drawn
+from them. What brings nothing is worth nothing: he who has nothing, is
+nothing. Honest poverty risks passing for shame, and lucre, however
+filthy, is not greatly put to it to be accounted for merit.
+
+Some one objects: "Then you make wholesale condemnation of progress, and
+would lead us back to the good old times--to asceticism perhaps."
+
+Not at all. The desire to resuscitate the past is the most unfruitful
+and dangerous of Utopian dreams, and the art of good living does not
+consist in retiring from life. But we are trying to throw light upon one
+of the errors that drag most heavily upon human progress, in order to
+find a remedy for it--namely, the belief that man becomes happier and
+better by the increase of outward well-being. Nothing is falser than
+this pretended social axiom; on the contrary, that material prosperity
+without an offset, diminishes the capacity for happiness and debases
+character, is a fact which a thousand examples are at hand to prove. The
+worth of a civilization is the worth of the man at its center. When this
+man lacks moral rectitude, progress only makes bad worse, and further
+embroils social problems.
+
+[A] The author refers to the unparalleled bitterness of the conflict in
+France between Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This principle may be verified in other domains than that of material
+well-being. We shall speak only of education and liberty. We remember
+when prophets in good repute announced that to transform this wicked
+world into an abode fit for the gods, all that was needed was the
+overthrow of tyranny, ignorance, and want--those three dread powers so
+long in league. To-day, other preachers proclaim the same gospel. We
+have seen that the unquestionable diminution of want has made man
+neither better nor happier. Has this desirable result been more nearly
+attained through the great care bestowed upon instruction? It does not
+yet appear so, and this failure is the despair of our national
+educators.
+
+Then shall we stop the people's ears, suppress public instruction, close
+the schools? By no means. But education, like the mass of our age's
+inventions, is after all only a tool; everything depends upon the
+workman who uses it.... So it is with liberty. It is fatal or lifegiving
+according to the use made of it. Is it liberty still, when it is the
+prerogative of criminals or heedless blunderers? Liberty is an
+atmosphere of the higher life, and it is only by a slow and patient
+inward transformation that one becomes capable of breathing it.
+
+All life must have its law, the life of man so much the more than that
+of inferior beings, in that it is more precious and of nicer adjustment.
+This law for man is in the first place an external law, but it may
+become an internal law. When man has once recognized the inner law, and
+bowed before it, through this reverence and voluntary submission he is
+ripe for liberty: so long as there is no vigorous and sovereign inner
+law, he is incapable of breathing its air; for he will be drunken with
+it, maddened, morally slain. The man who guides his life by inner law,
+can no more live servile to outward authority than can the full-grown
+bird live imprisoned in the eggshell. But the man who has not yet
+attained to governing himself can no more live under the law of liberty
+than can the unfledged bird live without its protective covering. These
+things are terribly simple, and the series of demonstrations old and new
+that proves them, increases daily under our eyes. And yet we are as far
+as ever from understanding even the elements of this most important law.
+In our democracy, how many are there, great and small, who know, from
+having personally verified it, lived it and obeyed it, this truth
+without which a people is incapable of governing itself? Liberty?--it is
+respect; liberty?--it is obedience to the inner law; and this law is
+neither the good pleasure of the mighty, nor the caprice of the crowd,
+but the high and impersonal rule before which those who govern are the
+first to bow the head. Shall liberty, then, be proscribed? No; but men
+must be made capable and worthy of it, otherwise public life becomes
+impossible, and the nation, undisciplined and unrestrained, goes on
+through license into the inextricable tangles of demagoguery.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+When one passes in review the individual causes that disturb and
+complicate our social life, by whatever names they are designated, and
+their list would be long, they all lead back to one general cause, which
+is this: _the confusion of the secondary with the essential_. Material
+comfort, education, liberty, the whole of civilization--these things
+constitute the frame of the picture; but the frame no more makes the
+picture than the frock the monk or the uniform the soldier. Here the
+picture is man, and man with his most intimate possessions--namely, his
+conscience, his character and his will. And while we have been
+elaborating and garnishing the frame, we have forgotten, neglected,
+disfigured the picture. Thus are we loaded with external good, and
+miserable in spiritual life; we have in abundance that which, if must
+be, we can go without, and are infinitely poor in the one thing needful.
+And when the depth of our being is stirred, with its need of loving,
+aspiring, fulfilling its destiny, it feels the anguish of one buried
+alive--is smothered under the mass of secondary things that weigh it
+down and deprive it of light and air.
+
+We must search out, set free, restore to honor the true life, assign
+things to their proper places, and remember that the center of human
+progress is moral growth. What is a good lamp? It is not the most
+elaborate, the finest wrought, that of the most precious metal. A good
+lamp is a lamp that gives good light. And so also we are men and
+citizens, not by reason of the number of our goods and the pleasures we
+procure for ourselves, not through our intellectual and artistic
+culture, nor because of the honors and independence we enjoy; but by
+virtue of the strength of our moral fibre. And this is not a truth of
+to-day but a truth of all times.
+
+At no epoch have the exterior conditions which man has made for himself
+by his industry or his knowledge, been able to exempt him from care for
+the state of his inner life. The face of the world alters around us, its
+intellectual and material factors vary; and no one can arrest these
+changes, whose suddenness is sometimes not short of perilous. But the
+important thing is that at the center of shifting circumstance man
+should remain man, live his life, make toward his goal. And whatever be
+his road, to make toward his goal, the traveler must not lose himself in
+crossways, nor hamper his movements with useless burdens. Let him heed
+well his direction and forces, and keep good faith; and that he may the
+better devote himself to the essential--which is to progress--at
+whatever sacrifice, let him simplify his baggage.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE ESSENCE OF SIMPLICITY
+
+
+Before considering the question of a practical return to the simplicity
+of which we dream, it will be necessary to define simplicity in its very
+essence. For in regard to it people commit the same error that we have
+just denounced, confounding the secondary with the essential, substance
+with form. They are tempted to believe that simplicity presents certain
+external characteristics by which it may be recognized, and in which it
+really consists. Simplicity and lowly station, plain dress, a modest
+dwelling, slender means, poverty--these things seem to go together.
+Nevertheless, this is not the case. Just now I passed three men on the
+street: the first in his carriage; the others on foot, and one of them
+shoeless. The shoeless man does not necessarily lead the least complex
+life of the three. It may be, indeed, that he who rides in his carriage
+is sincere and unaffected, in spite of his position, and is not at all
+the slave of his wealth; it may be also that the pedestrian in shoes
+neither envies him who rides nor despises him who goes unshod; and
+lastly, it is possible that under his rags, his feet in the dust, the
+third man has a hatred of simplicity, of labor, of sobriety, and dreams
+only of idleness and pleasure. For among the least simple and
+straightforward of men must be reckoned professional beggars, knights of
+the road, parasites, and the whole tribe of the obsequious and envious,
+whose aspirations are summed up in this: to arrive at seizing a
+morsel--the biggest possible--of that prey which the fortunate of earth
+consume. And to this same category, little matter what their station in
+life, belong the profligate, the arrogant, the miserly, the weak, the
+crafty. Livery counts for nothing: we must see the heart. No class has
+the prerogative of simplicity; no dress, however humble in appearance,
+is its unfailing badge. Its dwelling need not be a garret, a hut, the
+cell of the ascetic nor the lowliest fisherman's bark. Under all the
+forms in which life vests itself, in all social positions, at the top as
+at the bottom of the ladder, there are people who live simply, and
+others who do not. We do not mean by this that simplicity betrays itself
+in no visible signs, has not its own habits, its distinguishing tastes
+and ways; but this outward show, which may now and then be
+counterfeited, must not be confounded with its essence and its deep and
+wholly inward source. _Simplicity is a state of mind._ It dwells in the
+main intention of our lives. A man is simple when his chief care is the
+wish to be what he ought to be, that is, honestly and naturally human.
+And this is neither so easy nor so impossible as one might think. At
+bottom, it consists in putting our acts and aspirations in accordance
+with the law of our being, and consequently with the Eternal Intention
+which willed that we should be at all. Let a flower be a flower, a
+swallow a swallow, a rock a rock, and let a man be a man, and not a fox,
+a hare, a hog, or a bird of prey: this is the sum of the whole matter.
+
+Here we are led to formulate the practical ideal of man. Everywhere in
+life we see certain quantities of matter and energy associated for
+certain ends. Substances more or less crude are thus transformed and
+carried to a higher degree of organization. It is not otherwise with the
+life of man. The human ideal is to transform life into something more
+excellent than itself. We may compare existence to raw material. What it
+is, matters less than what is made of it, as the value of a work of art
+lies in the flowering of the workman's skill. We bring into the world
+with us different gifts: one has received gold, another granite, a third
+marble, most of us wood or clay. Our task is to fashion these
+substances. Everyone knows that the most precious material may be
+spoiled, and he knows, too, that out of the least costly an immortal
+work may be shaped. Art is the realization of a permanent idea in an
+ephemeral form. True life is the realization of the higher
+virtues,--justice, love, truth, liberty, moral power,--in our daily
+activities, whatever they may be. And this life is possible in social
+conditions the most diverse, and with natural gifts the most unequal. It
+is not fortune or personal advantage, but our turning them to account,
+that constitutes the value of life. Fame adds no more than does length
+of days: quality is the thing.
+
+Need we say that one does not rise to this point of view without a
+struggle? The spirit of simplicity is not an inherited gift, but the
+result of a laborious conquest. Plain living, like high thinking, is
+simplification. We know that science is the handful of ultimate
+principles gathered out of the tufted mass of facts; but what gropings
+to discover them! Centuries of research are often condensed into a
+principle that a line may state. Here the moral life presents strong
+analogy with the scientific. It, too, begins in a certain confusion,
+makes trial of itself, seeks to understand itself, and often mistakes.
+But by dint of action, and exacting from himself strict account of his
+deeds, man arrives at a better knowledge of life. Its law appears to
+him, and the law is this: _Work out your mission._ He who applies
+himself to aught else than the realization of this end, loses in living
+the _raison d'être_ of life. The egoist does so, the pleasure-seeker,
+the ambitious: he consumes existence as one eating the full corn in the
+blade,--he prevents it from bearing its fruit; his life is lost.
+Whoever, on the contrary, makes his life serve a good higher than
+itself, saves it in giving it. Moral precepts, which to a superficial
+view appear arbitrary, and seem made to spoil our zest for life, have
+really but one object--to preserve us from the evil of having lived in
+vain. That is why they are constantly leading us back into the same
+paths; that is why they all have the same meaning: _Do not waste your
+life,_ make it bear fruit; learn how to give it, in order that it may
+not consume itself! Herein is summed up the experience of humanity, and
+this experience, which each man must remake for himself, is more
+precious in proportion as it costs more dear. Illumined by its light, he
+makes a moral advance more and more sure. Now he has his means of
+orientation, his internal norm to which he may lead everything back; and
+from the vacillating, confused, and complex being that he was, he
+becomes simple. By the ceaseless influence of this same law, which
+expands within him, and is day by day verified in fact, his opinions and
+habits become transformed.
+
+Once captivated by the beauty and sublimity of the true life, by what is
+sacred and pathetic in this strife of humanity for truth, justice, and
+brotherly love, his heart holds the fascination of it. Gradually
+everything subordinates itself to this powerful and persistent charm.
+The necessary hierarchy of powers is organized within him: the essential
+commands, the secondary obeys, and order is born of simplicity. We may
+compare this organization of the interior life to that of an army. An
+army is strong by its discipline, and its discipline consists in respect
+of the inferior for the superior, and the concentration of all its
+energies toward a single end: discipline once relaxed, the army suffers.
+It will not do to let the corporal command the general. Examine
+carefully your life and the lives of others. Whenever something halts
+or jars, and complications and disorder follow, it is because the
+corporal has issued orders to the general. Where the natural law rules
+in the heart, disorder vanishes.
+
+I despair of ever describing simplicity in any worthy fashion. All the
+strength of the world and all its beauty, all true joy, everything that
+consoles, that feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark
+paths, everything that makes us see across our poor lives a splendid
+goal and a boundless future, comes to us from people of simplicity,
+those who have made another object of their desires than the passing
+satisfaction of selfishness and vanity, and have understood that the art
+of living is to know how to give one's life.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SIMPLICITY OF THOUGHT
+
+
+It is not alone among the practical manifestations of our life that
+there is need of making a clearing: the domain of our ideas is in the
+same case. Anarchy reigns in human thought: we walk in the woods,
+without compass or sun, lost among the brambles and briars of infinite
+detail.
+
+When once man has recognized the fact that he has an aim, and that this
+aim is _to be a man_, he organizes his thought accordingly. Every mode
+of thinking or judging which does not make him better and stronger, he
+rejects as dangerous.
+
+And first of all he flees the too common contrariety of amusing himself
+with his thought. Thought is a tool, with its own proper function: it
+isn't a toy. Let us take an example. Here is the studio of a painter.
+The implements are all in place: everything indicates that this
+assemblage of means is arranged with view to an end. Throw the room open
+to apes. They will climb on the benches, swing from the cords, rig
+themselves in draperies, coif themselves with slippers, juggle with
+brushes, nibble the colors, and pierce the canvases to see what is
+behind the paint. I don't question their enjoyment; certainly they must
+find this kind of exercise extremely interesting. But an atelier is not
+made to let monkeys loose in. No more is thought a ground for acrobatic
+evolutions. A man worthy of the name, thinks as he is, as his tastes
+are: he goes about it with his whole heart, and not with that fitful and
+sterile curiosity which, under pretext of observing and noting
+everything, runs the risk of never experiencing a deep and true emotion
+or accomplishing a right deed.
+
+Another habit in urgent need of correction, ordinary attendant on
+conventional life, is the mania for examining and analyzing one's self
+at every turn. I do not invite men to neglect introspection and the
+examination of conscience. The endeavor to understand one's own mental
+attitudes and motives of conduct is an essential element of good living.
+But quite other is this extreme vigilance, this incessant observation of
+one's life and thoughts, this dissecting of one's self, like a piece of
+mechanism. It is a waste of time, and goes wide of the mark. The man
+who, to prepare himself the better for walking, should begin by making a
+rigid anatomical examination of his means of locomotion, would risk
+dislocating something before he had taken a step. You have what you need
+to walk with, then forward! Take care not to fall, and use your forces
+with discretion. Potterers and scruple-mongers are soon reduced to
+inaction. It needs but a glimmer of common sense to perceive that man is
+not made to pass his life in a self-centered trance.
+
+And common sense--do you not find what is designated by this name
+becoming as rare as the common-sense customs of other days? Common sense
+has become an old story. We must have something new--and we create a
+factitious existence, a refinement of living, that the vulgar crowd has
+not the wherewithal to procure. It is so agreeable to be distinguished!
+Instead of conducting ourselves like rational beings, and using the
+means most obviously at our command, we arrive, by dint of absolute
+genius, at the most astonishing singularities. Better off the track than
+on the main line! All the bodily defects and deformities that orthopedy
+treats, give but a feeble idea of the humps, the tortuosities, the
+dislocations we have inflicted upon ourselves in order to depart from
+simple common sense; and at our own expense we learn that one does not
+deform himself with impunity. Novelty, after all, is ephemeral. Nothing
+endures but the eternal commonplace; and if one departs from that, it is
+to run the most perilous risks. Happy he who is able to reclaim himself,
+who finds the way back to simplicity.
+
+Good plain sense is not, as is often imagined, the innate possession of
+the first chance-comer, a mean and paltry equipment that has cost
+nothing to anyone. I would compare it to those old folk-songs,
+unfathered but deathless, which seem to have risen out of the very heart
+of the people. Good sense is a fund slowly and painfully accumulated by
+the labor of centuries. It is a jewel of the first water, whose value he
+alone understands who has lost it, or who observes the lives of others
+who have lost it. For my part, I think no price too great to pay for
+gaining it and keeping it, for the possession of eyes that see and a
+judgment that discerns. One takes good care of his sword, that it be not
+bent or rusted: with greater reason should he give heed to his thought.
+
+But let this be well understood: an appeal to common sense is not an
+appeal to thought that grovels, to narrow positivism which denies
+everything it cannot see or touch. For to wish that man should be
+absorbed in material sensations, to the exclusion of the high realities
+of the inner life, is also a want of good sense. Here we touch upon a
+tender point, round which the greatest battles of humanity are waging.
+In truth we are striving to attain a conception of life, searching it
+out amid countless obscurities and griefs: and everything that touches
+upon spiritual realities becomes day by day more painful. In the midst
+of the grave perplexities and transient disorders that accompany great
+crises of thought, it seems more difficult than ever to escape with any
+simple principles. Yet necessity itself comes to our aid, as it has done
+for the men of all times. The program of life is terribly simple, after
+all, and in the fact that existence so imperiously forces herself upon
+us, she gives us notice that she precedes any idea of her which we may
+make for ourselves, and that no one can put off living pending an
+attempt to understand life. Our philosophies, our explanations, our
+beliefs are everywhere confronted by facts, and these facts, prodigious,
+irrefutable, call us to order when we would deduce life from our
+reasonings, and would wait to act until we have ended philosophizing. It
+is this happy necessity that prevents the world from stopping while man
+questions his route. Travelers of a day, we are carried along in a vast
+movement to which we are called upon to contribute, but which we have
+not foreseen, nor embraced in its entirety, nor penetrated as to its
+ultimate aims. Our part is to fill faithfully the rôle of private, which
+has devolved upon us, and our thought should adapt itself to the
+situation. Do not say that we live in more trying times than our
+ancestors, for things seen from afar are often seen imperfectly: it is
+moreover scarcely gracious to complain of not having been born in the
+days of one's grandfather. What we may believe least contestable on the
+subject is this: from the beginning of the world it has been hard to see
+clearly; right thinking has been difficult everywhere and always. In the
+matter the ancients were in no wise privileged above the moderns, and it
+might be added that there is no difference between men when they are
+considered from this point of view. Master and servant, teacher and
+learner, writer and artisan discern truth at the same cost. The light
+that humanity acquires in advancing is no doubt of the greatest use; but
+it also multiplies the number and extent of human problems. The
+difficulty is never removed, the mind always encounters its obstacle.
+The unknown controls us and hems us in on all sides. But just as one
+need not exhaust a spring to quench his thirst, so we need not know
+everything to live. Humanity lives and always has lived on certain
+elemental _provisions_.
+
+We will try to point them out. First of all, humanity lives by
+confidence. In so doing it but reflects, commensurate with its conscious
+thought, that which is the hidden source of all beings. An imperturbable
+faith in the stability of the universe and its intelligent ordering,
+sleeps in everything that exists. The flowers, the trees, the beasts of
+the field, live in calm strength, in entire security. There is
+confidence in the falling rain, in dawning day, in the brook running to
+the sea. Everything that is seems to say: "I am, therefore I should be;
+there are good reasons for this, rest assured."
+
+So, too, mankind lives by confidence. From the simple fact that he is,
+man has within him the sufficient reason for his being--a pledge of
+assurance. He reposes in the power which has willed that he should be.
+To safeguard this confidence, to see that nothing disconcerts it, to
+cultivate it, render it more personal, more evident--toward this should
+tend the first effort of our thought. All that augments confidence
+within us is good, for from confidence is born the life without haste,
+tranquil energy, calm action, the love of life and its fruitful labor.
+Deep-seated confidence is the mysterious spring that sets in motion the
+energy within us. It is our nutriment. By it man lives, much more than
+by the bread he eats. And so everything that shakes this confidence is
+evil--poison, not food.
+
+Dangerous is every system of thought that attacks the very fact of life,
+declaring it to be an evil. Life has been too often wrongly estimated in
+this century. What wonder that the tree withers when its roots are
+watered with corrosives. And there is an extremely simple reflection
+that might be made in the face of all this negation. You say life is an
+evil. Well; what remedy for it do you offer? Can you combat it, suppress
+it? I do not ask you to suppress your own life, to commit suicide;--of
+what advantage would that be to us?--but to suppress _life_, not merely
+human life, but life at its deep and hidden origin, all this upspringing
+of existence that pushes toward the light and, to your mind, is rushing
+to misfortune; I ask you to suppress the will to live that trembles
+through the immensities of space, to suppress in short the source of
+life. Can you do it? No. Then leave us in peace. Since no one can hold
+life in check, is it not better to respect it and use it than to go
+about making other people disgusted with it? When one knows that certain
+food is dangerous to health, he does not eat it, and when a certain
+fashion of thinking robs us of confidence, cheerfulness and strength, we
+should reject that, certain not only that it is a nutriment noxious to
+the mind, but also that it is false. There is no truth for man but in
+thoughts that are human, and pessimism is inhuman. Besides, it wants as
+much in modesty as in logic. To permit one's self to count as evil this
+prodigious thing that we call life, one needs have seen its very
+foundation, almost to have made it. What a strange attitude is that of
+certain great thinkers of our times! They act as if they had created the
+world, very long ago, in their youth, but decidedly it was a mistake,
+and they had well repented it.
+
+Let us nourish ourselves from other meat; strengthen our souls with
+cheering thoughts. What is truest for man is what best fortifies him.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+If mankind lives by confidence, it lives also by hope--that form of
+confidence which turns toward the future. All life is a result and an
+aspiration, all that exists supposes an origin and tends toward an end.
+Life is progression: progression is aspiration. The progress of the
+future is an infinitude of hope. Hope is at the root of things, and must
+be reflected in the heart of man. No hope, no life. The same power which
+brought us into being, urges us to go up higher. What is the meaning of
+this persistent instinct which pushes us on? The true meaning is that
+something is to result from life, that out of it is being wrought a good
+greater than itself, toward which it slowly moves, and that this painful
+sower called man, needs, like every sower, to count on the morrow. The
+history of humanity is the history of indomitable hope; otherwise
+everything would have been over long ago. To press forward under his
+burdens, to guide himself in the night, to retrieve his falls and his
+failures, to escape despair even in death, man has need of hoping
+always, and sometimes against all hope. Here is the cordial that
+sustains him. Had we only logic, we should have long ago drawn the
+conclusion: Death has everywhere the last word!--and we should be dead
+of the idea. But we have hope, and that is why we live and believe in
+life.
+
+Suso, the great monk and mystic, one of the simplest and best men that
+ever lived, had a touching custom: whenever he encountered a woman, were
+she the poorest and oldest, he stepped respectfully aside, though his
+bare feet must tread among thorns or in the gutter. "I do that," he
+said, "to render homage to our Holy Lady, the Virgin Mary." Let us offer
+to hope a like reverence. If we meet it in the shape of a blade of wheat
+piercing the furrow; a bird brooding on its nest; a poor wounded beast,
+recovering itself, rising and continuing its way; a peasant ploughing
+and sowing a field that has been ravaged by flood or hail; a nation
+slowly repairing its losses and healing its wounds--under whatever guise
+of humanity or suffering it appears to us, let us salute it! When we
+encounter it in legends, in untutored songs, in simple creeds, let us
+still salute it! for it is always the same, indestructible, the immortal
+daughter of God.
+
+We do not dare hope enough. The men of our day have developed strange
+timidities. The apprehension that the sky will fall--that acme of
+absurdity among the fears of our Gallic forefathers--has entered our own
+hearts. Does the rain-drop doubt the ocean? the ray mistrust the sun?
+Our senile wisdom has arrived at this prodigy. It resembles those testy
+old pedagogues whose chief office is to rail at the merry pranks or the
+youthful enthusiasms of their pupils. It is time to become little
+children once more, to learn again to stand with clasped hands and wide
+eyes before the mystery around us; to remember that, in spite of our
+knowledge, what we know is but a trifle, and that the world is greater
+than our mind, which is well; for being so prodigious, it must hold in
+reserve untold resources, and we may allow it some credit without
+accusing ourselves of improvidence. Let us not treat it as creditors do
+an insolvent debtor: we should fire its courage, relight the sacred
+flame of hope. Since the sun still rises, since earth puts forth her
+blossoms anew, since the bird builds its nest, and the mother smiles at
+her child, let us have the courage to be men, and commit the rest to Him
+who has numbered the stars. For my part, I would I might find glowing
+words to say to whomsoever has lost heart in these times of disillusion:
+Rouse your courage, hope on; he is sure of being least deluded who has
+the daring to do that; the most ingenuous hope is nearer truth than the
+most rational despair.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Another source of light on the path of human life is goodness. I am not
+of those who believe in the natural perfection of man, and teach that
+society corrupts him. On the contrary, of all forms of evil, the one
+which most dismays me is heredity. But I sometimes ask myself how it is
+that this effete and deadly virus of low instincts, of vices inoculated
+in the blood, the whole assemblage of disabilities imposed upon us by
+the past--how all this has not got the better of us. It must be because
+of something else. This other thing is love.
+
+Given the unknown brooding above our heads, our limited intelligence,
+the grievous and contradictory enigma of human destiny, falsehood,
+hatred, corruption, suffering, death--what can we think, what do? To all
+these questions a sublime and mysterious voice has answered: _Love your
+fellow-men._ Love must indeed be divine, like faith and hope, since she
+cannot die when so many powers are arrayed against her. She has to
+combat the natural ferocity of what may be called the beast in man; she
+has to meet ruse, force, self-interest, above all, ingratitude. How is
+it that she passes pure and scathless in the midst of these dark
+enemies, like the prophet of the sacred legend among the roaring beasts?
+It is because her enemies are of the earth, and love is from above.
+Horns, teeth, claws, eyes full of murderous fire, are powerless against
+the swift wing that soars toward the heights and eludes them. Thus love
+escapes the undertakings of her foes. She does even better: she has
+sometimes known the fine triumph of winning over her persecutors: she
+has seen the wild beasts grow calm, lie down at her feet, obey her law.
+
+At the very heart of the Christian faith, the most sublime of its
+teachings, and to him who penetrates its deepest sense, the most human,
+is this: To save lost humanity, the invisible God came to dwell among
+us, in the form of a man, and willed to make Himself known by this
+single sign: _Love._
+
+Healing, consoling, tender to the unfortunate, even to the evil, love
+engenders light beneath her feet. She clarifies, she simplifies. She has
+chosen the humblest part--to bind up wounds, wipe away tears, relieve
+distress, soothe aching hearts, pardon, make peace; yet it is of love
+that we have the greatest need. And as we meditate on the best way to
+render thought fruitful, simple, really conformable to our destiny, the
+method sums itself up in these words: _Have confidence and hope; be
+kind._
+
+I would not discourage lofty speculation, dissuade any one whomsoever
+from brooding over the problems of the unknown, over the vast abysses of
+science or philosophy. But we have always to come back from these far
+journeys to the point where we are, often to a place where we seem to
+stand marking time with no result. There are conditions of life and
+social complications in which the sage, the thinker, and the ignorant
+are alike unable to see clearly. The present age has often brought us
+face to face with such situations; I am sure that he who meets them with
+our method will soon recognize its worth.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Since I have touched here upon religious ground, at least in a general
+way, someone may ask me to say in a few simple words, what religion is
+the best; and I gladly express myself on this subject. But it might be
+better not to put the question in this form. All religions have, of
+necessity, certain fixed characteristics, and each has its inherent
+qualities or defects. Strictly speaking, then, they may be compared
+among themselves: but there are always involuntary partialities or
+foregone conclusions. It is better to put the question otherwise, and
+ask: Is my own religion good, and how may I know it? To this question,
+this answer: Your religion is good if it is vital and active, if it
+nourishes in you confidence, hope, love, and a sentiment of the infinite
+value of existence; if it is allied with what is best in you against
+what is worst, and holds forever before you the necessity of becoming a
+new man; if it makes you understand that pain is a deliverer; if it
+increases your respect for the conscience of others; if it renders
+forgiveness more easy, fortune less arrogant, duty more dear, the beyond
+less visionary. If it does these things it is good, little matter its
+name: however rudimentary it may be, when it fills this office it comes
+from the true source, it binds you to man and to God.
+
+But does it perchance serve to make you think yourself better than
+others, quibble over texts, wear sour looks, domineer over others'
+consciences or give your own over to bondage; stifle your scruples,
+follow religious forms for fashion or gain, do good in the hope of
+escaping future punishment?--oh, then, if you proclaim yourself the
+follower of Buddha, Moses, Mahomet, or even Christ, your religion is
+worthless--it separates you from God and man.
+
+I have not perhaps the right to speak thus in my own name; but others
+have so spoken before me who are greater than I, and notably He who
+recounted to the questioning scribe the parable of the Good Samaritan. I
+intrench myself behind His authority.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+SIMPLICITY OF SPEECH
+
+
+Speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first visible form that
+it takes. As the thought, so the speech. To better one's life in the way
+of simplicity, one must set a watch on his lips and his pen. Let the
+word be as genuine as the thought, as artless, as valid: think justly,
+speak frankly.
+
+All social relations have their roots in mutual trust, and this trust is
+maintained by each man's sincerity. Once sincerity diminishes,
+confidence is weakened, society suffers, apprehension is born. This is
+true in the province of both natural and spiritual interests. With
+people whom we distrust, it is as difficult to do business as to search
+for scientific truth, arrive at religious harmony, or attain to justice.
+When one must first question words and intentions, and start from the
+premise that everything said and written is meant to offer us illusion
+in place of truth, life becomes strangely complicated. This is the case
+to-day. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy, so much subtle
+legerdemain, that we all have no end of trouble to inform ourselves on
+the simplest subject and the one that most concerns us. Probably what I
+have just said would suffice to show my thought, and each one's
+experience might bring to its support an ample commentary with
+illustrations. But I am none the less moved to insist on this point, and
+to strengthen my position with examples.
+
+Formerly the means of communication between men were considerably
+restricted. It was natural to suppose that in perfecting and multiplying
+avenues of information, a better understanding would be brought about.
+Nations would learn to love each other as they became acquainted;
+citizens of one country would feel themselves bound in closer
+brotherhood as more light was thrown on what concerned their common
+life. When printing was invented, the cry arose: _fiat lux!_ and with
+better cause when the habit of reading and the taste for newspapers
+increased. Why should not men have reasoned thus:--"Two lights illumine
+better than one, and many better than two: the more periodicals and
+books there are, the better we shall know what happens, and those who
+wish to write history after us will be right fortunate; their hands will
+be full of documents"? Nothing could have seemed more evident. Alas!
+this reasoning was based upon the nature and capacity of the
+instruments, without taking into account the human element, always the
+most important factor. And what has really come about is this: that
+cavilers, calumniators, and crooks--all gentlemen glib of tongue, who
+know better than any one else how to turn voice and pen to account--have
+taken the utmost advantage of these extended means for circulating
+thought, with the result that the men of our times have the greatest
+difficulty in the world to know the truth about their own age and their
+own affairs. For every newspaper that fosters good feeling and good
+understanding between nations, by trying to rightly inform its neighbors
+and to study them without reservations, how many spread defamation and
+distrust! What unnatural and dangerous currents of opinion set in
+motion! what false alarms and malicious interpretations of words and
+facts! And in domestic affairs we are not much better informed than in
+foreign. As to commercial, industrial, and agricultural interests,
+political parties and social tendencies, or the personality of public
+men, it is alike difficult to obtain a disinterested opinion. The more
+newspapers one reads, the less clearly he sees in these matters. There
+are days when after having read them all, and admitting that he takes
+them at their word, the reader finds himself obliged to draw this
+conclusion:--Unquestionably nothing but corruption can be found any
+longer--no men of integrity except a few journalists. But the last part
+of the conclusion falls in its turn. It appears that the chroniclers
+devour each other. The reader has under his eyes a spectacle somewhat
+like the cartoon entitled, "The Combat of the Serpents." After having
+gorged themselves with everything around them, the reptiles fall upon
+each other, and there remain upon the field of battle two tails.
+
+And not the common people alone feel this embarrassment, but the
+cultivated also--almost everybody shares it. In politics, finance,
+business--even in science, art, literature and religion, there is
+everywhere disguise, trickery, wire-pulling; one truth for the public,
+another for the initiated. The result is that everybody is deceived. It
+is vain to be behind the scenes on one stage; a man cannot be there on
+them all, and the very people who deceive others with the most ability,
+are in turn deceived when they need to count upon the sincerity of their
+neighbors.
+
+The result of such practices is the degradation of human speech. It is
+degraded first in the eyes of those who manipulate it as a base
+instrument. No word is respected by sophists, casuists, and quibblers,
+men who are moved only by a rage for gaining their point, or who assume
+that their interests are alone worth considering. Their penalty is to be
+forced to judge others by the rule they follow themselves: _Say what
+profits and not what is true._ They can no longer take any one
+seriously--a sad state of mind for those who write or teach! How lightly
+must one hold his readers and hearers to approach them in such an
+attitude! To him who has preserved enough honesty, nothing is more
+repugnant than the careless irony of an acrobat of the tongue or pen,
+who tries to dupe honest and ingenuous men. On one side openness,
+sincerity, the desire to be enlightened; on the other, chicanery making
+game of the public! But he knows not, the liar, how far he is misleading
+himself. The capital on which he lives is confidence, and nothing equals
+the confidence of the people, unless it be their distrust when once they
+find themselves betrayed. They may follow for a time the exploiters of
+their artlessness, but then their friendly humor turns to hate. Doors
+which stood wide open offer an impassable front of wood, and ears once
+attentive are deaf. And the pity is that they have closed not to the
+evil alone, but to the good. This is the crime of those who distort and
+degrade speech: they shake confidence generally. We consider as a
+calamity the debasement of the currency, the lowering of interest, the
+abolition of credit:--there is a misfortune greater than these: the loss
+of confidence, of that moral credit which honest people give one
+another, and which makes speech circulate like an authentic currency.
+Away with counterfeiters, speculators, rotten financiers, for they bring
+under suspicion even the coin of the realm. Away with the makers of
+counterfeit speech, for because of them there is no longer confidence in
+anyone or anything, and what they say and write is not worth a
+continental.
+
+You see how urgent it is that each should guard his lips, chasten his
+pen, and aspire to simplicity of speech. No more perversion of sense,
+circumlocution, reticence, tergiversation! these things serve only to
+complicate and bewilder. Be men; speak the speech of honor. An hour of
+plain-dealing does more for the salvation of the world than years of
+duplicity.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+A word now about a national bias, to those who have a veneration for
+diction and style. Assuredly there can be no quarrel with the taste for
+grace and elegance of speech. I am of opinion that one cannot say too
+well what he has to say. But it does not follow that the things best
+said and best written are most studied. Words should serve the fact, and
+not substitute themselves for it and make it forgotten in its
+embellishment. The greatest things are those which gain the most by
+being said most simply, since thus they show themselves for what they
+are: you do not throw over them the veil, however transparent, of
+beautiful discourse, nor that shadow so fatal to truth, called the
+writer's vanity. Nothing so strong, nothing so persuasive, as
+simplicity! There are sacred emotions, cruel griefs, splendid heroisms,
+passionate enthusiasms that a look, a movement, a cry interprets better
+than beautifully rounded periods. The most precious possessions of the
+heart of humanity manifest themselves most simply. To be convincing, a
+thing must be true, and certain truths are more evident when they come
+in the speech of ingenuousness, even weakness, than when they fall from
+lips too well trained, or are proclaimed with trumpets. And these rules
+are good for each of us in his every-day life. No one can imagine what
+profit would accrue to his moral life from the constant observation of
+this principle: Be sincere, moderate, simple in the expression of your
+feelings and opinions, in private and public alike; never pass beyond
+bounds, give out faithfully what is within you, and above all,
+watch!--that is the main thing.
+
+For the danger in fine words is that they live from a life of their own.
+They are servants of distinction, that have kept their titles but no
+longer perform their functions--of which royal courts offer us example.
+You speak well, write well, and all is said. How many people content
+themselves with speaking, and believe that it exempts them from acting!
+And those who listen are content with having heard them. So it sometimes
+happens that a life may in the end be made up of a few well-turned
+speeches, a few fine books, and a few great plays. As for practicing
+what is so magisterially set forth, that is the last thing thought of.
+And if we pass from the world of talent to spheres which the mediocre
+exploit, there, in a pell-mell of confusion, we see those who think that
+we are in the world to talk and hear others talk--the great and hopeless
+rout of babblers, of everything that prates, bawls, and perorates and,
+after all, finds that there isn't talking enough. They all forget that
+those who make the least noise do the most work. An engine that expends
+all its steam in whistling, has nothing left with which to turn wheels.
+Then let us cultivate silence. All that we can save in noise we gain in
+power.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+These reflections lead us to consider a similar subject, also very
+worthy of attention: I mean what has been called "the vice of the
+superlative." If we study the inhabitants of a country, we notice
+differences of temperament, of which the language shows signs. Here the
+people are calm and phlegmatic; their speech is jejune, lacks color.
+Elsewhere temperaments are more evenly balanced; one finds precision,
+the word exactly fitted to the thing. But farther on--effect of the sun,
+the air, the wine perhaps--hot blood courses in the veins, tempers are
+excitable, language is extravagant, and the simplest things are said in
+the strongest terms.
+
+If the type of speech varies with climate, it differs also with epochs.
+Compare the language, written or spoken, of our own times with that of
+certain other periods of our history. Under the old _régime_, people
+spoke differently than at the time of the Revolution, and we have not
+the same language as the men of 1830, 1848, or the Second Empire. In
+general, language is now characterized by greater simplicity: we no
+longer wear perukes, we no longer write in lace frills: but there is one
+significant difference between us and almost all of our ancestors--and
+it is the source of our exaggerations--our nervousness. Upon
+over-excited nervous systems--and Heaven knows that to have nerves is no
+longer an aristocratic privilege!--words do not produce the same
+impression as under normal conditions. And quite as truly, simple
+language does not suffice the man of over-wrought sensibilities when he
+tries to express what he feels. In private life, in public, in books, on
+the stage, calm and temperate speech has given place to excess. The
+means that novelists and playwrights employ to galvanize the public mind
+and compel its attention, are to be found again, in their rudiments, in
+our most commonplace conversations, in our letter-writing, and above all
+in public speaking. Our performances in language compared to those of a
+man well-balanced and serene, are what our hand-writing is compared to
+that of our fathers. The fault is laid to steel pens. If only the truth
+were acknowledged!--Geese, then, could save us! But the evil goes
+deeper; it is in ourselves. We write like men possessed: the pen of our
+ancestors was more restful, more sure. Here we face one of the results
+of our modern life, so complicated and so terribly exhaustive of energy.
+It leaves us impatient, breathless, in perpetual trepidation. Our
+hand-writing, like our speech, suffers thereby and betrays us. Let us go
+back from the effect to the cause, and understand well the warning it
+brings us!
+
+What good can come from this habit of exaggerated speech? False
+interpreters of our own impressions, we can not but warp the minds of
+our fellow-men as well as our own. Between people who exaggerate, good
+understanding ceases. Ruffled tempers, violent and useless disputes,
+hasty judgments devoid of all moderation, the utmost extravagance in
+education and social life--these things are the result of intemperance
+of speech.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+May I be permitted, in this appeal for simplicity of speech, to frame a
+wish whose fulfilment would have the happiest results? I ask for
+simplicity in literature, not only as one of the best remedies for the
+dejection of our souls--_blasés_, jaded, weary of eccentricities--but
+also as a pledge and source of social union. I ask also for simplicity
+in art. Our art and our literature are reserved for the privileged few
+of education and fortune. But do not misunderstand me. I do not ask
+poets, novelists, and painters to descend from the heights and walk
+along the mountain-sides, finding their satisfaction in mediocrity; but,
+on the contrary, to mount higher. The truly popular is not that which
+appeals to a certain class of society ordinarily called the common
+people; the truly popular is what is common to all classes and unites
+them. The sources of inspiration from which perfect art springs are in
+the depths of the human heart, in the eternal realities of life before
+which all men are equal. And the sources of a popular language must be
+found in the small number of simple and vigorous forms which express
+elementary sensations, and draw the master lines of human destiny. In
+them are truth, power, grandeur, immortality. Is there not enough in
+such an ideal to kindle the enthusiasm of youth, which, sensible that
+the sacred flame of the beautiful is burning within, feels pity, and to
+the disdainful adage, _Odi profanum vulgus_, prefers this more humane
+saying, _Misereor super turbam_. As for me, I have no artistic
+authority, but from out the multitude where I live, I have the right to
+raise my cry to those who have been given talents, and say to them:
+Labor for men whom the world forgets, make yourselves intelligible to
+the humble, so shall you accomplish a work of emancipation and peace; so
+shall you open again the springs whence those masters drew, whose works
+have defied the ages because they knew how to clothe genius in
+simplicity.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+SIMPLE DUTY
+
+
+When we talk to children on a subject that annoys them, they call our
+attention to some pigeon on the roof, giving food to its little one, or
+some coachman down in the street who is abusing his horse. Sometimes
+they even maliciously propose one of those alarming questions that put
+the minds of parents on the rack; all this to divert attention from the
+distressing topic. I fear that in the face of duty we are big children,
+and, when that is the theme, seek subterfuges to distract us.
+
+The first sophism consists in asking ourselves if there is such a thing
+as duty in the abstract, or if this word does not cover one of the
+numerous illusions of our forefathers. For duty, in truth, supposes
+liberty, and the question of liberty leads us into metaphysics. How can
+we talk of liberty so long as this grave problem of free-will is not
+solved? Theoretically there is no objection to this; and if life were a
+theory, and we were here to work out a complete system of the universe,
+it would be absurd to concern ourselves with duty until we had clarified
+the subject of liberty, determined its conditions, fixed its limits.
+
+But life is not a theory. In this question of practical morality, as in
+the others, life has preceded hypothesis, and there is no room to
+believe that she ever yields it place. This liberty--relative, I admit,
+like everything we are acquainted with, for that matter--this duty whose
+existence we question, is none the less the basis of all the judgments
+we pass upon ourselves and our fellow-men. We hold each other to a
+certain extent responsible for our deeds and exploits.
+
+The most ardent theorist, once outside of his theory, scruples not a
+whit to approve or disapprove the acts of others, to take measures
+against his enemies, to appeal to the generosity and justice of those he
+would dissuade from an unworthy step. One can no more rid himself of the
+notion of moral obligation than of that of time or space; and as surely
+as we must resign ourselves to walking before we know how to define this
+space through which we move and this time that measures our movements,
+so surely must we submit to moral obligation before having put our
+finger on its deep-hidden roots. Moral law dominates man, whether he
+respects or defies it. See how it is in every-day life: each one is
+ready to cast his stone at him who neglects a plain duty, even if he
+allege that he has not yet arrived at philosophic certitude. Everybody
+will say to him, and with excellent reason: "Sir, we are men before
+everything. First play your part, do your duty as citizen, father, son;
+after that you shall return to the course of your meditations."
+
+However, let us be well understood. We should not wish to turn anyone
+away from scrupulous research into the foundations of morality. No
+thought which leads men to concern themselves once more with these grave
+questions, could be useless or indifferent. We simply challenge the
+thinker to find a way to wait till he has unearthed these foundations,
+before he does an act of humanity, of honesty or dishonesty, of valor or
+cowardice. And most of all do we wish to formulate a reply for all the
+insincere who have never tried to philosophize, and for ourselves when
+we would offer our state of philosophic doubt in justification of our
+practical omissions. From the simple fact that we are men, before all
+theorizing, positive, or negative, about duty, we have the peremptory
+law to conduct ourselves like men. There is no getting out of it.
+
+But he little knows the resources of the human heart, who counts on the
+effect of such a reply. It matters not that it is itself unanswerable;
+it cannot keep other questions from arising. The sum of our pretexts for
+evading duty is equal to the sum of the sands of the sea or the stars of
+heaven.
+
+We take refuge, then, behind duty that is obscure, difficult,
+contradictory. And these are certainly words to call up painful
+memories. To be a man of duty and to question one's route, grope in the
+dark, feel one's self torn between the contrary solicitations of
+conflicting calls, or again, to face a duty gigantic, overwhelming,
+beyond our strength--what is harder! And such things happen. We would
+neither deny nor contest the tragedy in certain situations or the
+anguish of certain lives. And yet, duty rarely has to make itself plain
+across such conflicting circumstances, or to be struck out from the
+tortured mind like lightning from a storm-cloud. Such formidable shocks
+are exceptional. Well for us if we stand staunch when they come! But if
+no one is astonished that oaks are uprooted by the whirlwind, that a
+wayfarer stumbles at night on an unknown road, or that a soldier caught
+between two fires is vanquished, no more should he condemn without
+appeal those who have been worsted in almost superhuman moral conflicts.
+To succumb under the force of numbers or obstacles has never been
+counted a disgrace.
+
+So my weapons are at the service of those who intrench themselves
+behind the impregnable rampart of duty ill-defined, complicated or
+contradictory. But it is not that which occupies me to-day; it is of
+plain, I had almost said easy duty, that I wish to speak.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+We have yearly three or four high feast days, and many ordinary ones:
+there are likewise some very great and dark combats to wage, but beside
+these is the multitude of plain and simple duties. Now, while in the
+great encounters our equipment is generally adequate, it is precisely in
+the little emergencies that we are found wanting. Without fear of being
+misled by a paradoxical form of thought, I affirm, then, that the
+essential thing is to fulfil our simple duties and exercise elementary
+justice. In general, those who lose their souls do so not because they
+fail to rise to difficult duty, but because they neglect to perform that
+which is simple. Let us illustrate this truth.
+
+He who tries to penetrate into the humble underworld of society is not
+slow to discover great misery, physical and moral. And the closer he
+looks, the greater number of unfortunates does he discover, till in the
+end this assembly of the wretched appears to him like a great black
+world, in whose presence the individual and his means of relief are
+reduced to helplessness. It is true that he feels impelled to run to the
+succor of these unfortunates, but at the same time he asks himself,
+"What is the use?" The case is certainly heartrending. Some, in despair,
+end by doing nothing. They lack neither pity nor good intention, but
+these bear no fruit. They are wrong. Often a man has not the means to do
+good on a large scale, but that is not a reason for failing to do it at
+all. So many people absolve themselves from any action, on the ground
+that there is too much to do! They should be recalled to simple duty,
+and this duty in the case of which we speak is that each one, according
+to his resources, leisure and capacity, should create relations for
+himself among the world's disinherited. There are people who by the
+exercise of a little good-will have succeeded in enrolling themselves
+among the followers of ministers, and have ingratiated themselves with
+princes. Why should you not succeed in forming relations with the poor,
+and in making acquaintances among the workers who lack somewhat the
+necessities of life? When a few families are known, with their
+histories, their antecedents and their difficulties, you may be of the
+greatest use to them by acting the part of a brother, with the moral and
+material aid that is yours to give. It is true, you will have attacked
+only one little corner, but you will have done what you could, and
+perhaps have led another on to follow you. Instead of stopping at the
+knowledge that much wretchedness, hatred, disunion and vice exist in
+society, you will have introduced a little good among these evils. And
+by however slow degrees such kindness as yours is emulated, the good
+will sensibly increase and the evil diminish. Even were you to remain
+alone in this undertaking, you would have the assurance that in
+fulfilling the duty, plain as a child's, which offered itself, you were
+doing the only reasonable thing. If you have felt it so, you have found
+out one of the secrets of right living.
+
+In its dreams, man's ambition embraces vast limits, but it is rarely
+given us to achieve great things, and even then, a quick and sure
+success always rests on a groundwork of patient preparation. Fidelity in
+small things is at the base of every great achievement. We too often
+forget this, and yet no truth needs more to be kept in mind,
+particularly in the troubled eras of history and in the crises of
+individual life. In shipwreck a splintered beam, an oar, any scrap of
+wreckage, saves us. On the tumbling waves of life, when everything seems
+shattered to fragments, let us not forget that a single one of these
+poor bits may become our plank of safety. To despise the remnants is
+demoralization.
+
+You are a ruined man, or you are stricken by a great bereavement, or
+again, you see the fruit of toilsome years perish before your eyes. You
+cannot rebuild your fortune, raise the dead, recover your lost toil, and
+in the face of the inevitable, your arms drop. Then you neglect to care
+for your person, to keep your house, to guide your children. All this is
+pardonable, and how easy to understand! But it is exceedingly dangerous.
+To fold one's hands and let things take their course, is to transform
+one evil into worse. You who think that you have nothing left to lose,
+will by that very thought lose what you have. Gather up the fragments
+that remain to you, and keep them with scrupulous care. In good time
+this little that is yours will be your consolation. The effort made will
+come to your relief, as the effort missed will turn against you. If
+nothing but a branch is left for you to cling to, cling to that branch;
+and if you stand alone in defense of a losing cause, do not throw down
+your arms to join the rout. After the deluge a few survivors repeopled
+the earth. The future sometimes rests in a single life as truly as life
+sometimes hangs by a thread. For strength, go to history and Nature.
+From the long travail of both you will learn that failure and fortune
+alike may come from the slightest cause, that it is not wise to neglect
+detail, and, above all, that we must know how to wait and to begin
+again.
+
+In speaking of simple duty I cannot help thinking of military life, and
+the examples it offers to combatants in this great struggle. He would
+little understand his soldier's duty who, the army once beaten, should
+cease to brush his garments, polish his rifle, and observe discipline.
+"But what would be the use?" perhaps you ask. Are there not various
+fashions of being vanquished? Is it an indifferent matter to add to
+defeat, discouragement, disorder, and demoralization? No, it should
+never be forgotten that the least display of energy in these terrible
+moments is a sign of life and hope. At once everybody feels that all is
+not lost.
+
+During the disastrous retreat of 1813-1814, in the heart of the winter,
+when it had become almost impossible to present any sort of appearance,
+a general, I know not who, one morning presented himself to Napoleon, in
+full dress and freshly shaven. Seeing him thus, in the midst of the
+general demoralization, as elaborately attired as if for parade, the
+Emperor said: _My general, you are a brave man!_
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Again, the plain duty is the near duty. A very common weakness keeps
+many people from finding what is near them interesting; they see that
+only on its paltry side. The distant, on the contrary, draws and
+fascinates them. In this way a fabulous amount of good-will is wasted.
+People burn with ardor for humanity, for the public good, for righting
+distant wrongs; they walk through life, their eyes fixed on marvelous
+sights along the horizon, treading meanwhile on the feet of passers-by,
+or jostling them without being aware of their existence.
+
+Strange infirmity, that keeps us from seeing our fellows at our very
+doors! People widely read and far-travelled are often not acquainted
+with their fellow-citizens, great or small. Their lives depend upon the
+coöperation of a multitude of beings whose lot remains to them quite
+indifferent. Not those to whom they owe their knowledge and culture, not
+their rulers, nor those who serve them and supply their needs, have ever
+attracted their attention. That there is ingratitude or improvidence in
+not knowing one's workmen, one's servants, all those in short with whom
+one has indispensable social relations--this has never come into their
+minds. Others go much farther. To certain wives, their husbands are
+strangers, and conversely. There are parents who do not know their
+children: their development, their thoughts, the dangers they run, the
+hopes they cherish, are to them a closed book. Many children do not know
+their parents, have no suspicion of their difficulties and struggles, no
+conception of their aims. And I am not speaking of those piteously
+disordered homes where all the relations are false, but of honorable
+families. Only, all these people are greatly preoccupied: each has his
+outside interest that fills all his time. The distant duty--very
+attractive, I don't deny--claims them entirely, and they are not
+conscious of the duty near at hand. I fear they will have their trouble
+for their pains. Each person's base of operations is the field of his
+immediate duty. Neglect this field, and all you undertake at a distance
+is compromised. First, then, be of your own country, your own city, your
+own home, your own church, your own work-shop; then, if you can, set out
+from this to go beyond it. That is the plain and natural order, and a
+man must fortify himself with very bad reasons to arrive at reversing
+it. At all events, the result of so strange a confusion of duties is
+that many people employ their time in all sorts of affairs except those
+in which we have a right to demand it. Each is occupied with something
+else than what concerns him, is absent from his post, ignores his trade.
+This is what complicates life. And it would be so simple for each one to
+be about his own matter.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Another form of simple duty. When damage is done, who should repair it?
+He who did it. This is just, but it is only theory, and the consequence
+of following the theory would be the evil in force until the malefactors
+were found and had offset it. But suppose they are not found? or suppose
+they can not or will not make amends?
+
+The rain falls on your head through a hole in the roof, or the wind
+blows in at a broken window. Will you wait to find the man who caused
+the mischief? You would certainly think that absurd. And yet such is
+often the practice. Children indignantly protest, "I didn't put it
+there, and I shall not take it away!" And most men reason after the same
+fashion. It is logic. But it is not the kind of logic that makes the
+world move forward.
+
+On the contrary, what we must learn, and what life repeats to us daily,
+is that the injury done by one must be repaired by another. One tears
+down, another builds up; one defaces, another restores; one stirs up
+quarrels, another appeases them; one makes tears to flow, another wipes
+them away; one lives for evil-doing, another dies for the right. And in
+the workings of this grievous law lies salvation. This also is logic,
+but a logic of facts which makes the logic of theories pale. The
+conclusion of the matter is not doubtful; a single-hearted man draws it
+thus: given the evil, the great thing is to make it good, and to set
+about it on the spot; well indeed if Messrs. the Malefactors will
+contribute to the reparation; but experience warns us not to count too
+much on their aid.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+But however simple duty may be, there is still need of strength to do
+it. In what does this strength consist, or where is it found? One could
+scarcely tire of asking. Duty is for man an enemy and an intruder, so
+long as it appears as an appeal from without. When it comes in through
+the door, he leaves by the window; when it blocks up the windows, he
+escapes by the roof. The more plainly we see it coming, the more surely
+we flee. It is like those police, representatives of public order and
+official justice, whom an adroit thief succeeds in evading. Alas! the
+officer, though he finally collar the thief, can only conduct him to the
+station, not along the right road. Before man is able to accomplish his
+duty, he must fall into the hands of another power than that which says,
+"Do this, do that; shun this, shun that, or else beware!"
+
+This is an interior power; it is love. When a man hates his work, or
+goes about it with indifference, all the forces of earth cannot make
+him follow it with enthusiasm. But he who loves his office moves of
+himself; not only is it needless to compel him, but it would be
+impossible to turn him aside. And this is true of everybody. The great
+thing is to have felt the sanctity and immortal beauty in our obscure
+destiny; to have been led by a series of experiences to love this life
+for its griefs and its hopes, to love men for their weakness and their
+greatness, and to belong to humanity through the heart, the intelligence
+and the soul. Then an unknown power takes possession of us, as the wind
+of the sails of a ship, and bears us toward pity and justice. And
+yielding to its irresistible impulse, we say: _I cannot help it,
+something is there stronger than I._ In so saying, the men of all times
+and places have designated a power that is above humanity, but which may
+dwell in men's hearts. And everything truly lofty within us appears to
+us as a manifestation of this mystery beyond. Noble feelings, like great
+thoughts and deeds, are things of inspiration. When the tree buds and
+bears fruit, it is because it draws vital forces from the soil, and
+receives light and warmth from the sun. If a man, in his humble sphere,
+in the midst of the ignorance and faults that are his inevitably,
+consecrates himself sincerely to his task, it is because he is in
+contact with the eternal source of goodness. This central force
+manifests itself under a thousand forms. Sometimes it is indomitable
+energy; sometimes winning tenderness; sometimes the militant spirit that
+grasps and uproots the evil; sometimes maternal solicitude, gathering to
+its arms from the wayside where it was perishing, some bruised and
+forgotten life; sometimes the humble patience of long research. All that
+it touches bears its seal, and the men it inspires know that through it
+we live and have our being. To serve it is their pleasure and reward.
+They are satisfied to be its instruments, and they no longer look at the
+outward glory of their office, well knowing that nothing is great,
+nothing small, but that our life and our deeds are only of worth because
+of the spirit which breathes through them.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SIMPLE NEEDS
+
+
+When we buy a bird of the fancier, the good man tells us briefly what is
+necessary for our new pensioner, and the whole thing--hygiene, food, and
+the rest--is comprehended in a dozen words. Likewise, to sum up the
+necessities of most men, a few concise lines would answer. Their régime
+is in general of supreme simplicity, and so long as they follow it, all
+is well with them, as with every obedient child of Mother Nature. Let
+them depart from it, complications arise, health fails, gayety vanishes.
+Only simple and natural living can keep a body in full vigor. Instead of
+remembering this basic principle, we fall into the strangest
+aberrations.
+
+What material things does a man need to live under the best conditions?
+A healthful diet, simple clothing, a sanitary dwelling-place, air and
+exercise. I am not going to enter into hygienic details, compose menus,
+or discuss model tenements and dress reform. My aim is to point out a
+direction and tell what advantage would come to each of us from ordering
+his life in a spirit of simplicity. To know that this spirit does not
+rule in our society we need but watch the lives of men of all classes.
+Ask different people, of very unlike surroundings, this question: What
+do you need to live? You will see how they respond. Nothing is more
+instructive. For some aboriginals of the Parisian asphalt, there is no
+life possible outside a region bounded by certain boulevards. There one
+finds the respirable air, the illuminating light, normal heat, classic
+cookery, and, in moderation, so many other things without which it would
+not be worth the while to promenade this round ball.
+
+On the various rungs of the bourgeois ladder people reply to the
+question, what is necessary to live? by figures varying with the degree
+of their ambition or education: and by education is oftenest understood
+the outward customs of life, the style of house, dress, table--an
+education precisely skin-deep. Upward from a certain income, fee, or
+salary, life becomes possible: below that it is impossible. We have seen
+men commit suicide because their means had fallen under a certain
+minimum. They preferred to disappear rather than retrench. Observe that
+this minimum, the cause of their despair, would have been sufficient for
+others of less exacting needs, and enviable to men whose tastes are
+modest.
+
+On lofty mountains vegetation changes with the altitude. There is the
+region of ordinary flora, that of the forests, that of pastures, that of
+bare rocks and glaciers. Above a certain zone wheat is no longer found,
+but the vine still prospers. The oak ceases in the low regions, the pine
+flourishes at considerable heights. Human life, with its needs, reminds
+one of these phenomena of vegetation.
+
+At a certain altitude of fortune the financier thrives, the club-man,
+the society woman, all those in short for whom the strictly necessary
+includes a certain number of domestics and equipages, as well as several
+town and country houses. Further on flourishes the rich upper middle
+class, with its own standards and life. In other regions we find men of
+ample, moderate, or small means, and very unlike exigencies. Then come
+the people--artisans, day-laborers, peasants, in short, the masses, who
+live dense and serried like the thick, sturdy growths on the summits of
+the mountains, where the larger vegetation can no longer find
+nourishment. In all these different regions of society men live, and no
+matter in which particular regions they flourish, all are alike human
+beings, bearing the same mark. How strange that among fellows there
+should be such a prodigious difference in requirements! And here the
+analogies of our comparison fail us. Plants and animals of the same
+families have identical wants. In human life we observe quite the
+contrary. What conclusion shall we draw from this, if not that with us
+there is a considerable elasticity in the nature and number of needs?
+
+Is it well, is it favorable to the development of the individual and his
+happiness, and to the development and happiness of society, that man
+should have a multitude of needs, and bend his energies to their
+satisfaction? Let us return for a moment to our comparison with inferior
+beings. Provided that their essential wants are satisfied, they live
+content. Is this true of men? No. In all classes of society we find
+discontent. I leave completely out of the question those who lack the
+necessities of life. One cannot with justice count in the number of
+malcontents those from whom hunger, cold, and misery wring complaints. I
+am considering now that multitude of people who live under conditions at
+least supportable. Whence comes their heart-burning? Why is it found not
+only among those of modest though sufficient means, but also under
+shades of ever-increasing refinement, all along the ascending scale,
+even to opulence and the summits of social place? They talk of the
+contented middle classes. Who talk of them? People who, judging from
+without, think that as soon as one begins to enjoy ease he ought to be
+satisfied. But the middle classes themselves--do they consider
+themselves satisfied? Not the least in the world. If there are people at
+once rich and content, be assured that they are content because they
+know how to be so, not because they are rich. An animal is satisfied
+when it has eaten; it lies down and sleeps. A man also can lie down and
+sleep for a time, but it never lasts. When he becomes accustomed to this
+contentment, he tires of it and demands a greater. Man's appetite is not
+appeased by food; it increases with eating. This may seem absurd, but it
+is strictly true.
+
+And the fact that those who make the most outcry are almost always those
+who should find the best reasons for contentment, proves unquestionably
+that happiness is not allied to the number of our needs and the zeal we
+put into their cultivation. It is for everyone's interest to let this
+truth sink deep into his mind. If it does not, if he does not by
+decisive action succeed in limiting his needs, he risks a descent,
+insensible and beyond retreat, along the declivity of desire.
+
+He who lives to eat, drink, sleep, dress, take his walk,--in short,
+pamper himself all that he can--be it the courtier basking in the sun,
+the drunken laborer, the commoner serving his belly, the woman absorbed
+in her toilettes, the profligate of low estate or high, or simply the
+ordinary pleasure-lover, a "good fellow," but too obedient to material
+needs--that man or woman is on the downward way of desire, and the
+descent is fatal. Those who follow it obey the same laws as a body on an
+inclined plane. Dupes of an illusion forever repeated, they think: "Just
+a few steps more, the last, toward the thing down there that we covet;
+then we will halt." But the velocity they gain sweeps them on, and the
+further they go the less able they are to resist it.
+
+Here is the secret of the unrest, the madness, of many of our
+contemporaries. Having condemned their will to the service of their
+appetites, they suffer the penalty. They are delivered up to violent
+passions which devour their flesh, crush their bones, suck their blood,
+and cannot be sated. This is not a lofty moral denunciation. I have
+been listening to what life says, and have recorded, as I heard them,
+some of the truths that resound in every square.
+
+Has drunkenness, inventive as it is of new drinks, found the means of
+quenching thirst? Not at all. It might rather be called the art of
+making thirst inextinguishable. Frank libertinage, does it deaden the
+sting of the senses? No; it envenoms it, converts natural desire into a
+morbid obsession and makes it the dominant passion. Let your needs rule
+you, pamper them--you will see them multiply like insects in the sun.
+The more you give them, the more they demand. He is senseless who seeks
+for happiness in material prosperity alone. As well undertake to fill
+the cask of the Danaïdes. To those who have millions, millions are
+wanting; to those who have thousands, thousands. Others lack a
+twenty-franc piece or a hundred sous. When they have a chicken in the
+pot, they ask for a goose; when they have the goose, they wish it were a
+turkey, and so on. We shall never learn how fatal this tendency is.
+There are too many humble people who wish to imitate the great, too many
+poor working-men who ape the well-to-do middle classes, too many
+shop-girls who play at being ladies, too many clerks who act the
+club-man or sportsman; and among those in easy circumstances and the
+rich, are too many people who forget that what they possess could serve
+a better purpose than procuring pleasure for themselves, only to find in
+the end that one never has enough. Our needs, in place of the servants
+that they should be, have become a turbulent and seditious crowd, a
+legion of tyrants in miniature. A man enslaved to his needs may best be
+compared to a bear with a ring in its nose, that is led about and made
+to dance at will. The likeness is not flattering, but you will grant
+that it is true. It is in the train of their own needs that so many of
+those men are dragged along who rant for liberty, progress, and I don't
+know what else. They cannot take a step without asking themselves if it
+might not irritate their masters. How many men and women have gone on
+and on, even to dishonesty, for the sole reason that they had too many
+needs and could not resign themselves to simple living. There are many
+guests in the chambers of Mazas who could give us much light on the
+subject of too exigent needs.
+
+Let me tell you the story of an excellent man whom I knew. He tenderly
+loved his wife and children, and they all lived together, in France, in
+comfort and plenty, but with little of the luxury the wife coveted.
+Always short of money, though with a little management he might have
+been at ease, he ended by exiling himself to a distant colony, leaving
+his wife and children in the mother country. I don't know how the poor
+man can feel off there; but his family has a finer apartment, more
+beautiful toilettes, and what passes for an equipage. At present they
+are perfectly contented, but soon they will be used to this
+luxury--rudimentary after all. Then Madam will find her furniture common
+and her equipage mean. If this man loves his wife--and that cannot be
+doubted--he will migrate to the moon if there is hope of a larger
+stipend. In other cases the rôles are reversed, and the wife and
+children are sacrificed to the ravenous needs of the head of the family,
+whom an irregular life, play, and countless other costly follies have
+robbed of all dignity. Between his appetites and his rôle of father he
+has decided for the former, and he slowly drifts toward the most abject
+egoism.
+
+This forgetfulness of all responsibility, this gradual benumbing of
+noble feeling, is not alone to be found among pleasure-seekers of the
+upper classes: the people also are infected. I know more than one little
+household, which ought to be happy, where the mother has only pain and
+heartache day and night, the children are barefoot, and there is great
+ado for bread. Why? Because too much money is needed by the father. To
+speak only of the expenditure for alcohol, everybody knows the
+proportions that has reached in the last twenty years. The sums
+swallowed up in this gulf are fabulous--twice the indemnity of the war
+of 1870. How many legitimate needs could have been satisfied with that
+which has been thrown away on these artificial ones! The reign of wants
+is by no means the reign of brotherhood. The more things a man desires
+for himself, the less he can do for his neighbor, and even for those
+attached to him by ties of blood.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+The destruction of happiness, independence, moral fineness, even of the
+sentiment of common interests--such is the result of the reign of needs.
+A multitude of other unfortunate things might be added, of which not the
+least is the disturbance of the public welfare. When society has too
+great needs, it is absorbed with the present, sacrifices to it the
+conquests of the past, immolates to it the future. After us the deluge!
+To raze the forests in order to get gold; to squander your patrimony in
+youth, destroying in a day the fruit of long years; to warm your house
+by burning your furniture; to burden the future with debts for the sake
+of present pleasure; to live by expedients and sow for the morrow
+trouble, sickness, ruin, envy and hate--the enumeration of all the
+misdeeds of this fatal régime has no end.
+
+On the other hand, if we hold to simple needs we avoid all these evils
+and replace them by measureless good. That temperance and sobriety are
+the best guardians of health is an old story. They spare him who
+observes them many a misery that saddens existence; they insure him
+health, love of action, mental poise. Whether it be a question of food,
+dress, or dwelling, simplicity of taste is also a source of independence
+and safety. The more simply you live, the more secure is your future;
+you are less at the mercy of surprises and reverses. An illness or a
+period of idleness does not suffice to dispossess you: a change of
+position, even considerable, does not put you to confusion. Having
+simple needs, you find it less painful to accustom yourself to the
+hazards of fortune. You remain a man, though you lose your office or
+your income, because the foundation on which your life rests is not your
+table, your cellar, your horses, your goods and chattels, or your money.
+In adversity you will not act like a nursling deprived of its bottle and
+rattle. Stronger, better armed for the struggle, presenting, like those
+with shaven heads, less advantage to the hands of your enemy, you will
+also be of more profit to your neighbor. For you will not rouse his
+jealousy, his base desires or his censure, by your luxury, your
+prodigality, or the spectacle of a sycophant's life; and, less absorbed
+in your own comfort, you will find the means of working for that of
+others.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+SIMPLE PLEASURES
+
+
+Do you find life amusing in these days? For my part, on the whole, it
+seems rather depressing, and I fear that my opinion is not altogether
+personal. As I observe the lives of my contemporaries, and listen to
+their talk, I find myself unhappily confirmed in the opinion that they
+do not get much pleasure out of things. And certainly it is not from
+lack of trying; but it must be acknowledged that their success is
+meagre. Where can the fault be?
+
+Some accuse politics or business; others social problems or militarism.
+We meet only an embarrassment of choice when we start to unstring the
+chaplet of our carking cares. Suppose we set out in pursuit of pleasure.
+There is too much pepper in our soup to make it palatable. Our arms are
+filled with a multitude of embarrassments, any one of which would be
+enough to spoil our temper. From morning till night, wherever we go, the
+people we meet are hurried, worried, preoccupied. Some have spilt their
+good blood in the miserable conflicts of petty politics: others are
+disheartened by the meanness and jealousy they have encountered in the
+world of literature or art. Commercial competition troubles the sleep of
+not a few. The crowded curricula of study and the exigencies of their
+opening careers, spoil life for young men. The working classes suffer
+the consequences of a ceaseless industrial struggle. It is becoming
+disagreeable to govern, because authority is diminishing; to teach,
+because respect is vanishing. Wherever one turns there is matter for
+discontent.
+
+And yet history shows us certain epochs of upheaval which were as
+lacking in idyllic tranquillity as is our own, but which the gravest
+events did not prevent from being gay. It even seems as if the
+seriousness of affairs, the uncertainty of the morrow, the violence of
+social convulsions, sometimes became a new source of vitality. It is not
+a rare thing to hear soldiers singing between two battles, and I think
+myself nowise mistaken in saying that human joy has celebrated its
+finest triumphs under the greatest tests of endurance. But to sleep
+peacefully on the eve of battle or to exult at the stake, men had then
+the stimulus of an internal harmony which we perhaps lack. Joy is not in
+things, it is in us, and I hold to the belief that the causes of our
+present unrest, of this contagious discontent spreading everywhere, are
+in us at least as much as in exterior conditions.
+
+To give one's self up heartily to diversion one must feel himself on a
+solid basis, must believe in life and find it within him. And here lies
+our weakness. So many of us--even, alas! the younger men--are at
+variance with life; and I do not speak of philosophers only. How do you
+think a man can be amused while he has his doubts whether after all life
+is worth living? Besides this, one observes a disquieting depression of
+vital force, which must be attributed to the abuse man makes of his
+sensations. Excess of all kinds has blurred our senses and poisoned our
+faculty for happiness. Human nature succumbs under the irregularities
+imposed upon it. Deeply attainted at its root, the desire to live,
+persistent in spite of everything, seeks satisfaction in cheats and
+baubles. In medical science we have recourse to artificial respiration,
+artificial alimentation, and galvanism. So, too, around expiring
+pleasure we see a crowd of its votaries, exerting themselves to reawaken
+it, to reanimate it Most ingenious means have been invented; it can
+never be said that expense has been spared. Everything has been tried,
+the possible and the impossible. But in all these complicated alembics
+no one has ever arrived at distilling a drop of veritable joy. We must
+not confound pleasure with the instruments of pleasure. To be a painter,
+does it suffice to arm one's self with a brush, or does the purchase at
+great cost of a Stradivarius make one a musician? No more, if you had
+the whole paraphernalia of amusement in the perfection of its
+ingenuity, would it advance you upon your road. But with a bit of
+crayon a great artist makes an immortal sketch. It needs talent or
+genius to paint; and to amuse one's self, the faculty of being happy:
+whoever possesses it is amused at slight cost. This faculty is destroyed
+by scepticism, artificial living, over-abuse; it is fostered by
+confidence, moderation and normal habits of thought and action.
+
+An excellent proof of my proposition, and one very easily encountered,
+lies in the fact that wherever life is simple and sane, true pleasure
+accompanies it as fragrance does uncultivated flowers. Be this life
+hard, hampered, devoid of all things ordinarily considered as the very
+conditions of pleasure, the rare and delicate plant, joy, flourishes
+there. It springs up between the flags of the pavement, on an arid wall,
+in the fissure of a rock. We ask ourselves how it comes, and whence: but
+it lives; while in the soft warmth of conservatories or in fields richly
+fertilized you cultivate it at a golden cost to see it fade and die in
+your hand.
+
+Ask actors what audience is happiest at the play; they will tell you the
+popular one. The reason is not hard to grasp. To these people the play
+is an exception, they are not bored by it from over-indulgence. And,
+too, to them it is a rest from rude toil. The pleasure they enjoy they
+have honestly earned, and they know its cost as they know that of each
+sou earned by the sweat of their labor. More, they have not frequented
+the wings, they have no intrigues with the actresses, they do not see
+the wires pulled. To them it is all real. And so they feel pleasure
+unalloyed. I think I see the sated sceptic, whose monocle glistens in
+that box, cast a disdainful glance over the smiling crowd.
+
+"Poor stupid creatures, ignorant and gross!"
+
+And yet they are the true livers, while he is an artificial product, a
+mannikin, incapable of experiencing this fine and salutary intoxication
+of an hour of frank pleasure.
+
+Unhappily, ingenuousness is disappearing, even in the rural districts.
+We see the people of our cities, and those of the country in their turn,
+breaking with the good traditions. The mind, warped by alcohol, by the
+passion for gambling, and by unhealthy literature, contracts little by
+little perverted tastes. Artificial life makes irruption into
+communities once simple in their pleasures, and it is like phylloxera to
+the vine. The robust tree of rustic joy finds its sap drained, its
+leaves turning yellow.
+
+Compare a _fête champêtre_ of the good old style with the village
+festivals, so-called, of to-day. In the one case, in the honored setting
+of antique costumes, genuine countrymen sing the folk songs, dance
+rustic dances, regale themselves with native drinks, and seem entirely
+in their element. They take their pleasure as the blacksmith forges, as
+the cascade tumbles over the rocks, as the colts frisk in the meadows.
+It is contagious: it stirs your heart. In spite of yourself you are
+ready to cry: "Bravo, my children. That is fine!" You want to join in.
+In the other case, you see villagers disguised as city folk,
+countrywomen made hideous by the modiste, and, as the chief ornament of
+the festival, a lot of degenerates who bawl the songs of music halls;
+and sometimes in the place of honor, a group of tenth-rate barnstormers,
+imported for the occasion, to civilize these rustics and give them a
+taste of refined pleasures. For drinks, liquors mixed with brandy or
+absinthe: in the whole thing neither originality nor picturesqueness.
+License, indeed, and clownishness, but not that _abandon_ which
+ingenuous joy brings in its train.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+This question of pleasure is capital. Staid people generally neglect it
+as a frivolity; utilitarians, as a costly superfluity. Those whom we
+designate as pleasure-seekers forage in this delicate domain like wild
+boars in a garden. No one seems to doubt the immense human interest
+attached to joy. It is a sacred flame that must be fed, and that throws
+a splendid radiance over life. He who takes pains to foster it
+accomplishes a work as profitable for humanity as he who builds bridges,
+pierces tunnels, or cultivates the ground. So to order one's life as to
+keep, amid toils and suffering, the faculty of happiness, and be able to
+propagate it in a sort of salutary contagion among one's fellow-men, is
+to do a work of fraternity in the noblest sense. To give a trifling
+pleasure, smooth an anxious brow, bring a little light into dark
+paths--what a truly divine office in the midst of this poor humanity!
+But it is only in great simplicity of heart that one succeeds in
+filling it.
+
+We are not simple enough to be happy and to render others so. We lack
+the singleness of heart and the self-forgetfulness. We spread joy, as we
+do consolation, by such methods as to obtain negative results. To
+console a person, what do we do? We set to work to dispute his
+suffering, persuade him that he is mistaken in thinking himself unhappy.
+In reality, our language translated into truthful speech would amount to
+this: "You suffer, my friend? That is strange; you must be mistaken, for
+I feel nothing." As the only human means of soothing grief is to share
+it in the heart, how must a sufferer feel, consoled in this fashion?
+
+To divert our neighbor, make him pass an agreeable hour, we set out in
+the same way. We invite him to admire our versatility, to laugh at our
+wit, to frequent our house, to sit at our table; through it all, our
+desire to shine breaks forth. Sometimes, also, with a patron's
+prodigality, we offer him the beneficence of a public entertainment of
+our own choosing, unless we ask him to find amusement at our home, as we
+sometimes do to make up a party at cards, with the _arrière-pensée_ of
+exploiting him to our own profit. Do you think it the height of
+pleasure for others to admire us, to admit our superiority, and to act
+as our tools? Is there anything in the world so disgusting as to feel
+one's self patronized, made capital of, enrolled in a claque? To give
+pleasure to others and take it ourselves, we have to begin by removing
+the ego, which is hateful, and then keep it in chains as long as the
+diversions last. There is no worse kill-joy than the ego. We must be
+good children, sweet and kind, button our coats over our medals and
+titles, and with our whole heart put ourselves at the disposal of
+others.
+
+Let us sometimes live--be it only for an hour, and though we must lay
+all else aside--to make others smile. The sacrifice is only in
+appearance; no one finds more pleasure for himself than he who knows
+how, without ostentation, to give himself that he may procure for those
+around him a moment of forgetfulness and happiness.
+
+When shall we be so simply and truly _men_ as not to obtrude our
+personal business and distresses upon the people we meet socially? May
+we not forget for an hour our pretensions, our strife, our distributions
+into sets and cliques--in short, our "parts," and become as children
+once more, to laugh again that good laugh which does so much to make the
+world better?
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Here I feel drawn to speak of something very particular, and in so doing
+to offer my well-disposed readers an opportunity to go about a splendid
+business. I want to call their attention to several classes of people
+seldom thought of with reference to their pleasures.
+
+It is understood that a broom serves only to sweep, a watering-pot to
+water plants, a coffee-mill to grind coffee, and likewise it is supposed
+that a nurse is designed only to care for the sick, a professor to
+teach, a priest to preach, bury, and confess, a sentinel to mount guard;
+and the conclusion is drawn that the people given up to the more serious
+business of life are dedicated to labor, like the ox. Amusement is
+incompatible with their activities. Pushing this view still further, we
+think ourselves warranted in believing that the infirm, the afflicted,
+the bankrupt, the vanquished in life's battle, and all those who carry
+heavy burdens, are in the shade, like the northern slopes of mountains,
+and that it is so of necessity. Whence the conclusion that serious
+people have no need of pleasure, and that to offer it to them would be
+unseemly; while as to the afflicted, there would be a lack of delicacy
+in breaking the thread of their sad meditations. It seems therefore to
+be understood that certain persons are condemned to be _always_ serious,
+that we should approach them in a serious frame of mind, and talk to
+them only of serious things: so, too, when we visit the sick or
+unfortunate; we should leave our smiles at the door, compose our face
+and manner to dolefulness, and talk of anything heartrending. Thus we
+carry darkness to those in darkness, shade to those in shade. We
+increase the isolation of solitary lives and the monotony of the dull
+and sad. We wall up some existences as it were in dungeons; and because
+the grass grows round their deserted prison-house, we speak low in
+approaching it, as though it were a tomb. Who suspects the work of
+infernal cruelty which is thus accomplished every day in the world! This
+ought not to be.
+
+When you find men or women whose lives are lost in hard tasks, or in the
+painful office of seeking out human wretchedness and binding up wounds,
+remember that they are beings made like you, that they have the same
+wants, that there are hours when they need pleasure and diversion. You
+will not turn them aside from their mission by making them laugh
+occasionally--these people who see so many tears and griefs; on the
+contrary, you will give them strength to go on the better with their
+work.
+
+And when people whom you know are in trial, do not draw a sanitary
+cordon round them--as though they had the plague--that you cross only
+with precautions which recall to them their sad lot. On the contrary,
+after showing all your sympathy, all your respect for their grief,
+comfort them, help them to take up life again; carry them a breath from
+the out-of-doors--something in short to remind them that their
+misfortune does not shut them off from the world.
+
+And so extend your sympathy to those whose work quite absorbs them, who
+are, so to put it, tied down. The world is full of men and women
+sacrificed to others, who never have either rest or pleasure, and to
+whom the least relaxation, the slightest respite, is a priceless good.
+And this minimum of comfort could be so easily found for them if only
+we thought of it. But the broom, you know, is made for sweeping, and it
+seems as though it could not be fatigued. Let us rid ourselves of this
+criminal blindness which prevents us from seeing the exhaustion of those
+who are always in the breach. Relieve the sentinels perishing at their
+posts, give Sisyphus an hour to breathe; take for a moment the place of
+the mother, a slave to the cares of her house and her children;
+sacrifice an hour of our sleep for someone worn by long vigils with the
+sick. Young girl, tired sometimes perhaps of your walk with your
+governess, take the cook's apron, and give her the key to the fields.
+You will at once make others happy and be happy yourself. We go
+unconcernedly along beside our brothers who are bent under burdens we
+might take upon ourselves for a minute. And this short respite would
+suffice to soothe aches, revive the flame of joy in many a heart, and
+open up a wide place for brotherliness. How much better would one
+understand another if he knew how to put himself heartily in that
+other's place, and how much more pleasure there would be in life!
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I have spoken too fully elsewhere of systematizing amusements for the
+young, to return to it here in detail.[B] But I wish to say in substance
+what cannot be too often repeated: If you wish youth to be moral, do not
+neglect its pleasures, or leave to chance the task of providing them.
+You will perhaps say that young people do not like to have their
+amusements submitted to regulations, and that besides, in our day, they
+are already over-spoiled and divert themselves only too much. I shall
+reply, first, that one may suggest ideas, indicate directions, offer
+opportunities for amusement, without making any regulations whatever. In
+the second place, I shall make you see that you deceive yourselves in
+thinking youth has too much diversion. Aside from amusements that are
+artificial, enervating and immoral, that blight life instead of making
+it bloom in splendor, there are very few left to-day. Abuse, that enemy
+of legitimate use, has so befouled the world, that it is becoming
+difficult to touch anything but what is unclean: whence watchfulness,
+warnings and endless prohibitions. One can hardly stir without
+encountering something that resembles unhealthy pleasure. Among young
+people of to-day, particularly the self-respecting, the dearth of
+amusements causes real suffering. One is not weaned from this generous
+wine without discomfort. Impossible to prolong this state of affairs
+without deepening the shadow round the heads of the younger generations.
+We must come to their aid. Our children are heirs of a joyless world. We
+bequeath them cares, hard questions, a life heavy with shackles and
+complexities. Let us at least make an effort to brighten the morning of
+their days. Let us interest ourselves in their sports, find them
+pleasure-grounds, open to them our hearts and our homes. Let us bring
+the family into our amusements. Let gayety cease to be a commodity of
+export. Let us call in our sons, whom our gloomy interiors send out into
+the street, and our daughters, moping in dismal solitude. Let us
+multiply anniversaries, family parties, and excursions. Let us raise
+good humor in our homes to the height of an institution. Let the
+schools, too, do their part. Let masters and students--school-boys and
+college-boys--meet together oftener for amusement. It will be so much
+the better for serious work. There is no such aid to understanding one's
+professor as to have laughed in his company; and conversely, to be well
+understood a pupil must be met elsewhere than in class or examination.
+
+And who will furnish the money? What a question! That is exactly the
+error. Pleasure and money: people take them for the two wings of the
+same bird! A gross illusion! Pleasure, like all other truly precious
+things in this world, cannot be bought or sold. If you wish to be
+amused, you must do your part toward it; that is the essential. There is
+no prohibition against opening your purse, if you can do it, and find it
+desirable. But I assure you it is not indispensable. Pleasure and
+simplicity are two old acquaintances. Entertain simply, meet your
+friends simply. If you come from work well done, are as amiable and
+genuine as possible toward your companions, and speak no evil of the
+absent, your success is sure.
+
+[B] See "Youth," the chapter on "Joy."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE MERCENARY SPIRIT AND SIMPLICITY
+
+
+We have in passing touched upon a certain wide-spread prejudice which
+attributes to money a magic power. Having come so near enchanted ground
+we will not retire in awe, but plant a firm foot here, persuaded of many
+truths that should be spoken. They are not new, but how they are
+forgotten!
+
+I see no possible way of doing without money. The only thing that
+theorists or legislators who accuse it of all our ills have hitherto
+achieved, has been to change its name or form. But they have never been
+able to dispense with a symbol representative of the commercial value of
+things. One might as well wish to do away with written language as to do
+away with money. Nevertheless, this question of a circulating medium is
+very troublesome. It forms one of the chief elements of complication in
+our life. The economic difficulties amid which we still flounder, social
+conventionalities, and the entire organization of modern life, have
+carried gold to a rank so eminent that it is not astonishing to find the
+imagination of man attributing to it a sort of royalty. And it is on
+this side that we shall attack the problem.
+
+The term money has for appendage that of merchandise. If there were no
+merchandise there would be no money; but as long as there is merchandise
+there will be money, little matter under what form. The source of all
+the abuses which centre around money lies in a lack of discrimination.
+People have confused under the term and idea of merchandise, things
+which have no relation with one another. They have attempted to give a
+venal value to things which neither could have it nor ought to. The idea
+of purchase and sale has invaded ground where it may justly be
+considered an enemy and a usurper. It is reasonable that wheat,
+potatoes, wine, fabrics, should be bought and sold, and it is perfectly
+natural that a man's labor procure him rights to life, and that there be
+put into his hands something whose value represents them; but here
+already the analogy ceases to be complete. A man's labor is not
+merchandise in the same sense as a sack of flour or a ton of coal. Into
+this labor enter elements which cannot be valued in money. In short,
+there are things which can in no wise be bought: sleep, for instance,
+knowledge of the future, talent. He who offers them for sale must be
+considered a fool or an impostor. And yet there are gentlemen who coin
+money by such traffic. They sell what does not belong to them, and
+their dupes pay fictitious values in veritable coin. So, too, there are
+dealers in pleasure, dealers in love, dealers in miracles, dealers in
+patriotism, and the title of merchant, so honorable when it represents a
+man selling that which is in truth a commodity of trade, becomes the
+worst of stigmas when there is question of the heart, of religion, of
+country.
+
+Almost all men are agreed that to barter with one's sentiments, his
+honor, his cloth, his pen, or his note, is infamous. Unfortunately this
+idea, which suffers no contradiction as a theory, and which thus stated
+seems rather a commonplace than a high moral truth, has infinite trouble
+to make its way in practice. Traffic has invaded the world. The
+money-changers are established even in the sanctuary, and by sanctuary I
+do not mean religious things alone, but whatever mankind holds sacred
+and inviolable. It is not gold that complicates, corrupts, and debases
+life; it is our mercenary spirit.
+
+The mercenary spirit resolves everything into a single question: _How
+much is that going to bring me?_ and sums up everything in a single
+axiom: _With money you can procure anything._ Following these two
+principles of conduct, a society may descend to a degree of infamy
+impossible to describe or to imagine.
+
+_How much is it going to bring me?_ This question, so legitimate while
+it concerns those precautions which each ought to take to assure his
+subsistence by his labor, becomes pernicious as soon as it passes its
+limits and dominates the whole life. This is so true that it vitiates
+even the toil which gains our daily bread. I furnish paid labor; nothing
+could be better: but if to inspire me in this labor I have only the
+desire to get the pay, nothing could be worse. A man whose only motive
+for action is his wages, does a bad piece of work: what interests him is
+not the doing, it's the gold. If he can retrench in pains without
+lessening his gains, be assured that he will do it. Plowman, mason,
+factory laborer, he who loves not his work puts into it neither interest
+nor dignity--is, in short, a bad workman. It is not well to confide
+one's life to a doctor who is wholly engrossed in his fees, for the
+spring of his action is the desire to garnish his purse with the
+contents of yours. If it is for his interest that you should suffer
+longer, he is capable of fostering your malady instead of fortifying
+your strength. The instructor of children who cares for his work only so
+far as it brings him profit, is a sad teacher; for his pay is
+indifferent, and his teaching more indifferent still. Of what value is
+the mercenary journalist? The day you write for the dollar, your prose
+is not worth the dollar you write for. The more elevated in kind is the
+object of human labor, the more the mercenary spirit, if it be present,
+makes this labor void and corrupts it. There are a thousand reasons to
+say that all toil merits its wage, that every man who devotes his
+energies to providing for his life should have his place in the sun, and
+that he who does nothing useful, does not gain his livelihood, in short,
+is only a parasite. But there is no greater social error than to make
+gain the sole motive of action. The best we put into our work--be that
+work done by strength of muscle, warmth of heart, or concentration of
+mind--is precisely that for which no one can pay us. Nothing better
+proves that man is not a machine than this fact: two men at work with
+the same forces and the same movements, produce totally different
+results. Where lies the cause of this phenomenon? In the divergence of
+their intentions. One has the mercenary spirit, the other has singleness
+of purpose. Both receive their pay, but the labor of the one is barren;
+the other has put his soul into his work. The work of the first is like
+a grain of sand, out of which nothing comes through all eternity; the
+other's work is like the living seed thrown into the ground; it
+germinates and brings forth harvests. This is the secret which explains
+why so many people have failed while employing the very processes by
+which others succeed. Automatons do not reproduce their kind, and
+mercenary labor yields no fruit.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Unquestionably we must bow before economic facts, and recognize the
+difficulties of living: from day to day it becomes more imperative to
+combine well one's forces in order to succeed in feeding, clothing,
+housing, and bringing up a family. He who does not rightly take account
+of these crying necessities, who makes no calculation, no provision for
+the future, is but a visionary or an incompetent, and runs the risk of
+sooner or later asking alms from those at whose parsimony he has
+sneered. And yet, what would become of us if these cares absorbed us
+entirely? if, mere accountants, we should wish to measure our effort by
+the money it brings, do nothing that does not end in a receipt, and
+consider as things worthless or pains lost whatever cannot be drawn up
+in figures on the pages of a ledger? Did our mothers look for pay in
+loving us and caring for us? What would become of filial piety if we
+asked it for loving and caring for our aged parents?
+
+What does it cost you to speak the truth? Misunderstandings, sometimes
+sufferings and persecutions. To defend your country? Weariness, wounds
+and often death. To do good? Annoyance, ingratitude, even resentment.
+Self-sacrifice enters into all the essential actions of humanity. I defy
+the closest calculators to maintain their position in the world without
+ever appealing to aught but their calculations. True, those who know how
+to make their "pile" are rated as men of ability. But look a little
+closer. How much of it do they owe to the unselfishness of the
+simple-hearted? Would they have succeeded had they met only shrewd men
+of their own sort, having for device: "No money, no service?" Let us be
+outspoken; it is due to certain people who do not count too rigorously,
+that the world gets on. The most beautiful acts of service and the
+hardest tasks have generally little remuneration or none. Fortunately
+there are always men ready for unselfish deeds; and even for those paid
+only in suffering, though they cost gold, peace, and even life. The part
+these men play is often painful and discouraging. Who of us has not
+heard recitals of experiences wherein the narrator regretted some past
+kindness he had done, some trouble he had taken, to have nothing but
+vexation in return? These confidences generally end thus: "It was folly
+to do the thing!" Sometimes it is right so to judge; for it is always a
+mistake to cast pearls before swine; but how many lives there are whose
+sole acts of real beauty are these very ones of which the doers repent
+because of men's ingratitude! Our wish for humanity is that the number
+of these foolish deeds may go on increasing.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+And now I arrive at the _credo_ of the mercenary spirit. It is
+characterized by brevity. For the mercenary man, the law and the
+prophets are contained in this one axiom: _With money you can get
+anything._ From a surface view of our social life, nothing seems more
+evident. "The sinews of war," "the shining mark," "the key that opens
+all doors," "king money!"--If one gathered up all the sayings about the
+glory and power of gold, he could make a litany longer than that which
+is chanted in honor of the Virgin. You must be without a penny, if only
+for a day or two, and try to live in this world of ours, to have any
+idea of the needs of him whose purse is empty. I invite those who love
+contrasts and unforeseen situations, to attempt to live without money
+three days, and far from their friends and acquaintances--in short, far
+from the society in which they are somebody. They will gain more
+experience in forty-eight hours than in a year otherwise. Alas for some
+people! they have this experience thrust upon them, and when veritable
+ruin descends around their heads, it is useless to remain in their own
+country, among the companions of their youth, their former colleagues,
+even those indebted to them. People affect to know them no longer. With
+what bitterness do they comment on the creed of money:--With gold one
+may have what he will; without it, impossible to have anything! They
+become pariahs, lepers, whom everyone shuns. Flies swarm round cadavers,
+men round gold. Take away the gold, nobody is there. Oh, it has caused
+tears to flow, this creed of gain! bitter tears, tears of blood, even
+from those very eyes which once adored the golden calf.
+
+And with it all, this creed is false, quite false. I shall not advance
+to the attack with hackneyed tales of the rich man astray in a desert,
+who cannot get even a drop of water for his gold; or the decrepit
+millionaire who would give half he has to buy from a stalwart fellow
+without a cent, his twenty years and his lusty health. No more shall I
+attempt to prove that one cannot buy happiness. So many people who have
+money and so many more who have not would smile at this truth as the
+hardest ridden of saws. But I shall appeal to the common experience of
+each of you, to make you put your finger on the clumsy lie hidden
+beneath an axiom that all the world goes about repeating.
+
+Fill your purse to the best of your means, and let us set out for one of
+the watering-places of which there are so many. I mean some little town
+formerly unknown and full of simple folk, respectful and hospitable,
+among whom it was good to be, and cost little. Fame with her hundred
+trumpets has announced them to the world, and shown them how they can
+profit from their situation, their climate, their personality. You start
+out, on the faith of Dame Rumor, flattering yourself that with your
+money you are going to find a quiet place to rest, and, far from the
+world of civilization and convention, weave a bit of poetry into the
+warp of your days.
+
+The beginning is good. Nature's setting and some patriarchal costumes,
+slow to disappear, delight you. But as time passes, the impression is
+spoiled. The reverse side of things begins to show. This which you
+thought was as true antique as family heirlooms, is naught but trickery
+to mystify the credulous. Everything is labeled, all is for sale, from
+the earth to the inhabitants. These primitives have become the most
+consummate of sharpers. Given your money, they have resolved the problem
+of getting it with the least expense to themselves. On all sides are
+nets and traps, like spider-webs, and the fly that this gentry lies
+snugly in wait for is _you_. This is what twenty or thirty years of
+venality has done for a population once simple and honest, whose contact
+was grateful indeed to men worn by city life. Home-made bread has
+disappeared, butter comes from the dealer, they know to an art how to
+skim milk and adulterate wine; they have all the vices of dwellers in
+cities without their virtues.
+
+As you leave, you count your money. So much is wanting, that you make
+complaint. You are wrong. One never pays too dear for the conviction
+that there are things which money will not buy.
+
+You have need in your house of an intelligent and competent servant:
+attempt to find this _rara avis_. According to the principle that with
+money one may get anything, you ought, as the position you offer is
+inferior, ordinary, good, or exceptional, to find servants unskilled,
+average, excellent, superior. But all those who present themselves for
+the vacant post are listed in the last category, and are fortified with
+certificates to support their pretensions. It is true that nine times
+out of ten, when put to the test, these experts are found totally
+wanting. Then why did they engage themselves with you? They ought in
+truth to reply as does the cook in the comedy, who is dearly paid and
+proves to know nothing.
+
+    "Why did you hire out as a _cordon bleu_?
+    _It was to get bigger commissions."_
+
+That is the great affair. You will always find people who like to get
+big wages. More rarely you find capability. And if you are looking for
+probity, the difficulty increases. Mercenaries may be had for the
+asking; faithfulness is another thing. Far be it from me to deny the
+existence of faithful servants, at once intelligent and upright. But you
+will encounter as many, if not more, among the illy paid as among those
+most highly salaried. And it little matters where you find them, you may
+be sure that they are not faithful in their own interest; they are
+faithful because they have somewhat of that simplicity which renders us
+capable of self-abnegation.
+
+We also hear on all sides the adage that money is the sinews of war.
+There is no question but that war costs much money, and we know
+something about it. Does this mean that in order to defend herself
+against her enemies and to honor her flag, a country need only be rich?
+In olden time the Greeks took it upon themselves to teach the Persians
+the contrary, and this lesson will never cease to be repeated in
+history. With money ships, cannon, horses may be bought; but not so
+military genius, administrative wisdom, discipline, enthusiasm. Put
+millions into the hands of your recruiters, and charge them to bring you
+a great leader and an army. You will find a hundred captains instead of
+one, and a thousand soldiers. But put them under fire: you will have
+enough of your hirelings! At least one might imagine that with money
+alone it is possible to lighten misery. Ah! that too is an illusion from
+which we must turn away. Money, be the sum great or small, is a seed
+which germinates into abuses. Unless there go with it intelligence,
+kindness, much knowledge of men, it will do nothing but harm, and we run
+great risk of corrupting both those who receive our bounty and those
+charged with its distribution.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Money will not answer for everything: it is a power, but it is not
+all-powerful. Nothing complicates life, demoralizes man, perverts the
+normal course of society like the development of venality. Wherever it
+reigns, everybody is duped by everybody else: one can no longer put
+trust in persons or things, no longer obtain anything of value. We would
+not be detractors of money, but this general law must be applied to it:
+_Everything in its own place._ When gold, which should be a servant,
+becomes a tyrannical power, affronting morality, dignity and liberty;
+when some exert themselves to obtain it at any price, offering for sale
+what is not merchandise, and others, possessing wealth, fancy that they
+can purchase what no one may buy, it is time to rise against this gross
+and criminal superstition, and cry aloud to the imposture: "Thy money
+perish with thee!" The most precious things that man possesses he has
+almost always received gratuitously: let him learn so to give them.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+NOTORIETY AND THE INGLORIOUS GOOD
+
+
+One of the chief puerilities of our time is the love of advertisement.
+To emerge from obscurity, to be in the public eye, to make one's self
+talked of--some people are so consumed with this desire that we are
+justified in declaring them attacked with an itch for publicity. In
+their eyes obscurity is the height of ignominy: so they do their best to
+keep their names in every mouth. In their obscure position they look
+upon themselves as lost, like ship-wrecked sailors whom a night of
+tempest has cast on some lonely rock, and who have recourse to cries,
+volleys, fire, all the signals imaginable, to let it be known that they
+are there. Not content with setting off crackers and innocent rockets,
+many, to make themselves heard at any cost, have gone to the length of
+perfidy and even crime. The incendiary Erostratus has made numerous
+disciples. How many men of to-day have become notorious for having
+destroyed something of mark; pulled down--or tried to pull down--some
+man's high reputation; signalled their passage, in short, by a scandal,
+a meanness, or an atrocity!
+
+This rage for notoriety does not surge through cracked brains alone, or
+only in the world of adventurers, charlatans and pretenders generally;
+it has spread abroad in all the domains of life, spiritual and material.
+Politics, literature, even science, and--most odious of
+all--philanthropy and religion are infected. Trumpets announce a good
+deed done, and souls must be saved with din and clamor. Pursuing its way
+of destruction, the rage for noise has entered places ordinarily silent,
+troubled spirits naturally serene, and vitiated in large measure all
+activity for good. The abuse of showing everything, or rather, putting
+everything on exhibition; the growing incapacity to appreciate that
+which chooses to remain hidden, and the habit of estimating the value of
+things by the racket they make, have come to corrupt the judgment of the
+most earnest men, and one sometimes wonders if society will not end by
+transforming itself into a great fair, with each one beating his drum in
+front of his tent.
+
+Gladly do we quit the dust and din of like exhibitions, to go and
+breathe peacefully in some far-off nook of the woods, all surprise that
+the brook is so limpid, the forest so still, the solitude so enchanting.
+Thank God there are yet these uninvaded corners. However formidable the
+uproar, however deafening the babel of merry-andrews, it cannot carry
+beyond a certain limit; it grows faint and dies away. The realm of
+silence is vaster than the realm of noise. Herein is our consolation.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Rest a moment on the threshold of this infinite world of inglorious
+good, of quiet activities. Instantly we are under the charm we feel in
+stretches of untrodden snow, in hiding wood-flowers, in disappearing
+pathways that seem to lead to horizons without bourn. The world is so
+made that the engines of labor, the most active agencies, are everywhere
+concealed. Nature affects a sort of coquetry in masking her operations.
+It costs you pains to spy her out, ingenuity to surprise her, if you
+would see anything but results and penetrate the secrets of her
+laboratories. Likewise in human society, the forces which move for good
+remain invisible, and even in our individual lives; what is best in us
+is incommunicable, buried in the depths of us. And the more vital are
+these sensibilities and intuitions, confounding themselves with the very
+source of our being, the less ostentatious they are: they think
+themselves profaned by exposure to the light of day. There is a secret
+and inexpressible joy in possessing at the heart of one's being, an
+interior world known only to God, whence, nevertheless, come impulses,
+enthusiasms, the daily renewal of courage, and the most powerful motives
+for activity among our fellow men. When this intimate life loses in
+intensity, when man neglects it for what is superficial, he forfeits in
+worth all that he gains in appearance. By a sad fatality, it happens
+that in this way we often become less admirable in proportion as we are
+more admired. And we remain convinced that what is best in the world is
+unknown there; for only those know it who possess it, and if they speak
+of it, in so doing they destroy its charm.
+
+There are passionate lovers of nature whom she fascinates most in
+by-places, in the cool of forests, in the clefts of cañons, everywhere
+that the careless lover is not admitted to her contemplation. Forgetting
+time and the life of the world, they pass days in these inviolate
+stillnesses, watching a bird build its nest or brood over its young, or
+some little groundling at its gracious play. So to seek the good within
+himself--one must go where he no longer finds constraint, or pose, or
+"gallery" of any sort, but the simple fact of a life made up of wishing
+to be what it is good for it to be, without troubling about anything
+else.
+
+May we be permitted to record here some observations made from life? As
+no names are given, they cannot be considered indiscreet.
+
+In my country of Alsace, on the solitary route whose interminable ribbon
+stretches on and on under the forests of the Vosges, there is a
+stone-breaker whom I have seen at his work for thirty years. The first
+time I came upon him, I was a young student, setting out with swelling
+heart for the great city. The sight of this man did me good, for he was
+humming a song as he broke his stones. We exchanged a few words, and he
+said at the end: "Well, good-by, my boy, good courage and good luck!"
+Since then I have passed and repassed along that same route, under
+circumstances the most diverse, painful and joyful. The student has
+finished his course, the breaker of stones remains what he was. He has
+taken a few more precautions against the seasons' storms: a rush-mat
+protects his back, and his felt hat is drawn further down to shield his
+face. But the forest is always sending back the echo of his valiant
+hammer. How many sudden tempests have broken over his bent back, how
+much adverse fate has fallen on his head, on his house, on his country!
+He continues to break his stones, and, coming and going I find him by
+the roadside, smiling in spite of his age and his wrinkles, benevolent,
+speaking--above all in dark days--those simple words of brave men, which
+have so much effect when they are scanned to the breaking of stones.
+
+It would be quite impossible to express the emotion the sight of this
+simple man gives me, and certainly he has no suspicion of it. I know of
+nothing more reassuring and at the same time more searching for the
+vanity which ferments in our hearts, than this coming face to face with
+an obscure worker who does his task as the oak grows and as the good God
+makes his sun to rise, without asking who is looking on.
+
+I have known, too, a number of old teachers, men and women who have
+passed their whole life at the same occupation--making the rudiments of
+human knowledge and a few principles of conduct penetrate heads
+sometimes harder than the rocks. They have done it with their whole
+soul, throughout the length of a hard life in which the attention of men
+had little place. When they lie in their unknown graves, no one
+remembers them but a few humble people like themselves. But their
+recompense is in their love. No one is greater than these unknown.
+
+How many hidden virtues may one not discover--if he know how to
+search--among people of a class he often ridicules without perceiving
+that in so doing he is guilty of cruelty, ingratitude and stupidity: I
+mean old maids. People amuse themselves with remarking the surprising
+dress and ways of some of them--things of no consequence, for that
+matter. They persist also in reminding us that others, very selfish,
+take interest in nothing but their own comfort and that of some cat or
+canary upon which their powers of affection center; and certainly these
+are not outdone in egoism by the most hardened celibates of the stronger
+sex. But what we oftenest forget is the amount of self-sacrifice hidden
+modestly away in so many of these truly admirable lives. Is it nothing
+to be without home and its love, without future, without personal
+ambition? to take upon one's self that cross of solitary life, so hard
+to bear, especially when there is added the solitude of the heart? to
+forget one's self and have no other interests than the care of the old,
+of orphans, the poor, the infirm--those whom the brutal mechanism of
+life casts out among its waste? Seen from without, these apparently tame
+and lusterless lives rouse pity rather than envy. Those who approach
+gently sometimes divine sad secrets, great trials undergone, heavy
+burdens beneath which too fragile shoulders bend; but this is only the
+side of shadow. We should learn to know and value this richness of
+heart, this pure goodness, this power to love, to console, to hope, this
+joyful giving up of self, this persistence in sweetness and forgiveness
+even toward the unworthy. Poor old maids! how many wrecked lives have
+you rescued, how many wounded have you healed, how many wanderers have
+you gently led aright, how many naked have you clothed, how many orphans
+have you taken in, and how many strangers, who would have been alone in
+the world but for you--you who yourselves are often remembered of no
+one. I mistake. Someone knows you; it is that great mysterious Pity
+which keeps watch over our lives and suffers in our misfortunes.
+Forgotten like you, often blasphemed, it has confided to you some of its
+heavenliest messages, and that perhaps is why above your gentle comings
+and goings, we sometimes seem to hear the rustling wings of ministering
+angels.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+The good hides itself under so many different forms, that one has often
+as much pains to discover it as to unearth the best concealed crimes. A
+Russian doctor, who had passed ten years of his life in Siberia,
+condemned for political reasons to forced labor, used to find great
+pleasure in telling of the generosity, courage and humanity he had
+observed, not only among a large number of the condemned, but also
+among the convict guards. For the moment one is tempted to exclaim:
+Where will not the good hide away! And in truth life offers here great
+surprises and embarrassing contrasts. There are good men, officially so
+recognized, quoted among their associates, I had almost said guaranteed
+by the Government or the Church, who can be reproached with nothing but
+dry and hard hearts; while we are astonished to encounter in certain
+fallen human beings, the most genuine tenderness, and as it were a
+thirst for self-devotion.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I should like to speak next--apropos of the inglorious good--of a class
+that to-day it is thought quite fitting to treat with the utmost
+one-sidedness. I mean the rich. Some people think the last word is said
+when they have stigmatized that infamy, capital. For them, all who
+possess great fortunes are monsters gorged with the blood of the
+miserable. Others, not so declamatory, persist, however, in confounding
+riches with egoism and insensibility. Justice should be visited on these
+errors, be they involuntary or calculated. No doubt there are rich men
+who concern themselves with nobody else, and others who do good only
+with ostentation; indeed, we know it too well. But does their inhumanity
+or hypocrisy take away the value of the good that others do, and that
+they often hide with a modesty so perfect?
+
+I knew a man to whom every misfortune had come which can strike us in
+our affections. He had lost a beloved wife, had seen all his children
+buried, one after another. But he had a great fortune, the result of his
+own labor. Living in the utmost simplicity, almost without personal
+wants, he spent his time in searching for opportunities to do good, and
+profiting by them. How many people he surprised in flagrant poverty,
+what means he combined for relieving distress and lighting up dark
+lives, with what kindly thoughtfulness he took his friends unawares, no
+one can imagine. He liked to do good to others and enjoy their surprise
+when they did not know whence the relief came. It pleased him to repair
+the injustices of fortune, to bring tears of happiness in families
+pursued by mischance. He was continually plotting, contriving,
+machinating in the dark, with a childish fear of being caught with his
+hand in the bag. The greater part of these fine deeds were not known
+till after his death; the whole of them we shall never know.
+
+He was a socialist of the right sort! for there are two kinds of them.
+Those who aspire to appropriate to themselves a part of the goods of
+others, are numerous and commonplace. To belong to their order it
+suffices to have a big appetite. Those who are hungering to divide their
+own goods with men who have none, are rare and precious, for to enter
+this choice company there is need of a brave and noble heart, free from
+selfishness, and sensitive to both the happiness and unhappiness of its
+fellows. Fortunately the race of these socialists is not extinct, and I
+feel an unalloyed satisfaction in offering them a tribute they never
+claim.
+
+I must be pardoned for dwelling upon this. It does one good to offset
+the bitterness of so many infamies, so many calumnies, so much
+charlatanism, by resting the eyes upon something more beautiful,
+breathing the perfume of these stray corners where simple goodness
+flowers.
+
+A lady, a foreigner, doubtless little used to Parisian life, just now
+told me with what horror the things she sees here inspire her:--these
+vile posters, these "yellow" journals, these women with bleached hair,
+this crowd rushing to the races, to dance-halls, to roulette tables, to
+corruption--the whole flood of superficial and mundane life. She did not
+speak the word Babylon, but doubtless it was out of pity for one of the
+inhabitants of this city of perdition.
+
+"Alas, yes, madam, these things are sad, but you have not seen all."
+
+"Heaven preserve me from that!"
+
+"On the contrary, I wish you could see everything; for if the dark side
+is very ugly, there is so much to atone for it. And believe me, madam,
+you have simply to change your quarter, or observe at another hour. For
+instance, take the Paris of early morning. It will offer much to correct
+your impressions of the Paris of the night. Go see, among so many other
+working people, the street-sweepers, who come out at the hour when the
+revellers and malefactors go in. Observe beneath these rags those
+caryatid bodies, those austere faces! How serious they are at their work
+of sweeping away the refuse of the night's revelry. One might liken
+them to the prophets at Ahasuerus's gates. There are women among them,
+many old people. When the air is cold they stop to blow their fingers,
+and then go at it again. So it is every day. And they, too, are
+inhabitants of Paris.
+
+"Go next to the faubourgs, to the factories, especially the smaller
+ones, where the children or the employers labor with the men. Watch the
+army of workers marching to their tasks. How ready and willing these
+young girls seem, as they come gaily down from their distant quarters to
+the shops and stores and offices of the city. Then visit the homes from
+which they come. See the woman of the people at her work. Her husband's
+wages are modest, their dwelling is cramped, the children are many, the
+father is often harsh. Make a collection of the biographies of lowly
+people, budgets of modest family life: look at them attentively and
+long.
+
+"After that, go see the students. Those who have scandalized you in the
+streets are numerous, but those who labor hard are legion--only they
+stay at home, and are not talked about. If you knew the toil and dig of
+the Latin Quarter! You find the papers full of the rumpus made by a
+certain set of youths who call themselves students. The papers say
+enough of those who break windows; but why do they make no mention of
+those who spend their nights toiling over problems? Because it wouldn't
+interest the public. Yes, when now and then one of them, a medical
+student perhaps, dies a victim to professional duty, the matter has two
+lines in the dailies. A drunken brawl gets half a column, with every
+detail elaborated. Nothing is lacking but the portraits of the
+heroes--and not always that!
+
+"I should never end were I to try to point out to you all that you must
+go to see if you would see all: you would needs make the tour of society
+at large, rich and poor, wise and ignorant. And certainly you would not
+judge so severely then. Paris is a world, and here, as in the world in
+general, the good hides away while the evil flaunts itself. Observing
+only the surface, you sometimes ask how there can possibly be so much
+riff-raff. When, on the contrary, you look into the depths, you are
+astonished that in this troublous, obscure and sometimes frightful life
+there can be so much of virtue."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+But why linger over these things? Am I _not_ blowing trumpets for those
+who hold trumpet-blowing in horror? Do not understand me so. My aim is
+this--to make men think about unostentatious goodness; above all, to
+make them love it and practice it. The man who finds his satisfaction in
+things which glitter and hold his eyes, is lost: first, because he will
+thus see evil before all else; then, because he gets accustomed to the
+sight of only such good as seeks for notice, and therefore easily
+succumbs to the temptation to live himself for appearances. Not only
+must one be resigned to obscurity, he must love it, if he does not wish
+to slip insensibly into the ranks of figurants, who preserve their parts
+only while under the eyes of the spectators, and put off in the wings
+the restraints imposed on the stage. Here we are in the presence of one
+of the essential elements of the moral life. And this which we say is
+true not only for those who are called humble and whose lot it is to
+pass unremarked; it is just as true, and more so, for the chief actors.
+If you would not be a brilliant inutility, a man of gold lace and
+plumes, but empty inside, you must play the star rôle in the simple
+spirit of the most obscure of your collaborators. He who is nothing
+worth except on hours of parade, is worth less than nothing. Have we the
+perilous honor of being always in view, of marching in the front ranks?
+Let us take so much the greater care of the sanctuary of silent good
+within us. Let us give to the structure whose façade is seen of our
+fellow-men, a wide foundation of simplicity, of humble fidelity. And
+then, out of sympathy, out of gratitude, let us stay near our brothers
+who are unknown to fame. We owe everything to them--do we not? I call to
+witness everyone who has found in life this encouraging experience, that
+stones hidden in the soil hold up the whole edifice. All those who
+arrive at having a public and recognized value, owe it to some humble
+spiritual ancestors, to some forgotten inspirers. A small number of the
+good, among them simple women, peasants, vanquished heroes, parents as
+modest as they are revered, personify for us beautiful and noble living;
+their example inspires us and gives us strength. The remembrance of them
+is forever inseparable from that conscience before which we arraign
+ourselves. In our hours of trial, we think of them, courageous and
+serene, and our burdens lighten. In clouds they compass us about, these
+witnesses invisible and beloved who keep us from stumbling and our feet
+from falling in the battle; and day by day do they prove to us that the
+treasure of humanity is its hidden goodness.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF THE HOME
+
+
+In the time of the Second Empire, in one of our pleasantest
+sub-prefectures of the provinces, a little way from some baths
+frequented by the Emperor, there was a mayor, a very worthy man and
+intelligent too, whose head was suddenly turned by the thought that his
+sovereign might one day descend upon his home. Up to this time he had
+lived in the house of his fathers, a son respectful of the slightest
+family traditions. But when once the all-absorbing idea of receiving the
+Emperor had taken possession of his brain, he became another man. In
+this new light, what had before seemed sufficient for his needs, even
+enjoyable, all this simplicity that his ancestors had loved, appeared
+poor, ugly, ridiculous. Out of the question to ask an Emperor to climb
+this wooden staircase, sit in these old arm-chairs, walk over such
+superannuated carpets. So the mayor called architect and masons;
+pickaxes attacked walls and demolished partitions, and a drawing-room
+was made, out of all proportion to the rest of the house in size and
+splendor. He and his family retired into close quarters, where people
+and furniture incommoded each other generally. Then, having emptied his
+purse and upset his household by this stroke of genius, he awaited the
+royal guest. Alas, he soon saw the end of the Empire arrive, but the
+Emperor never.
+
+The folly of this poor man is not so rare. As mad as he are all those
+who sacrifice their home life to the demands of the world. And the
+danger in such a sacrifice is most menacing in times of unrest. Our
+contemporaries are constantly exposed to it, and constantly succumbing.
+How many family treasures have they literally thrown away to satisfy
+worldly ambitions and conventions; but the happiness upon which they
+thought to come through these impious immolations always eludes them.
+
+To give up the ancestral hearth, to let the family traditions fall into
+desuetude, to abandon the simple domestic customs, for whatever return,
+is to make a fool's bargain; and such is the place in society of family
+life, that if this be impoverished, the trouble is felt throughout the
+whole social organism. To enjoy a normal development, this organism has
+need of well-tried individuals, each having his own value, his own
+hall-mark. Otherwise society becomes a flock, and sometimes a flock
+without a shepherd. But whence does the individual draw his
+originality--this unique something, which, joined to the distinctive
+qualities of others, constitutes the wealth and strength of a community?
+He can draw it only from his own family. Destroy the assemblage of
+memories and practices whence emanates for each home an atmosphere in
+miniature, and you dry up the sources of character, sap the strength of
+public spirit.
+
+It concerns the country that each home be a world, profound, respected,
+communicating to its members an ineffaceable moral imprint. But before
+pursuing the subject further, let us rid ourselves of a
+misunderstanding. Family feeling, like all beautiful things, has its
+caricature, which is family egoism. Some families are like barred and
+bolted citadels, their members organized for the exploitation of the
+whole world. Everything that does not directly concern them is
+indifferent to them. They live like colonists, I had almost said
+intruders, in the society around them. Their particularism is pushed to
+such an excess that they make enemies of the whole human race. In their
+small way they resemble those powerful societies, formed from time to
+time through the ages, which possess themselves of universal rule, and
+for which no one outside their own community counts. This is the spirit
+that has sometimes made the family seem a retreat of egoism which it was
+necessary to destroy for the public safety. But as patriotism and
+jingoism are as far apart as the east from the west, so are family
+feeling and clannishness.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Here we are talking of right family feeling, and nothing else in the
+world can take its place; for in it lie in germ all those fine and
+simple virtues which assure the strength and duration of social
+institutions. And the very base of family feeling is respect for the
+past; for the best possessions of a family are its common memories. An
+intangible, indivisible and inalienable capital, these souvenirs
+constitute a sacred fund that each member of a family ought to consider
+more precious than anything else he possesses. They exist in a dual
+form: in idea and in fact. They show themselves in language, habits of
+thought, sentiments, even instincts, and one sees them materialized in
+portraits, furniture, buildings, dress, songs. To profane eyes, they are
+nothing; to the eyes of those who know how to appreciate the things of
+the family, they are relics with which one should not part at any price.
+
+But what generally happens in our day? Worldliness wars upon the
+sentiment of family, and I know of no strife more impassioned. By great
+means and small, by all sorts of new customs, requirements and
+pretensions, the spirit of the world breaks into the domestic sanctuary.
+What are this stranger's rights? its titles? Upon what does it rest its
+peremptory claims? This is what people too often neglect to inquire.
+They make a mistake. We treat the invader as very poor and simple people
+do a pompous visitor. For this incommoding guest of a day, they pillage
+their garden, bully their children and servants, and neglect their
+work. Such conduct is not only wrong, it is impolitic. One should have
+the courage to remain what he is, in the face of all comers.
+
+The worldly spirit is full of impertinences. Here is a home which has
+formed characters of mark, and is forming them yet. The people, the
+furnishings, the customs are all in harmony. By marriage or through
+relations of business or pleasure, the worldly spirit enters. It finds
+everything out of date, awkward, too simple, lacking the modern touch.
+At first it restricts itself to criticism and light raillery. But this
+is the dangerous moment. Look out for yourself; here is the enemy! If
+you so much as listen to his reasonings, to-morrow you will sacrifice a
+piece of furniture, the next day a good old tradition, and so one by one
+the family heirlooms dear to the heart will go to the bric-a-brac
+dealer--and filial piety with them.
+
+In the midst of your new habits and in the changed atmosphere, your
+friends of other days, your old relatives, will be expatriated. Your
+next step will be to lay them aside in their turn; the worldly spirit
+leaves the old out of consideration. At last, established in an
+absolutely transformed setting, even you will view yourself with
+amazement. Nothing will be familiar, but surely it will be correct; at
+least the world will be satisfied!--Ah! that is where you are mistaken!
+After having made you cast out pure treasure as so much junk, it will
+find that your borrowed livery fits you ill, and will hasten to make you
+sensible of the ridiculousness of the situation. Much better have had
+from the beginning the courage of your convictions, and have defended
+your home.
+
+Many young people when they marry, listen to this voice of the world.
+Their parents have given them the example of a modest life; but the new
+generation thinks it affirms its rights to existence and liberty, by
+repudiating ways in its eyes too patriarchal. So these young folks make
+efforts to set themselves up lavishly in the latest fashion, and rid
+themselves of useless property at dirt-cheap prices. Instead of filling
+their houses with objects which say: Remember! they garnish them with
+quite new furnishings that as yet have no meaning. Wait, I am wrong;
+these things are often symbols, as it were, of a facile and superficial
+existence. In their midst one breathes a certain heady vapor of
+mundanity. They recall the life outside, the turmoil, the rush. And were
+one sometimes disposed to forget this life, they would call back his
+wandering thought and say: Remember!--in another sense: Do not forget
+your appointment at the club, the play, the races! The home, then,
+becomes a sort of half-way house where one comes to rest a little
+between two prolonged absences; it isn't a good place to stay. As it has
+no soul, it does not speak to yours. Time to eat and sleep, and then off
+again! Otherwise you become as dull as a hermit.
+
+We are all acquainted with people who have a rage for being abroad, who
+think the world would no longer go round if they didn't figure on all
+sides of it. To stay at home is penal; there they cease to be in view. A
+horror of home life possesses them to such a degree that they would
+rather pay to be bored outside than be amused gratuitously within.
+
+In this way society slowly gravitates toward life in herds, which must
+not be confounded with public life. The life in herds is somewhat like
+that of swarms of flies in the sun. Nothing so much resembles the
+worldly life of a man as the worldly life of another man. And this
+universal banality destroys the very essence of public spirit. One need
+not journey far to discover the ravages made in modern society by the
+spirit of worldliness; and if we have so little foundation, so little
+equilibrium, calm good sense and initiative, one of the chief reasons
+lies in the undermining of the home life. The masses have timed their
+pace by that of people of fashion. They too have become worldly. Nothing
+can be more so than to quit one's own hearth for the life of saloons.
+The squalor and misery of the homes is not enough to explain the current
+which carries each man away from his own. Why does the peasant desert
+for the inn the house that his father and grandfather found so
+comfortable? It has remained the same. There is the same fire in the
+same chimney. Whence comes it that it lights only an incomplete circle,
+when in olden times young and old sat shoulder to shoulder? Something
+has changed in the minds of men. Yielding to dangerous impulses, they
+have broken with simplicity. The fathers have quitted their post of
+honor, the wives grow dull beside the solitary hearth, and the children
+quarrel while waiting their turn to go abroad, each after his own fancy.
+
+We must learn again to live the home life, to value our domestic
+traditions. A pious care has preserved certain monuments of the past. So
+antique dress, provincial dialects, old folk songs have found
+appreciative hands to gather them up before they should disappear from
+the earth. What a good deed, to guard these crumbs of a great past,
+these vestiges of the souls of our ancestors! Let us do the same for our
+family traditions, save and guard as much as possible of the
+patriarchal, whatever its form.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+But not everyone has traditions to keep. All the more reason for
+redoubling the effort to constitute and foster a family life. And to do
+this there is need neither of numbers nor a rich establishment. To
+create a home you must have the spirit of home. Just as the smallest
+village may have its history, its moral stamp, so the smallest home may
+have its soul. Oh! the spirit of places, the atmosphere which surrounds
+us in human dwellings! What a world of mystery! Here, even on the
+threshold the cold begins to penetrate, you are ill at ease, something
+intangible repulses you. There, no sooner does the door shut you in than
+friendliness and good humor envelop you. It is said that walls have
+ears. They have also voices, a mute eloquence. Everything that a
+dwelling contains is bathed in an ether of personality. And I find proof
+of its quality even in the apartments of bachelors and solitary women.
+What an abyss between one room and another room! Here, all is dead,
+indifferent, commonplace: the device of the owner is written all over
+it, even in his fashion of arranging his photographs and books: All is
+the same to me! There, one breathes in animation, a contagious joy in
+life. The visitor hears repeated in countless fashions: "Whoever you
+are, guest of an hour, I wish you well, peace be with you!"
+
+Words can do little justice to the subject of home, tell little about
+the effect of a favorite flower in the window, or the charm of an old
+arm-chair where the grandfather used to sit, offering his wrinkled hands
+to the kisses of chubby children. Poor moderns, always moving or
+remodeling! We who from transforming our cities, our houses, our customs
+and creeds, have no longer where to lay our heads, let us not add to the
+pathos and emptiness of our changeful existence by abandoning the life
+of the home. Let us light again the flame put out on our hearths, make
+sanctuaries for ourselves, warm nests where the children may grow into
+men, where love may find privacy, old age repose, prayer an altar, and
+the fatherland a cult!
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+SIMPLE BEAUTY
+
+
+Someone may protest against the nature of the simple life in the name of
+esthetics, or oppose to ours the theory of the service of luxury--that
+providence of business, fostering mother of arts, and grace of civilized
+society. We shall try, briefly, to anticipate these objections.
+
+It will no doubt have been evident that the spirit which animates these
+pages is not utilitarian. It would be an error to suppose that the
+simplicity we seek has anything in common with that which misers impose
+upon themselves through cupidity, or narrow-minded people through false
+austerity. To the former the simple life is the one that costs least; to
+the latter it is a flat and colorless existence, whose merit lies in
+depriving one's self of everything bright, smiling, seductive.
+
+It displeases us not a whit that people of large means should put their
+fortune into circulation instead of hoarding it, so giving life to
+commerce and the fine arts. That is using one's privileges to good
+advantage. What we would combat is foolish prodigality, the selfish use
+of wealth, and above all the quest of the superfluous on the part of
+those who have the greatest need of taking thought for the necessary.
+The lavishness of a Mæcenas could not have the same effect in a society
+as that of a common spendthrift who astonishes his contemporaries by the
+magnificence of his life and the folly of his waste. In these two cases
+the same term means very different things--to scatter money broadcast
+does not say it all; there are ways of doing it which ennoble men, and
+others which degrade them. Besides, to scatter money supposes that one
+is well provided with it. When the love of sumptuous living takes
+possession of those whose means are limited, the matter becomes
+strangely altered. And a very striking characteristic of our time is
+the rage for scattering broadcast which the very people have who ought
+to husband their resources. Munificence is a benefit to society, that we
+grant willingly. Let us even allow that the prodigality of certain rich
+men is a safety-valve for the escape of the superabundant: we shall not
+attempt to gainsay it. Our contention is that too many people meddle
+with the safety-valve when to practice economy is the part of both their
+interest and their duty: their extravagance is a private misfortune and
+a public danger.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+So much for the utility of luxury.
+
+We now wish to explain ourselves upon the question of esthetics--oh!
+very modestly, and without trespassing on the ground of the specialists.
+Through a too common illusion, simplicity and beauty are considered as
+rivals. But simple is not synonymous with ugly, any more than sumptuous,
+stylish and costly are synonymous with beautiful. Our eyes are wounded
+by the crying spectacle of gaudy ornament, venal art and senseless and
+graceless luxury. Wealth coupled with bad taste sometimes makes us
+regret that so much money is in circulation to provoke the creation of
+such a prodigality of horrors. Our contemporary art suffers as much from
+the want of simplicity as does our literature--too much in it that is
+irrelevant, over-wrought, falsely imagined. Rarely is it given us to
+contemplate in line, form, or color, that simplicity allied to
+perfection which commands the eyes as evidence does the mind. We need to
+be rebaptized in the ideal purity of immortal beauty which puts its seal
+on the masterpieces; one shaft of its radiance is worth more than all
+our pompous exhibitions.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet what we now have most at heart is to speak of the ordinary esthetics
+of life, of the care one should bestow upon the adornment of his
+dwelling and his person, giving to existence that luster without which
+it lacks charm. For it is not a matter of indifference whether man pays
+attention to these superfluous necessities or whether he does not: it is
+by them that we know whether he puts soul into his work. Far from
+considering it as wasteful to give time and thought to the perfecting,
+beautifying and poetizing of forms, I think we should spend as much as
+we can upon it. Nature gives us her example, and the man who should
+affect contempt for the ephemeral splendor of beauty with which we
+garnish our brief days, would lose sight of the intentions of Him who
+has put the same care and love into the painting of the lily of an hour
+and the eternal hills.
+
+But we must not fall into the gross error of confounding true beauty
+with that which has only the name. The beauty and poetry of existence
+lie in the understanding we have of it. Our home, our table, our dress
+should be the interpreters of intentions. That these intentions be so
+expressed, it is first necessary to have them, and he who possesses them
+makes them evident through the simplest means. One need not be rich to
+give grace and charm to his habit and his habitation: it suffices to
+have good taste and good-will. We come here to a point very important to
+everybody, but perhaps of more interest to women than to men.
+
+Those who would have women conceal themselves in coarse garments of the
+shapeless uniformity of bags, violate nature in her very heart, and
+misunderstand completely the spirit of things. If dress were only a
+precaution to shelter us from cold or rain, a piece of sacking or the
+skin of a beast would answer. But it is vastly more than this. Man puts
+himself entire into all that he does; he transforms into types the
+things that serve him. The dress is not simply a covering, it is a
+symbol. I call to witness the rich flowering of national and provincial
+costumes, and those worn by our early corporations. A woman's toilette,
+too, has something to say to us. The more meaning there is in it, the
+greater its worth. To be truly beautiful, it must tell us of beautiful
+things, things personal and veritable. Spend all the money you possess
+upon it, if its form is determined by chance or custom, if it has no
+relation to her who wears it, it is only toggery, a domino.
+Ultra-fashionable dress, which completely masks feminine personality
+under designs of pure convention, despoils it of its principal
+attraction. From this abuse it comes about that many things which women
+admire do as much wrong to their beauty as to the purses of their
+husbands and fathers. What would you say of a young girl who expressed
+her thoughts in terms very choice, indeed, but taken word for word from
+a phrase-book? What charm could you find in this borrowed language? The
+effect of toilettes well-designed in themselves but seen again and
+again on all women indiscriminately, is precisely the same.
+
+I can not resist citing here a passage from Camille Lemonnier, that
+harmonizes with my idea.
+
+"Nature has given to the fingers of woman a charming art, which she
+knows by instinct, and which is peculiarly her own--as silk to the worm,
+and lace-work to the swift and subtle spider. She is the poet, the
+interpreter of her own grace and ingenuousness, the spinner of the
+mystery in which her wish to please arrays itself. All the talent she
+expends in her effort to equal man in the other arts, is never worth the
+spirit and conception wrought out through a bit of stuff in her skillful
+hands.
+
+"Well, I wish that this art were more honored than it is. As education
+should consist in thinking with one's mind, feeling with one's heart,
+expressing the little personalities of the inmost, invisible _I_,--which
+on the contrary are repressed, leveled down by conformity,--I would that
+the young girl in her novitiate of womanhood, the future mother, might
+early become the little exponent of this art of the toilet, her own
+dressmaker in short--she who one day shall make the dresses of her
+children. But with the taste and the gift to improvise, to express
+herself in that masterpiece of feminine personality and skill--_a gown_,
+without which a woman is no more than a bundle of rags."
+
+The dress you have made for yourself is almost always the most becoming,
+and, however that may be, it is the one that pleases you most. Women of
+leisure too often forget this; working women, also, in city and country
+alike. Since these last are costumed by dressmakers and milliners, in
+very doubtful imitation of the modish world, grace has almost
+disappeared from their dress. And has anything more surely the gift to
+please than the fresh apparition of a young working girl or a daughter
+of the fields, wearing the costume of her country, and beautiful from
+her simplicity alone?
+
+These same reflections might be applied to the fashion of decorating and
+arranging our houses. If there are toilettes which reveal an entire
+conception of life, hats that are poems, knots of ribbon that are
+veritable works of art, so there are interiors which after their manner
+speak to the mind. Why, under pretext of decorating our homes, do we
+destroy that personal character which always has such value? Why have
+our sleeping-rooms conform to those of hotels, our reception-rooms to
+waiting-rooms, by making predominant a uniform type of official beauty?
+
+What a pity to go through the houses of a city, the cities of a country,
+the countries of a vast continent, and encounter everywhere certain
+forms, identical, inevitable, exasperating by their repetition! How
+esthetics would gain by more simplicity! Instead of this luxury in job
+lots, all these decorations, pretentious but vapid from iteration, we
+should have an infinite variety; happy improvisations would strike our
+eyes, the unexpected in a thousand forms would rejoice our hearts, and
+we should rediscover the secret of impressing on a drapery or a piece of
+furniture that stamp of human personality which makes certain antiques
+priceless.
+
+Let us pass at last to things simpler still; I mean the little details
+of housekeeping which many young people of our day find so unpoetical.
+Their contempt for material things, for the humble cares a house
+demands, arises from a confusion very common but none the less
+unfortunate, which comes from the belief that beauty and poetry are
+within some things, while others lack them; that some occupations are
+distinguished and agreeable, such as cultivating letters, playing the
+harp; and that others are menial and disagreeable, like blacking shoes,
+sweeping, and watching the pot boil. Childish error! Neither harp nor
+broom has anything to do with it; all depends on the hand in which they
+rest and the spirit that moves it. Poetry is not in things, it is in us.
+It must be impressed on objects from without, as the sculptor impresses
+his dream on the marble. If our life and our occupations remain too
+often without charm, in spite of any outward distinction they may have,
+it is because we have not known how to put anything into them. The
+height of art is to make the inert live, and to tame the savage. I would
+have our young girls apply themselves to the development of the truly
+feminine art of giving a soul to things which have none. The triumph of
+woman's charm is in that work. Only a woman knows how to put into a home
+that indefinable something whose virtue has made the poet say, "The
+housetop rejoices and is glad." They say there are no such things as
+fairies, or that there are fairies no longer, but they know not what
+they say. The original of the fairies sung by poets was found, and is
+still, among those amiable mortals who knead bread with energy, mend
+rents with cheerfulness, nurse the sick with smiles, put witchery into
+a ribbon and genius into a stew.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+It is indisputable that the culture of the fine arts has something
+refining about it, and that our thoughts and acts are in the end
+impregnated with that which strikes our eyes. But the exercise of the
+arts and the contemplation of their products is a restricted privilege.
+It is not given to everyone to possess, to comprehend or to create fine
+things. Yet there is a kind of ministering beauty which may make its way
+everywhere--the beauty which springs from the hands of our wives and
+daughters. Without it, what is the most richly decorated house? A dead
+dwelling-place. With it the barest home has life and brightness. Among
+the forces capable of transforming the will and increasing happiness,
+there is perhaps none in more universal use than this beauty. It knows
+how to shape itself by means of the crudest tools, in the midst of the
+greatest difficulties. When the dwelling is cramped, the purse limited,
+the table modest, a woman who has the gift, finds a way to make order,
+fitness and convenience reign in her house. She puts care and art into
+everything she undertakes. To do well what one has to do is not in her
+eyes the privilege of the rich, but the right of all. That is her aim,
+and she knows how to give her home a dignity and an attractiveness that
+the dwellings of princes, if everything is left to mercenaries, cannot
+possess.
+
+Thus understood, life quickly shows itself rich in hidden beauties, in
+attractions and satisfactions close at hand. To be one's self, to
+realize in one's natural place the kind of beauty which is fitting
+there--this is the ideal. How the mission of woman broadens and deepens
+in significance when it is summed up in this: to put a soul into the
+inanimate, and to give to this gracious spirit of things those subtle
+and winsome outward manifestations to which the most brutish of human
+beings is sensible. Is not this better than to covet what one has not,
+and to give one's self up to longings for a poor imitation of others'
+finery?
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+PRIDE AND SIMPLICITY IN THE INTERCOURSE OF MEN
+
+
+It would perhaps be difficult to find a more convincing example than
+pride to show that the obstacles to a better, stronger, serener life are
+rather in us than in circumstances. The diversity, and more than that,
+the contrasts in social conditions give rise inevitably to all sorts of
+conflicts. Yet in spite of this how greatly would social relations be
+simplified, if we put another spirit into mapping out our plan of
+outward necessities! Be well persuaded that it is not primarily
+differences of class and occupation, differences in the outward
+manifestations of their destinies, which embroil men. If such were the
+case, we should find an idyllic peace reigning among colleagues, and all
+those whose interests and lot are virtually equivalent. On the contrary,
+as everyone knows, the most violent shocks come when equal meets equal,
+and there is no war worse than civil war. But that which above all
+things else hinders men from good understanding, is pride. It makes a
+man a hedgehog, wounding everyone he touches. Let us speak first of the
+pride of the great.
+
+What offends me in this rich man passing in his carriage, is not his
+equipage, his dress, or the number and splendor of his retinue: it is
+his contempt. That he possesses a great fortune does not disturb me,
+unless I am badly disposed: but that he splashes me with mud, drives
+over my body, shows by his whole attitude that I count for nothing in
+his eyes because I am not rich like himself--this is what disturbs me,
+and righteously. He heaps suffering upon me needlessly. He humiliates
+and insults me gratuitously. It is not what is vulgar within me, but
+what is noblest that asserts itself in the face of this offensive pride.
+Do not accuse me of envy; I feel none; it is my manhood that is wounded.
+We need not search far to illustrate these ideas. Every man of any
+acquaintance with life has had numerous experiences which will justify
+our dictum in his eyes. In certain communities devoted to material
+interests, the pride of wealth dominates to such a degree that men are
+quoted like values in the stock market. The esteem in which a man is
+held is proportionate to the contents of his strong box. Here "Society"
+is made up of big fortunes, the middle class of medium fortunes. Then
+come people who have little, then those who have nothing. All
+intercourse is regulated by this principle. And the relatively rich man
+who has shown his disdain for those less opulent, is crushed in turn by
+the contempt of his superiors in fortune. So the madness of comparison
+rages from the summit to the base. Such an atmosphere is ready to
+perfection for the nurture of the worst feeling; yet it is not wealth,
+but the spirit of the wealthy that must be arraigned.
+
+Many rich men are free from this gross conception--especially is this
+true of those who from father to son are accustomed to ease--yet they
+sometimes forget that there is a certain delicacy in not making
+contrasts too marked. Suppose there is no wrong in enjoying a large
+superfluity: is it indispensable to display it, to wound the eyes of
+those who lack necessities, to flaunt one's magnificence at the doors of
+poverty? Good taste and a sort of modesty always hinder a well man from
+talking of his fine appetite, his sound sleep, his exuberance of
+spirits, in the presence of one dying of consumption. Many of the rich
+do not exercise this tact, and so are greatly wanting in pity and
+discretion. Are they not unreasonable to complain of envy, after having
+done everything to provoke it?
+
+But the greatest lack is that want of discernment which leads men to
+ground their pride in their fortune. To begin with, it is a childish
+confusion of thought to consider wealth as a personal quality; it would
+be hard to find a more ingenuous fashion of deceiving one's self as to
+the relative value of the container and the thing contained. I have no
+wish to dwell on this question: it is too painful. And yet one cannot
+resist saying to those concerned: "Take care, do not confound what you
+possess with what you are. Go learn to know the under side of worldly
+splendor, that you may feel its moral misery and its puerility." The
+traps pride sets for us are too ridiculous. We should distrust
+association with a thing that makes us hateful to our neighbors and robs
+us of clearness of vision.
+
+He who yields to the pride of riches, forgets this other point, the most
+important of all--that possession is a public trust. Without doubt,
+individual wealth is as legitimate as individual existence and liberty.
+These things are inseparable, and it is a dream pregnant with dangers
+that offers battle to such fundamentals of life. But the individual
+touches society at every point, and all he does should be done with the
+whole in view. Possession, then, is less a privilege of which to be
+proud than a charge whose gravity should be felt. As there is an
+apprenticeship, often very difficult to serve, for the exercise of every
+social office, so this profession we call wealth demands an
+apprenticeship. To know how to be rich is an art, and one of the least
+easy of arts to master. Most people, rich and poor alike, imagine that
+in opulence one has nothing to do but to take life easy. That is why so
+few men know how to be rich. In the hands of too many, wealth, according
+to the genial and redoubtable comparison of Luther, is like a harp in
+the hoofs of an ass. They have no idea of the manner of its use.
+
+So when we encounter a man at once rich and simple, that is to say, who
+considers his wealth as a means of fulfilling his mission in the world,
+we should offer him our homage, for he is surely mark-worthy. He has
+surmounted obstacles, borne trials, and triumphed in temptations both
+gross and subtle. He does not fail to discriminate between the contents
+of his pocketbook and the contents of his head or heart, and he does
+not estimate his fellow-men in figures. His exceptional position, instead
+of exalting him, makes him humble, for he is very sensible of how far he
+falls short of reaching the level of his duty. He has remained a
+man--that says it all. He is accessible, helpful, and far from making of
+his wealth a barrier to separate him from other men, he makes it a means
+for coming nearer and nearer to them. Although the profession of riches
+has been so dishonored by the selfish and the proud, such a man as this
+always makes his worth felt by everyone not devoid of a sense of
+justice. Each of us who comes in contact with him and sees him live, is
+forced to look within and ask himself the question, "What would become
+of me in such a situation? Should I keep this modesty, this naturalness,
+this uprightness which uses its own as though it belonged to others?" So
+long as there is a human society in the world, so long as there are
+bitterly conflicting interests, so long as envy and egoism exist on the
+earth, nothing will be worthier of honor than wealth permeated by the
+spirit of simplicity. And it will do more than make itself forgiven; it
+will make itself beloved.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+More dangerous than pride inspired by wealth is that inspired by power,
+and I mean by the word every prerogative that one man has over another,
+be it unlimited or restricted. I see no means of preventing the
+existence in the world of men of unequal authority. Every organism
+supposes a hierarchy of powers--we shall never escape from that law. But
+I fear that if the love of power is so wide-spread, the spirit of power
+is almost impossible to find. From wrong understanding and misuse of it,
+those who keep even a fraction of authority almost everywhere succeed in
+compromising it.
+
+Power exercises a great influence over him who holds it. A head must be
+very well balanced not to be disturbed by it. The sort of dementia which
+took possession of the Roman emperors in the time of their world-wide
+rule, is a universal malady whose symptoms belong to all times. In every
+man there sleeps a tyrant, awaiting only a favorable occasion for
+waking. Now the tyrant is the worst enemy of authority, because he
+furnishes us its intolerable caricature, whence come a multitude of
+social complications, collisions and hatreds. Every man who says to
+those dependent on him: "Do this because it is my will and pleasure,"
+does ill. There is within each one of us something that invites us to
+resist personal power, and this something is very respectable. For at
+bottom we are equal, and there is no one who has the right to exact
+obedience from me because he is he and I am I: if he does so, his
+command degrades me, and I have no right to suffer myself to be
+degraded.
+
+One must have lived in schools, in work-shops, in the army, in
+Government offices, he must have closely followed the relations between
+masters and servants, have observed a little everywhere where the
+supremacy of man exercises itself over man, to form any idea of the
+injury done by those who use power arrogantly. Of every free soul they
+make a slave soul, which is to say the soul of a rebel. And it appears
+that this result, with its social disaster, is most certain when he who
+commands is least removed from the station of him who obeys. The most
+implacable tyrant is the tyrant himself under authority. Foremen and
+overseers put more violence into their dealings than superintendents and
+employers. The corporal is generally harsher than the colonel. In
+certain families where madam has not much more education than her maid,
+the relations between them are those of the convict and his warder. And
+woe everywhere to him who falls into the hands of a subaltern drunk with
+his authority!
+
+We forget that the first duty of him who exercises power is humility.
+Haughtiness is not authority. It is not we who are the law; the law is
+over our heads. We only interpret it, but to make it valid in the eyes
+of others, we must first be subject to it ourselves. To command and to
+obey in the society of men, are after all but two forms of the same
+virtue--voluntary servitude. If you are not obeyed, it is generally
+because you have not yourself obeyed first.
+
+The secret of moral ascendancy rests with those who rule with
+simplicity. They soften by the spirit the harshness of the fact. Their
+authority is not in shoulder-straps, titles or disciplinary measures.
+They make use of neither ferule nor threats, yet they achieve
+everything. Why? Because we feel that they are themselves ready for
+everything. That which confers upon a man the right to demand of another
+the sacrifice of his time, his money, his passions, even his life, is
+not only that he is resolved upon all these sacrifices himself, but that
+he has made them in advance. In the command of a man animated by this
+spirit of renunciation, there is a mysterious force which communicates
+itself to him who is to obey, and helps him do his duty.
+
+In all the provinces of human activity there are chiefs who inspire,
+strengthen, magnetize their soldiers: under their direction the troops
+do prodigies. With them one feels himself capable of any effort, ready
+to go through fire, as the saying has it; and if he goes, it is with
+enthusiasm.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+But the pride of the exalted is not the only pride; there is also the
+pride of the humble--this arrogance of underlings, fit pendant to that
+of the great. The root of these two prides is the same. It is not alone
+that lofty and imperious being, the man who says, "I am the law," that
+provokes insurrection by his very attitude; it is also that pig-headed
+subaltern who will not admit that there is anything beyond his
+knowledge.
+
+There are really many people who find all superiority irritating. For
+them, every piece of advice is an offense, every criticism an
+imposition, every order an outrage on their liberty. They would not
+know how to submit to rule. To respect anything or anybody would seem to
+them a mental aberration. They say to people after their fashion:
+"Beyond us there is nothing."
+
+To the family of the proud belong also those difficult and
+supersensitive people who in humble life find that their superiors never
+do them fitting honor, whom the best and most kindly do not succeed in
+satisfying, and who go about their duties with the air of a martyr. At
+bottom these disaffected minds have too much misplaced self-respect.
+They do not know how to fill their place simply, but complicate their
+life and that of others by unreasonable demands and morbid suspicions.
+
+When one takes the trouble to study men at short range, he is surprised
+to find that pride has so many lurking-places among those who are by
+common consent called the humble. So powerful is this vice, that it
+arrives at forming round those who live in the most modest circumstances
+a wall which isolates them from their neighbors. There they are,
+intrenched, barricaded with their ambitions and their contempts, as
+inaccessible as the powerful of earth behind their aristocratic
+prejudices. Obscure or illustrious, pride wraps itself in its dark
+royalty of enmity to the human race. It is the same in misery and in
+high places--solitary and impotent, on guard against everybody,
+embroiling everything. And the last word about it is always this: If
+there is so much hostility and hatred between different classes of men,
+it is due less to exterior conditions than to an interior fatality.
+Conflicting interests and differences of situation dig ditches between
+us, it is true, but pride transforms the ditches into gulfs, and in
+reality it is pride alone which cries from brink to brink: "There is
+nothing in common between you and us."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+We have not finished with pride, but it is impossible to picture it
+under all its forms. I feel most resentful against it when it meddles
+with knowledge and appropriates that. We owe our knowledge to our
+fellows, as we do our riches and power. It is a social force which ought
+to be of service to everybody, and it can only be so when those who know
+remain sympathetically near to those who know not. When knowledge is
+turned into a tool for ambition, it destroys itself.
+
+And what shall we say of the pride of good men? for it exists, and makes
+even virtue hateful. The just who repent them of the evil others do,
+remain in brotherhood and social rectitude. But the just who despise
+others for their faults and misdeeds, cut themselves off from humanity,
+and their goodness, descended to the rank of an ornament for their
+vanity, becomes like those riches which kindness does not inform, like
+authority untempered by the spirit of obedience. Like proud wealth and
+arrogant power, supercilious virtue also is detestable. It fosters in
+man traits and an attitude provocative of I know not what. The sight of
+it repels instead of attracting, and those whom it deigns to distinguish
+with its benefits feel as though they had been slapped in the face.
+
+To resume and conclude, it is an error to think that our advantages,
+whatever they are, should be put to the service of our vanity. Each of
+them constitutes for him who enjoys it an obligation and not a reason
+for vainglory. Material wealth, power, knowledge, gifts of the heart and
+mind, become so much cause for discord when they serve to nourish
+pride. They remain beneficent only so long as they are the source of
+modesty in those who possess them.
+
+Let us be humble if we have great possessions, for that proves that we
+are great debtors: all that a man has he owes to someone, and are we
+sure of being able to pay our debts?
+
+Let us be humble if we sit in high places and hold the fate of others in
+our hands; for no clear-sighted man can fail to be sensible of unfitness
+for so grave a rôle.
+
+Let us be humble if we have much knowledge, for it only serves to better
+show the vastness of the unknown, and to compare the little we have
+discovered for ourselves with the amplitude of that which we owe to the
+pains of others.
+
+And, above all, let us be humble if we are virtuous, since no one should
+be more sensible of his defects than he whose conscience is illumined,
+and since he more than anyone else should feel the need of charity
+toward evil-doers, even of suffering in their stead.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+"And what about the necessary distinctions in life?" someone may ask.
+"As a result of your simplifications, are you not going to destroy that
+sense of the difference between men which must be maintained if society
+exists at all?"
+
+I have no mind to suppress distinctions and differences. But I think
+that what distinguishes a man is not found in his social rank, his
+occupation, his dress or his fortune, but solely in himself. More than
+any other our own age has pricked the vain bubble of purely outward
+greatness. To be somebody at present, it does not suffice to wear the
+mantle of an emperor or a royal crown: what honor is there in wielding
+power through gold lace, a coat of arms or a ribbon? Not that visible
+signs are to be despised; they have their meaning and use, but on
+condition that they cover something and not a vacuum. The moment they
+cease to stand for realities, they become useless and dangerous. The
+only true distinction is superior worth. If you would have social rank
+duly respected, you must begin by being worthy of the rank that is your
+own; otherwise you help to bring it into hatred and contempt. It is
+unhappily too true that respect is diminishing among us, and it
+certainly is not from a lack of lines drawn round those who wish to be
+respected. The root of the evil is in the mistaken idea that high
+station exempts him who holds it from observing the common obligations
+of life. As we rise, we believe that we free ourselves from the law,
+forgetting that the spirit of obedience and humility should grow with
+our possessions and power. So it comes about that those who demand the
+most homage make the least effort to merit the homage they demand. This
+is why respect is diminishing.
+
+The sole distinction necessary is the wish to become better. The man who
+strives to be better becomes more humble, more approachable, more
+friendly even with those who owe him allegiance. But as he gains by
+being better known, he loses nothing in distinction, and he reaps the
+more respect in that he has sown the less pride.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE EDUCATION FOR SIMPLICITY
+
+
+The simple life being above all else the product of a direction of mind,
+it is natural that education should have much to do with it.
+
+In general but two methods of rearing children are practiced: the first
+is to bring them up for ourselves; the second, to bring them up for
+themselves.
+
+In the first case the child is looked upon as a complement of the
+parents: he is part of their property, occupies a place among their
+possessions. Sometimes this place is the highest, especially when the
+parents value the life of the affections. Again, where material
+interests rule, the child holds second, third, or even the last place.
+In any case he is a nobody. While he is young, he gravitates round his
+parents, not only by obedience, which is right, but by the subordination
+of all his originality, all his being. As he grows older, this
+subordination becomes a veritable confiscation, extending to his ideas,
+his feelings, everything. His minority becomes perpetual. Instead of
+slowly evolving into independence, the man advances into slavery. He is
+what he is permitted to be, what his father's business, religious
+beliefs, political opinions or esthetic tastes require him to be. He
+will think, speak, act, and marry according to the understanding and
+limits of the paternal absolutism. This family tyranny may be exercised
+by people with no strength of character. It is only necessary for them
+to be convinced that good order requires the child to be the property of
+the parents. In default of mental force, they possess themselves of him
+by other means--by sighs, supplications, or base seductions. If they
+cannot fetter him, they snare his feet in traps. But that he should live
+in them, through them, for them, is the only thing admissible.
+
+Education of this sort is not the practice of families only, but also of
+great social organizations whose chief educational function consists in
+putting a strong hand on every new-comer, in order to fit him, in the
+most iron-bound fashion, into existing forms. It is the attenuation,
+pulverization and assimilation of the individual in a social body, be it
+theocratic, communistic, or simply bureaucratic and routinary. Looked at
+from without, a like system seems the ideal of simplicity in education.
+Its processes, in fact, are absolutely simplistic, and if a man were not
+somebody, if he were only a sample of the race, this would be the
+perfect education. As all wild beasts, all fish and insects of the same
+genus and species have the same markings, so we should all be identical,
+having the same tastes, the same language, the same beliefs, the same
+tendencies. But man is not simply a specimen of the race, and for that
+reason this sort of education is far from being simple in its results.
+Men so vary from one another, that numberless methods have to be
+invented to repress, stupefy, and extinguish individual thought. And one
+never arrives at it then but in part, a fact which is continually
+deranging everything. At each moment, by some fissure, some interior
+force of initiative is making a violent way to the light, producing
+explosions, upheavals, all sorts of grave disorders. And where there are
+no outward manifestations, the evil lies dormant; beneath apparent order
+are hidden dumb revolt, flaws made by an abnormal existence, apathy,
+death.
+
+The system is evil which produces such fruit, and however simple it may
+appear, in reality it brings forth all possible complications.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+The other system is the extreme opposite, that of bringing up children
+for themselves. The rôles are reversed: the parents are there for the
+child. No sooner is he born than he becomes the center. White-headed
+grandfather and stalwart father bow before these curls. His lisping is
+their law. A sign from him suffices. If he cries in the night, no
+fatigue is of account, the whole household must be roused. The new-comer
+is not long in discovering his omnipotence, and before he can walk he is
+drunken with it. As he grows older all this deepens and broadens.
+Parents, grandparents, servants, teachers, everybody is at his command.
+He accepts the homage and even the immolation of his neighbor: he treats
+like a rebellious subject anyone who does not step out of his path.
+There is only himself. He is the unique, the perfect, the infallible.
+Too late it is perceived that all this has been evolving a master; and
+what a master! forgetful of sacrifices, without respect, even pity. He
+no longer has any regard for those to whom he owes everything, and he
+goes through life without law or check.
+
+This education, too, has its social counterpart. It flourishes wherever
+the past does not count, where history begins with the living, where
+there is no tradition, no discipline, no reverence; where those who know
+the least make the most noise; where those who stand for public order
+are alarmed by every chance comer whose power lies in his making a great
+outcry and respecting nothing. It insures the reign of transitory
+passion, the triumph of the inferior will. I compare these two
+educations--one, the exaltation of the environment, the other of the
+individual; one the absolutism of tradition, the other the tyranny of
+the new--and I find them equally baneful. But the most disastrous of all
+is the combination of the two, which produces human beings
+half-automatons, half-despots, forever vacillating between the spirit
+of a sheep and the spirit of revolt or domination.
+
+Children should be educated neither for themselves nor for their
+parents: for man is no more designed to be a personage than a specimen.
+They should be educated for life. The aim of their education is to aid
+them to become active members of humanity, brotherly forces, free
+servants of the civil organization. To follow a method of education
+inspired by any other principle, is to complicate life, deform it, sow
+the seeds of all disorders.
+
+When we would sum up in a phrase the destiny of the child, the word
+future springs to our lips. The child is the future. This word says
+all--the sufferings of the past, the stress of to-day, hope. But when
+the education of the child begins, he is incapable of estimating the
+reach of this word; for he is held by impressions of the present. Who
+then shall give him the first enlightenment and put him in the way he
+should go? The parents, the teachers. And with very little reflection
+they perceive that their work does not interest simply themselves and
+the child, but that they represent and administer impersonal powers and
+interests. The child should continually appear to them as a future
+citizen. With this ruling idea, they will take thought for two things
+that complement each other--for the initial and personal force which is
+germinating in the child, and for the social destination of this force.
+At no moment of their direction over him can they forget that this
+little being confided to their care must become _himself_ and a
+_brother_. These two conditions, far from excluding each other, never
+exist apart. It is impossible to be brotherly, to love, to give one's
+self, unless one is master of himself; and reciprocally, none can
+possess himself, comprehend his own individual being, until he has first
+made his way through the outward accidents of his existence, down to the
+profound springs of life where man feels himself one with other men in
+all that is most intimately his own.
+
+To aid a child to become himself and a brother it is necessary to
+protect him against the violent and destructive action of the forces of
+disorder. These forces are exterior and interior. Every child is menaced
+from without not only by material dangers but by the meddlesomeness of
+alien wills; and from within, by an exaggerated idea of his own
+personality and all the fancies it breeds. There is a great outward
+danger which may come from the abuse of power in educators. The right of
+might finds itself a place in education with extreme facility. To
+educate another, one must have renounced this right, that is to say,
+made abnegation of the inferior sentiment of personal importance, which
+transforms us into the enemies of others, even of our own children. Our
+authority is beneficent only when it is inspired by one higher than our
+own. In this case it is not only salutary, but also indispensable, and
+becomes in its turn the best guarantee against the greater peril which
+threatens the child from within--that of exaggerating his own
+importance. At the beginning of life the vividness of personal
+impressions is so great, that to establish an equilibrium, they must be
+submitted to the gentle influence of a calm and superior will. The true
+quality of the office of educator is to represent this will to the
+child, in a manner as continuous and as disinterested as possible.
+Educators, then, stand for all that is to be respected in the world.
+They give to the child impressions of that which precedes it, outruns
+it, envelops it: but they do not crush it; on the contrary, their will
+and all the influence they transmit, become elements nutritive of its
+native energy. Such use of authority as this, cultivates that fruitful
+obedience out of which free souls are born. The purely personal
+authority of parents, masters and institutions is to the child like the
+brushwood beneath which the young plant withers and dies. Impersonal
+authority, the authority of a man who has first submitted himself to the
+time-honored realities before which he wishes the individual fancy of
+the child to bend, resembles pure and luminous air. True it has an
+activity, and influences us in its manner, but it nourishes our
+individuality and gives it firmness and stability. Without this
+authority there is no education. To watch, to guide, to keep a firm
+hand--such is the function of the educator. He should appear to the
+child not like a barrier of whims, which, if need be, one may clear,
+provided the leap be proportioned to the height of the obstacle; but
+like a transparent wall through which may be seen unchanging realities,
+laws, limits, and truths against which no action is possible. Thus
+arises respect, which is the faculty of conceiving something greater
+than ourselves--respect, which broadens us and frees us by making us
+more modest. This is the law of education for simplicity. It may be
+summed up in these words: to make _free_ and _reverential_ men, who
+shall be _individual_ and _fraternal_.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us draw from this principle some practical applications.
+
+From the very fact that the child is the future, he must be linked to
+the past by piety. We owe it to him to clothe tradition in the forms
+most practical and most fit to create a deep impression: whence the
+exceptional place that should be given in education to the ancients, to
+the cult of remembrance of the past, and by extension, to the history of
+the domestic rooftree. Above all do we fulfil a duty toward our children
+when we give the place of honor to the grandparents. Nothing speaks to a
+child with so much force, or so well develops his modesty, as to see his
+father and mother, on all occasions, preserve toward an old grandfather,
+often infirm, an attitude of respect. It is a perpetual object lesson
+that is irresistible. That it may have its full force, it is necessary
+for a tacit understanding to obtain among all the grown-up members of
+the family. To the child's eyes they must all be in league, held to
+mutual respect and understanding, under penalty of compromising their
+educational authority. And in their number must be counted the servants.
+Servants are big people, and the same sentiment of respect is injured in
+the child's disregard of them as in his disregard of his father or
+grandfather. The moment he addresses an impolite or arrogant word to a
+person older than himself, he strays from the path that a child ought
+never to quit; and if only occasionally the parents neglect to point
+this out, they will soon perceive by his conduct toward themselves, that
+the enemy has found entrance to his heart.
+
+We mistake if we think that a child is naturally alien to respect,
+basing this opinion on the very numerous examples of irreverence which
+he offers us. Respect is for the child a fundamental need. His moral
+being feeds on it. The child aspires confusedly to revere and admire
+something. But when advantage is not taken of this aspiration, it gets
+corrupted or lost. By our lack of cohesion and mutual deference, we, the
+grown-ups, discredit daily in the child's eyes our own cause and that of
+everything worthy of respect. We inoculate in him a bad spirit whose
+effects then turn against us.
+
+This pitiful truth nowhere appears with more force than in the relations
+between masters and servants, as we have made them. Our social errors,
+our want of simplicity and kindness, all fall back upon the heads of our
+children. There are certainly few people of the middle classes who
+understand that it is better to part with many thousands of dollars than
+to lead their children to lose respect for servants, who represent in
+our households the humble. Yet nothing is truer. Maintain as strictly as
+you will conventions and distances,--that demarkation of social
+frontiers which permits each one to remain in his place and to observe
+the law of differences. That is a good thing, I am persuaded, but on
+condition of never forgetting that those who serve us are men and women
+like ourselves. You require of your domestics certain formulas of speech
+and certain attitudes, outward evidence of the respect they owe you. Do
+you also teach your children and use yourselves manners toward your
+servants which show them that you respect their dignity as individuals,
+as you desire them to respect yours? Here we have continually in our
+homes an excellent ground for experiment in the practice of that mutual
+respect which is one of the essential conditions of social sanity. I
+fear we profit by it too little. We do not fail to exact respect, but
+we fail to give it. So it is most frequently the case that we get only
+hypocrisy and this supplementary result, all unexpected,--the
+cultivation of pride in our children. These two factors combined heap up
+great difficulties for that future which we ought to be safeguarding. I
+am right then in saying that the day when by your own practices you have
+brought about the lessening of respect in your children, you have
+suffered a sensible loss.
+
+Why should I not say it? It seems to me that the greater part of us
+labor for this loss. On all sides, in almost every social rank, I notice
+that a pretty bad spirit is fostered in children, a spirit of reciprocal
+contempt. Here, those who have calloused hands and working-clothes are
+disdained; there, it is all who do not wear blue jeans. Children
+educated in this spirit make sad fellow-citizens. There is in all this
+the want of that simplicity which makes it possible for men of good
+intentions, of however diverse social standing, to collaborate without
+any friction arising from the conventional distance that separates them.
+
+If the spirit of caste causes the loss of respect, partisanship, of
+whatever sort, is quite as productive of it. In certain quarters
+children are brought up in such fashion that they respect but one
+country--their own; one system of government--that of their parents and
+masters; one religion--that which they have been taught. Does anyone
+suppose that in this way men can be shaped who shall respect country,
+religion and law? Is this a proper respect--this respect which does not
+extend beyond what touches and belongs to ourselves? Strange blindness
+of cliques and coteries, which arrogate to themselves with so much
+ingenuous complacence the title of schools of respect, and which,
+outside themselves, respect nothing. In reality they teach: "Country,
+religion, law--we are all these!" Such teaching fosters fanaticism, and
+if fanaticism is not the sole anti-social ferment, it is surely one of
+the worst and most energetic.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+If simplicity of heart is an essential condition of respect, simplicity
+of life is its best school. Whatever be the state of your fortune, avoid
+everything which could make your children think themselves more or
+better than others. Though your wealth would permit you to dress them
+richly, remember the evil you might do in exciting their vanity.
+Preserve them from the evil of believing that to be elegantly dressed
+suffices for distinction, and above all do not carelessly increase by
+their clothes and their habits of life, the distance which already
+separates them from other children: dress them simply. And if, on the
+contrary, it would be necessary for you to economize to give your
+children the pleasure of fine clothes, I would that I might dispose you
+to reserve your spirit of sacrifice for a better cause. You risk seeing
+it illy recompensed. You dissipate your money when it would much better
+avail to save it for serious needs, and you prepare for yourself, later
+on, a harvest of ingratitude. How dangerous it is to accustom your sons
+and daughters to a style of living beyond your means and theirs! In the
+first place, it is very bad for your purse; in the second place it
+develops a contemptuous spirit in the very bosom of the family. If you
+dress your children like little lords, and give them to understand that
+they are superior to you, is it astonishing if they end by disdaining
+you? You will have nourished at your table the declassed--a product
+which costs dear and is worthless.
+
+Any fashion of instructing children whose most evident result is to
+lead them to despise their parents and the customs and activities among
+which they have grown up, is a calamity. It is effective for nothing but
+to produce a legion of malcontents, with hearts totally estranged from
+their origin, their race, their natural interests--everything, in short,
+that makes the fundamental fabric of a man. Once detached from the
+vigorous stock which produced them, the wind of their restless ambition
+drives them over the earth, like dead leaves that will in the end be
+heaped up to ferment and rot together.
+
+Nature does not proceed by leaps and bounds, but by an evolution slow
+and certain. In preparing a career for our children, let us imitate her.
+Let us not confound progress and advancement with those violent
+exercises called somersaults. Let us not so bring up our children that
+they will come to despise work and the aspirations and simple spirit of
+their fathers: let us not expose them to the temptation of being ashamed
+of our poverty if they themselves come to fortune. A society is indeed
+diseased when the sons of peasants begin to feel disgust for the fields,
+when the sons of sailors desert the sea, when the daughters of
+working-men, in the hope of being taken for heiresses, prefer to walk
+the streets alone rather than beside their honest parents. A society is
+healthy, on the contrary, when each of its members applies himself to
+doing very nearly what his parents have done before him, but doing it
+better, and, looking to future elevation, is content first to fulfill
+conscientiously more modest duties.[C]
+
+[C] This would be the place to speak of work in general, and of its
+tonic effect upon education. But I have discussed the subject in my
+books _Justice_, _Jeunesse_, and _Vaillanos_. I must limit myself to
+referring the reader to them.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Education should make independent men. If you wish to train your
+children for liberty, bring them up simply, and do not for a moment fear
+that in so doing you are putting obstacles in the way of their
+happiness. It will be quite the contrary. The more costly toys a child
+has, the more feasts and curious entertainments, the less is he amused.
+
+
+In this there is a sure sign. Let us be temperate in our methods of
+entertaining youth, and especially let us not thoughtlessly create for
+them artificial needs. Food, dress, nursery, amusements--let all these
+be as natural and simple as possible. With the idea of making life
+pleasant for their children, some parents bring them up in habits of
+gormandizing and idleness, accustom them to sensations not meant for
+their age, multiply their parties and entertainments. Sorry gifts these!
+In place of a free man, you are making a slave. Gorged with luxury, he
+tires of it in time; and yet when for one reason or another his
+pleasures fail him, he will be miserable, and you with him: and what is
+worse, perhaps in some capital encounter of life, you will be ready--you
+and he together--to sacrifice manly dignity, truth, and duty, from sheer
+sloth.
+
+Let us bring up our children simply, I had almost said rudely. Let us
+entice them to exercise that gives them endurance--even to privations.
+Let them belong to those who are better trained to fatigue and the earth
+for a bed than to the comforts of the table and couches of luxury. So we
+shall make men of them, independent and staunch, who may be counted on,
+who will not sell themselves for pottage, and who will have withal the
+faculty of being happy.
+
+A too easy life brings with it a sort of lassitude in vital energy. One
+becomes blasé, disillusioned, an old young man, past being diverted. How
+many young people are in this state! Upon them have been deposited, like
+a sort of mold, the traces of our decrepitude, our skepticism, our
+vices, and the bad habits they have contracted in our company. What
+reflections upon ourselves these youths weary of life force us to make!
+What announcements are graven on their brows!
+
+These shadows say to us by contrast that happiness lies in a life true,
+active, spontaneous, ungalled by the yoke of the passions, of unnatural
+needs, of unhealthy stimulus; keeping intact the physical faculty of
+enjoying the light of day and the air we breathe, and in the heart, the
+capacity to thrill with the love of all that is generous, simple and
+fine.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+The artificial life engenders artificial thought, and a speech little
+sure of itself. Normal habits, deep impressions, the ordinary contact
+with reality, bring frankness with them. Falsehood is the vice of a
+slave, the refuge of the cowardly and weak. He who is free and strong is
+unflinching in speech. We should encourage in our children the hardihood
+to speak frankly. What do we ordinarily do? We trample on natural
+disposition, level it down to the uniformity which for the crowd is
+synonymous with good form. To think with one's own mind, feel with one's
+own heart, express one's own personality--how unconventional, how
+rustic!--Oh! the atrocity of an education which consists in the
+perpetual muzzling of the only thing that gives any of us his reason for
+being! Of how many soul-murders do we become guilty! Some are struck
+down with bludgeons, others gently smothered with pillows! Everything
+conspires against independence of character. When we are little, people
+wish us to be dolls or graven images; when we grow up, they approve of
+us on condition that we are like all the rest of the world--automatons:
+when you have seen one of them you've seen them all. So the lack of
+originality and initiative is upon us, and platitude and monotony are
+the distinctions of to-day. Truth can free us from this bondage: let
+our children be taught to be themselves, to ring clear, without crack or
+muffle. Make loyalty a need to them, and in their gravest failures, if
+only they acknowledge them, account it for merit that they have not
+covered their sin.
+
+To frankness let us add ingenuousness, in our solicitude as educators.
+Let us have for this comrade of childhood--a trifle uncivilized, it is
+true, but so gracious and friendly!--all possible regard. We must not
+frighten it away: when it has once fled, it so rarely comes back!
+Ingenuousness is not simply the sister of truth, the guardian of the
+individual qualities of each of us; it is besides a great informing and
+educating force. I see among us too many practical people, so called,
+who go about armed with terrifying spectacles and huge shears to ferret
+out naïve things and clip their wings. They uproot ingenuousness from
+life, from thought, from education, and pursue it even to the region of
+dreams. Under pretext of making men of their children, they prevent
+their being children at all;--as if before the ripe fruit of autumn,
+flowers did not have to be, and perfumes, and songs of birds, and all
+the fairy springtime.
+
+I ask indulgence for everything naïve and simple, not alone for the
+innocent conceits that flutter round the curly heads of children, but
+also for the legend, the folk song, the tales of the world of marvel and
+mystery. The sense of the marvellous is in the child the first form of
+that sense of the infinite without which a man is like a bird deprived
+of wings. Let us not wean the child from it, but let us guard in him the
+faculty of rising above what is earthy, so that he may appreciate later
+on those pure and moving symbols of vanished ages wherein human truth
+has found forms of expression that our arid logic will never replace.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+I think I have said enough of the spirit and manifestations of the
+simple life, to make it evident that there is here a whole forgotten
+world of strength and beauty. He can make conquest of it who has
+sufficient energy to detach himself from the fatal rubbish that trammels
+our days. It will not take him long to perceive that in renouncing some
+surface satisfactions and childish ambitions, he increases his faculty
+of happiness and his possibilities of right judgment.
+
+These results concern as much the private as the public life. It is
+incontestable that in striving against the feverish will to shine, in
+ceasing to make the satisfaction of our desires the end of our activity,
+in returning to modest tastes, to the true life, we shall labor for the
+unity of the family. Another spirit will breath in our homes, creating
+new customs and an atmosphere more favorable to the education of
+children. Little by little our boys and girls will feel the enticement
+of ideals at once higher and more realizable. And transformation of the
+home will in time exercise its influence on public spirit. As the
+solidity of a wall depends upon the grain of the stones and the
+consistence of the cement which binds them together, so also the energy
+of public life depends upon the individual value of men and their power
+of cohesion. The great desideratum of our time is the culture of the
+component parts of society, of the individual man. Everything in the
+present social organism leads us back to this element. In neglecting it
+we expose ourselves to the loss of the benefits of progress, even to
+making our most persistent efforts turn to our own hurt. If in the midst
+of means continually more and more perfected, the workman diminishes in
+value, of what use are these fine tools at his disposal? By their very
+excellence to make more evident the faults of him who uses them without
+discernment or without conscience. The wheelwork of the great modern
+machine is infinitely delicate. Carelessness, incompetence or corruption
+may produce here disturbances of far greater gravity than would have
+threatened the more or less rudimentary organism of the society of the
+past. There is need then of looking to the quality of the individual
+called upon to contribute in any measure to the workings of this
+mechanism. This individual should be at once solid and pliable, inspired
+with the central law of life--to be one's self and fraternal. Everything
+within us and without us becomes simplified and unified under the
+influence of this law, which is the same for everybody and by which each
+one should guide his actions; for our essential interests are not
+opposing, they are identical. In cultivating the spirit of simplicity,
+we should arrive, then, at giving to public life a stronger cohesion.
+
+The phenomena of decomposition and destruction that we see there may all
+be attributed to the same cause,--lack of solidity and cohesion. It will
+never be possible to say how contrary to social good are the trifling
+interests of caste, of coterie, of church, the bitter strife for
+personal welfare, and, by a fatal consequence, how destructive these
+things are of individual happiness. A society in which each member is
+preoccupied with his own well-being, is organized disorder. This is all
+that we learn from the irreconcilable conflicts of our uncompromising
+egoism.
+
+We too much resemble those people who claim the rights of family only to
+gain advantage from them, not to do honor to the connection. On all
+rounds of the social ladder we are forever putting forth claims. We all
+take the ground that we are creditors: no one recognizes the fact that
+he is a debtor, and our dealings with our fellows consist in inviting
+them, in tones sometimes amiable, sometimes arrogant, to discharge their
+indebtedness to us. No good thing is attained in this spirit. For in
+fact it is the spirit of privilege, that eternal enemy of universal law,
+that obstacle to brotherly understanding which is ever presenting itself
+anew.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+In a lecture delivered in 1882, M. Renan said that a nation is "a
+spiritual family," and he added: "The essential of a nation is that all
+the individuals should have many things in common, and also that all
+should have forgotten much." It is important to know what to forget and
+what to remember, not only in the past, but also in our daily life. Our
+memories are lumbered with the things that divide us; the things which
+unite us slip away. Each of us keeps at the most luminous point of his
+souvenirs, a lively sense of his secondary quality, his part of
+agriculturist, day laborer, man of letters, public officer, proletary,
+bourgeois, or political or religious sectarian; but his essential
+quality, which is to be a son of his country and a man, is relegated to
+the shade. Scarcely does he keep even a theoretic notion of it. So that
+what occupies us and determines our actions, is precisely the thing that
+separates us from others, and there is hardly place for that spirit of
+unity which is as the soul of a people.
+
+So too do we foster bad feeling in our brothers. Men animated by a
+spirit of particularism, exclusiveness, and pride, are continually
+clashing. They cannot meet without rousing afresh the sentiment of
+division and rivalry. And so there slowly heaps up in their remembrance
+a stock of reciprocal ill-will, of mistrust, of rancor. All this is bad
+feeling with its consequences.
+
+It must be rooted out of our midst. Remember, forget! This we should say
+to ourselves every morning, in all our relations and affairs. Remember
+the essential, forget the accessory! How much better should we discharge
+our duties as citizens, if high and low were nourished from this spirit!
+How easy to cultivate pleasant remembrances in the mind of one's
+neighbor, by sowing it with kind deeds and refraining from procedures of
+which in spite of himself he is forced to say, with hatred in his heart:
+"Never in the world will I forget!"
+
+The spirit of simplicity is a great magician. It softens asperities,
+bridges chasms, draws together hands and hearts. The forms which it
+takes in the world are infinite in number; but never does it seem to us
+more admirable than when it shows itself across the fatal barriers of
+position, interest, or prejudice, overcoming the greatest obstacles,
+permitting those whom everything seems to separate to understand one
+another, esteem one another, love one another. This is the true social
+cement, that goes into the building of a people.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Simple Life, by Charles Wagner
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Simple Life, by Charles Wagner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Simple Life
+
+Author: Charles Wagner
+
+Translator: Mary Louise Hendee
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2007 [EBook #23092]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SIMPLE LIFE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Sarah Jensen, Matt Mello and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<h1>THE SIMPLE LIFE</h1>
+<hr class="hr2" />
+<h1><span class="smcap by">By</span> <span class="by">CHARLES WAGNER</span><br />
+<span class="by2"><i>Author of The Better Way</i></span></h1>
+<hr class="hr2" />
+<h1><span class="trans"><i>Translated from the French by Mary Louise Hendee</i></span></h1>
+<hr class="hr2" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50px;">
+<img src="images/decoration.png" width="50" height="47" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="hr2" />
+<h1><span class="pub">GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP</span><br />
+<span class="smcap pub">Publishers, New York</span></h1>
+</div>
+
+<h3><small><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1901, <span class="smcap">by</span></small><br />
+McCLURE, PHILLIPS &amp; CO.</h3>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<table summary="table of contents" style="width: 500px;">
+<colgroup span="3">
+<col width="50px"></col>
+<col width="400px"></col>
+<col width="50px"></col>
+</colgroup>
+<tr>
+<th class="tdd" colspan="3" style="padding-bottom: 5px;"><h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2></th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th class="tdc" colspan="3" style="padding-bottom: 5px;"><small>PAGE</small></th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">I.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">OUR COMPLEX LIFE</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#i">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">II.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">THE ESSENCE OF SIMPLICITY</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#ii">15</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">III.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">SIMPLICITY OF THOUGHT </td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#iii">22</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">IV.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">SIMPLICITY OF SPEECH</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#iv">39</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">V.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">SIMPLE DUTY</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#v">52</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">VI.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">SIMPLE NEEDS</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#vi">68</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">VII.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">SIMPLE PLEASURES</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#vii">80</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">VIII.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">THE MERCENARY SPIRIT AND SIMPLICITY</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#viii">96</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">IX.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">NOTORIETY AND THE INGLORIOUS GOOD</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#ix">111</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">X.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF THE HOME</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#x">128</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">XI.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">SIMPLE BEAUTY</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#xi">139</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">XII.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">PRIDE AND SIMPLICITY IN THE INTERCOURSE OF MEN</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#xii">151</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">XIII.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">THE EDUCATION FOR SIMPLICITY</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#xiii">167</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><span class="smcap">XIV.</span></td>
+<td class="tdb">CONCLUSION</td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#xiv">188</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="hr4" />
+
+
+
+<h2><big><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span>THE SIMPLE LIFE</big><br /><br />
+<a name="i" id="i"></a>I<br />
+OUR COMPLEX LIFE</h2>
+
+<p class="cap">AT the home of the Blanchards, everything is topsy-turvy, and with
+reason. Think of it! Mlle. Yvonne is to be married Tuesday, and to-day
+is Friday!</p>
+
+<p>Callers loaded with gifts, and tradesmen bending under packages, come
+and go in endless procession. The servants are at the end of their
+endurance. As for the family and the betrothed, they no longer have a
+life or a fixed abode. Their mornings are spent with dressmakers,
+milliners, upholsterers, jewelers, decorators, and caterers. After that,
+comes a rush through offices, where one waits in line, gazing vaguely at
+busy clerks engulfed in papers. A fortunate thing, if there be time when
+this is over, to run home and dress for the series of ceremonial
+dinners&mdash;betrothal dinners, dinners of presentation, the settlement
+dinner, receptions, balls. About midnight, home again, harassed and
+weary, to find the latest accumulation of parcels, and a deluge of
+letters&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>congratulations, felicitations, acceptances and regrets from
+bridesmaids and ushers, excuses of tardy tradesmen. And the
+<i>contretemps</i> of the last minute&mdash;a sudden death that disarranges the
+bridal party; a wretched cold that prevents a favorite cantatrice from
+singing, and so forth, and so forth. Those poor Blanchards! They will
+never be ready, and they thought they had foreseen everything!</p>
+
+<p>Such has been their existence for a month. No longer possible to
+breathe, to rest a half-hour, to tranquillize one's thoughts. <i>No, this
+is not living!</i></p>
+
+<p>Mercifully, there is Grandmother's room. Grandmother is verging on
+eighty. Through many toils and much suffering, she has come to meet
+things with the calm assurance which life brings to men and women of
+high thinking and large hearts. She sits there in her arm-chair,
+enjoying the silence of long meditative hours. So the flood of affairs
+surging through the house, ebbs at her door. At the threshold of this
+retreat, voices are hushed and footfalls softened; and when the young
+<i>fianc&eacute;s</i> want to hide away for a moment, they flee to Grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor children!" is her greeting. "You are worn out! Rest a little and
+belong to each other. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>All these things count for nothing. Don't let them
+absorb you, it isn't worth while."</p>
+
+<p>They know it well, these two young people. How many times in the last
+weeks has their love had to make way for all sorts of conventions and
+futilities! Fate, at this decisive moment of their lives, seems bent
+upon drawing their minds away from the one thing essential, to harry
+them with a host of trivialities; and heartily do they approve the
+opinion of Grandmamma when she says, between a smile and a caress:</p>
+
+<p>"Decidedly, my dears, the world is growing too complex; and it does not
+make people happier&mdash;quite the contrary!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">I ALSO, am of Grandmamma's opinion. From the cradle to the grave, in his
+needs as in his pleasures, in his conception of the world and of
+himself, the man of modern times struggles through a maze of endless
+complication. Nothing is simple any longer: neither thought nor action;
+not pleasure, not even dying. With our own hands we have added to
+existence a train of hardships, and lopped off many a gratification. I
+believe that thousands of our fellow-men, suffering the consequences of
+a too <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>artificial life, will be grateful if we try to give expression to
+their discontent, and to justify the regret for naturalness which
+vaguely oppresses them.</p>
+
+<p>Let us first speak of a series of facts that put into relief the truth
+we wish to show.</p>
+
+<p>The complexity of our life appears in the number of our material needs.
+It is a fact universally conceded, that our needs have grown with our
+resources. This is not an evil in itself; for the birth of certain needs
+is often a mark of progress. To feel the necessity of bathing, of
+wearing fresh linen, inhabiting wholesome houses, eating healthful food,
+and cultivating our minds, is a sign of superiority. But if certain
+needs exist by right, and are desirable, there are others whose effects
+are fatal, which, like parasites, live at our expense: numerous and
+imperious, they engross us completely.</p>
+
+<p>Could our fathers have foreseen that we should some day have at our
+disposal the means and forces we now use in sustaining and defending our
+material life, they would have predicted for us an increase of
+independence, and therefore of happiness, and a decrease in competition
+for worldly goods: they might even have thought that through the
+simplification of life thus made possible, a higher degree of morality
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>would be attained. None of these things has come to pass. Neither
+happiness, nor brotherly love, nor power for good has been increased.
+In the first place, do you think your fellow-citizens, taken as a whole,
+are more contented than their forefathers, and less anxious about the
+future? I do not ask if they should find reason to be so, but if they
+really are so. To see them live, it seems to me that a majority of them
+are discontented with their lot, and, above all, absorbed in material
+needs and beset with cares for the morrow. Never has the question of
+food and shelter been sharper or more absorbing than since we are better
+nourished, better clothed, and better housed than ever. He errs greatly
+who thinks that the query, "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink,
+and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" presents itself to the poor alone,
+exposed as they are to the anguish of morrows without bread or a roof.
+With them the question is natural, and yet it is with them that it
+presents itself most simply. You must go among those who are beginning
+to enjoy a little ease, to learn how greatly satisfaction in what one
+has, may be disturbed by regret for what one lacks. And if you would see
+anxious care for future material good, material good in all its
+luxurious <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>development, observe people of small fortune, and, above all,
+the rich. It is not the woman with one dress who asks most insistently
+how she shall be clothed, nor is it those reduced to the strictly
+necessary who make most question of what they shall eat to-morrow. As an
+inevitable consequence of the law that needs are increased by their
+satisfaction, <i>the more goods a man has, the more he wants</i>. The more
+assured he is of the morrow, according to the common acceptation, the
+more exclusively does he concern himself with how he shall live, and
+provide for his children and his children's children. Impossible to
+conceive of the fears of a man established in life&mdash;their number, their
+reach, and their shades of refinement.</p>
+
+<p>From all this, there has arisen throughout the different social orders,
+modified by conditions and varying in intensity, a common agitation&mdash;a
+very complex mental state, best compared to the petulance of a spoiled
+child, at once satisfied and discontented.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">IF <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>we have not become happier, neither have we grown more peaceful and
+fraternal. The more desires and needs a man has, the more occasion he
+finds for conflict with his fellow-men; and these conflicts are more
+bitter in proportion as their causes are less just. It is the law of
+nature to fight for bread, for the necessities. This law may seem
+brutal, but there is an excuse in its very harshness, and it is
+generally limited to elemental cruelties. Quite different is the battle
+for the superfluous&mdash;for ambition, privilege, inclination, luxury. Never
+has hunger driven man to such baseness as have envy, avarice, and thirst
+for pleasure. Egotism grows more maleficent as it becomes more refined.
+We of these times have seen an increase of hostile feeling among
+brothers, and our hearts are less at peace than ever.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<p>After this, is there any need to ask if we have become better? Do not
+the very sinews of virtue lie in man's capacity to care for something
+outside himself? And what place remains for one's neighbor in a life
+given over to material cares, to artificial <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>needs, to the satisfaction
+of ambitions, grudges, and whims? The man who gives himself up entirely
+to the service of his appetites, makes them grow and multiply so well
+that they become stronger than he; and once their slave, he loses his
+moral sense, loses his energy, and becomes incapable of discerning and
+practicing the good. He has surrendered himself to the inner anarchy of
+desire, which in the end gives birth to outer anarchy. In the moral life
+we govern ourselves. In the immoral life we are governed by our needs
+and passions. Thus little by little, the bases of the moral life shift,
+and the law of judgment deviates.</p>
+
+<p>For the man enslaved to numerous and exacting needs, possession is the
+supreme good and the source of all other good things. It is true that in
+the fierce struggle for possession, we come to hate those who possess,
+and to deny the right of property when this right is in the hands of
+others and not in our own. But the bitterness of attack against others'
+possessions is only a new proof of the extraordinary importance we
+attach to possession itself. In the end, people and things come to be
+estimated at their selling price, or according to the profit to be drawn
+from them. What brings nothing is worth nothing: <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>he who has nothing, is
+nothing. Honest poverty risks passing for shame, and lucre, however
+filthy, is not greatly put to it to be accounted for merit.</p>
+
+<p>Some one objects: "Then you make wholesale condemnation of progress, and
+would lead us back to the good old times&mdash;to asceticism perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>Not at all. The desire to resuscitate the past is the most unfruitful
+and dangerous of Utopian dreams, and the art of good living does not
+consist in retiring from life. But we are trying to throw light upon one
+of the errors that drag most heavily upon human progress, in order to
+find a remedy for it&mdash;namely, the belief that man becomes happier and
+better by the increase of outward well-being. Nothing is falser than
+this pretended social axiom; on the contrary, that material prosperity
+without an offset, diminishes the capacity for happiness and debases
+character, is a fact which a thousand examples are at hand to prove. The
+worth of a civilization is the worth of the man at its center. When this
+man lacks moral rectitude, progress only makes bad worse, and further
+embroils social problems.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnote footnotes">
+<p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> The author refers to the unparalleled bitterness of the
+conflict in France between Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">THIS <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>principle may be verified in other domains than that of material
+well-being. We shall speak only of education and liberty. We remember
+when prophets in good repute announced that to transform this wicked
+world into an abode fit for the gods, all that was needed was the
+overthrow of tyranny, ignorance, and want&mdash;those three dread powers so
+long in league. To-day, other preachers proclaim the same gospel. We
+have seen that the unquestionable diminution of want has made man
+neither better nor happier. Has this desirable result been more nearly
+attained through the great care bestowed upon instruction? It does not
+yet appear so, and this failure is the despair of our national
+educators.</p>
+
+<p>Then shall we stop the people's ears, suppress public instruction, close
+the schools? By no means. But education, like the mass of our age's
+inventions, is after all only a tool; everything depends upon the
+workman who uses it.... So it is with liberty. It is fatal or lifegiving
+according to the use made of it. Is it liberty still, when it is the
+prerogative of criminals or heedless blunderers? Liberty is an
+atmosphere of the higher life, and it is only by a slow and patient
+inward <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>transformation that one becomes capable of breathing it.</p>
+
+<p>All life must have its law, the life of man so much the more than that
+of inferior beings, in that it is more precious and of nicer adjustment.
+This law for man is in the first place an external law, but it may
+become an internal law. When man has once recognized the inner law, and
+bowed before it, through this reverence and voluntary submission he is
+ripe for liberty: so long as there is no vigorous and sovereign inner
+law, he is incapable of breathing its air; for he will be drunken with
+it, maddened, morally slain. The man who guides his life by inner law,
+can no more live servile to outward authority than can the full-grown
+bird live imprisoned in the eggshell. But the man who has not yet
+attained to governing himself can no more live under the law of liberty
+than can the unfledged bird live without its protective covering. These
+things are terribly simple, and the series of demonstrations old and new
+that proves them, increases daily under our eyes. And yet we are as far
+as ever from understanding even the elements of this most important law.
+In our democracy, how many are there, great and small, who know, from
+having <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>personally verified it, lived it and obeyed it, this truth
+without which a people is incapable of governing itself? Liberty?&mdash;it is
+respect; liberty?&mdash;it is obedience to the inner law; and this law is
+neither the good pleasure of the mighty, nor the caprice of the crowd,
+but the high and impersonal rule before which those who govern are the
+first to bow the head. Shall liberty, then, be proscribed? No; but men
+must be made capable and worthy of it, otherwise public life becomes
+impossible, and the nation, undisciplined and unrestrained, goes on
+through license into the inextricable tangles of demagoguery.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">WHEN one passes in review the individual causes that disturb and
+complicate our social life, by whatever names they are designated, and
+their list would be long, they all lead back to one general cause, which
+is this: <i>the confusion of the secondary with the essential</i>. Material
+comfort, education, liberty, the whole of civilization&mdash;these things
+constitute the frame of the picture; but the frame no more makes the
+picture than the frock the monk or the uniform the soldier. Here the
+picture is man, and man with his most intimate possessions&mdash;namely, his
+conscience, his character <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>and his will. And while we have been
+elaborating and garnishing the frame, we have forgotten, neglected,
+disfigured the picture. Thus are we loaded with external good, and
+miserable in spiritual life; we have in abundance that which, if must
+be, we can go without, and are infinitely poor in the one thing needful.
+And when the depth of our being is stirred, with its need of loving,
+aspiring, fulfilling its destiny, it feels the anguish of one buried
+alive&mdash;is smothered under the mass of secondary things that weigh it
+down and deprive it of light and air.</p>
+
+<p>We must search out, set free, restore to honor the true life, assign
+things to their proper places, and remember that the center of human
+progress is moral growth. What is a good lamp? It is not the most
+elaborate, the finest wrought, that of the most precious metal. A good
+lamp is a lamp that gives good light. And so also we are men and
+citizens, not by reason of the number of our goods and the pleasures we
+procure for ourselves, not through our intellectual and artistic
+culture, nor because of the honors and independence we enjoy; but by
+virtue of the strength of our moral fibre. And this is not a truth of
+to-day but a truth of all times.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>At no epoch have the exterior conditions which man has made for himself
+by his industry or his knowledge, been able to exempt him from care for
+the state of his inner life. The face of the world alters around us, its
+intellectual and material factors vary; and no one can arrest these
+changes, whose suddenness is sometimes not short of perilous. But the
+important thing is that at the center of shifting circumstance man
+should remain man, live his life, make toward his goal. And whatever be
+his road, to make toward his goal, the traveler must not lose himself in
+crossways, nor hamper his movements with useless burdens. Let him heed
+well his direction and forces, and keep good faith; and that he may the
+better devote himself to the essential&mdash;which is to progress&mdash;at
+whatever sacrifice, let him simplify his baggage.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span><a name="ii" id="ii"></a>II<br />
+<br />
+THE ESSENCE OF SIMPLICITY</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">BEFORE considering the question of a practical return to the simplicity
+of which we dream, it will be necessary to define simplicity in its very
+essence. For in regard to it people commit the same error that we have
+just denounced, confounding the secondary with the essential, substance
+with form. They are tempted to believe that simplicity presents certain
+external characteristics by which it may be recognized, and in which it
+really consists. Simplicity and lowly station, plain dress, a modest
+dwelling, slender means, poverty&mdash;these things seem to go together.
+Nevertheless, this is not the case. Just now I passed three men on the
+street: the first in his carriage; the others on foot, and one of them
+shoeless. The shoeless man does not necessarily lead the least complex
+life of the three. It may be, indeed, that he who rides in his carriage
+is sincere and unaffected, in spite of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>his position, and is not at all
+the slave of his wealth; it may be also that the pedestrian in shoes
+neither envies him who rides nor despises him who goes unshod; and
+lastly, it is possible that under his rags, his feet in the dust, the
+third man has a hatred of simplicity, of labor, of sobriety, and dreams
+only of idleness and pleasure. For among the least simple and
+straightforward of men must be reckoned professional beggars, knights of
+the road, parasites, and the whole tribe of the obsequious and envious,
+whose aspirations are summed up in this: to arrive at seizing a
+morsel&mdash;the biggest possible&mdash;of that prey which the fortunate of earth
+consume. And to this same category, little matter what their station in
+life, belong the profligate, the arrogant, the miserly, the weak, the
+crafty. Livery counts for nothing: we must see the heart. No class has
+the prerogative of simplicity; no dress, however humble in appearance,
+is its unfailing badge. Its dwelling need not be a garret, a hut, the
+cell of the ascetic nor the lowliest fisherman's bark. Under all the
+forms in which life vests itself, in all social positions, at the top as
+at the bottom of the ladder, there are people who live simply, and
+others who do not. We do not mean by this that simplicity betrays <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>itself
+in no visible signs, has not its own habits, its distinguishing tastes
+and ways; but this outward show, which may now and then be
+counterfeited, must not be confounded with its essence and its deep and
+wholly inward source. <i>Simplicity is a state of mind.</i> It dwells in the
+main intention of our lives. A man is simple when his chief care is the
+wish to be what he ought to be, that is, honestly and naturally human.
+And this is neither so easy nor so impossible as one might think. At
+bottom, it consists in putting our acts and aspirations in accordance
+with the law of our being, and consequently with the Eternal Intention
+which willed that we should be at all. Let a flower be a flower, a
+swallow a swallow, a rock a rock, and let a man be a man, and not a fox,
+a hare, a hog, or a bird of prey: this is the sum of the whole matter.</p>
+
+<p>Here we are led to formulate the practical ideal of man. Everywhere in
+life we see certain quantities of matter and energy associated for
+certain ends. Substances more or less crude are thus transformed and
+carried to a higher degree of organization. It is not otherwise with the
+life of man. The human ideal is to transform life into something more
+excellent than itself. We may compare existence to raw <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>material. What it
+is, matters less than what is made of it, as the value of a work of art
+lies in the flowering of the workman's skill. We bring into the world
+with us different gifts: one has received gold, another granite, a third
+marble, most of us wood or clay. Our task is to fashion these
+substances. Everyone knows that the most precious material may be
+spoiled, and he knows, too, that out of the least costly an immortal
+work may be shaped. Art is the realization of a permanent idea in an
+ephemeral form. True life is the realization of the higher
+virtues,&mdash;justice, love, truth, liberty, moral power,&mdash;in our daily
+activities, whatever they may be. And this life is possible in social
+conditions the most diverse, and with natural gifts the most unequal. It
+is not fortune or personal advantage, but our turning them to account,
+that constitutes the value of life. Fame adds no more than does length
+of days: quality is the thing.</p>
+
+<p>Need we say that one does not rise to this point of view without a
+struggle? The spirit of simplicity is not an inherited gift, but the
+result of a laborious conquest. Plain living, like high thinking, is
+simplification. We know that science is the handful of ultimate
+principles gathered out of the tufted <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>mass of facts; but what gropings
+to discover them! Centuries of research are often condensed into a
+principle that a line may state. Here the moral life presents strong
+analogy with the scientific. It, too, begins in a certain confusion,
+makes trial of itself, seeks to understand itself, and often mistakes.
+But by dint of action, and exacting from himself strict account of his
+deeds, man arrives at a better knowledge of life. Its law appears to
+him, and the law is this: <i>Work out your mission.</i> He who applies
+himself to aught else than the realization of this end, loses in living
+the <i>raison d'&ecirc;tre</i> of life. The egoist does so, the pleasure-seeker,
+the ambitious: he consumes existence as one eating the full corn in the
+blade,&mdash;he prevents it from bearing its fruit; his life is lost.
+Whoever, on the contrary, makes his life serve a good higher than
+itself, saves it in giving it. Moral precepts, which to a superficial
+view appear arbitrary, and seem made to spoil our zest for life, have
+really but one object&mdash;to preserve us from the evil of having lived in
+vain. That is why they are constantly leading us back into the same
+paths; that is why they all have the same meaning: <i>Do not waste your
+life,</i> make it bear fruit; learn how to give it, in order that it may
+not <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>consume itself! Herein is summed up the experience of humanity, and
+this experience, which each man must remake for himself, is more
+precious in proportion as it costs more dear. Illumined by its light, he
+makes a moral advance more and more sure. Now he has his means of
+orientation, his internal norm to which he may lead everything back; and
+from the vacillating, confused, and complex being that he was, he
+becomes simple. By the ceaseless influence of this same law, which
+expands within him, and is day by day verified in fact, his opinions and
+habits become transformed.</p>
+
+<p>Once captivated by the beauty and sublimity of the true life, by what is
+sacred and pathetic in this strife of humanity for truth, justice, and
+brotherly love, his heart holds the fascination of it. Gradually
+everything subordinates itself to this powerful and persistent charm.
+The necessary hierarchy of powers is organized within him: the essential
+commands, the secondary obeys, and order is born of simplicity. We may
+compare this organization of the interior life to that of an army. An
+army is strong by its discipline, and its discipline consists in respect
+of the inferior for the superior, and the concentration of all its
+energies toward a single end: <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>discipline once relaxed, the army suffers.
+It will not do to let the corporal command the general. Examine
+carefully your life and the lives of others. Whenever something halts
+or jars, and complications and disorder follow, it is because the
+corporal has issued orders to the general. Where the natural law rules
+in the heart, disorder vanishes.</p>
+
+<p>I despair of ever describing simplicity in any worthy fashion. All the
+strength of the world and all its beauty, all true joy, everything that
+consoles, that feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark
+paths, everything that makes us see across our poor lives a splendid
+goal and a boundless future, comes to us from people of simplicity,
+those who have made another object of their desires than the passing
+satisfaction of selfishness and vanity, and have understood that the art
+of living is to know how to give one's life.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span><a name="iii" id="iii"></a>III<br />
+<br />
+SIMPLICITY OF THOUGHT</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">IT is not alone among the practical manifestations of our life that
+there is need of making a clearing: the domain of our ideas is in the
+same case. Anarchy reigns in human thought: we walk in the woods,
+without compass or sun, lost among the brambles and briars of infinite
+detail.</p>
+
+<p>When once man has recognized the fact that he has an aim, and that this
+aim is <i>to be a man</i>, he organizes his thought accordingly. Every mode
+of thinking or judging which does not make him better and stronger, he
+rejects as dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>And first of all he flees the too common contrariety of amusing himself
+with his thought. Thought is a tool, with its own proper function: it
+isn't a toy. Let us take an example. Here is the studio of a painter.
+The implements are all in place: everything indicates that this
+assemblage of means is arranged with view to an end. Throw the room <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>open
+to apes. They will climb on the benches, swing from the cords, rig
+themselves in draperies, coif themselves with slippers, juggle with
+brushes, nibble the colors, and pierce the canvases to see what is
+behind the paint. I don't question their enjoyment; certainly they must
+find this kind of exercise extremely interesting. But an atelier is not
+made to let monkeys loose in. No more is thought a ground for acrobatic
+evolutions. A man worthy of the name, thinks as he is, as his tastes
+are: he goes about it with his whole heart, and not with that fitful and
+sterile curiosity which, under pretext of observing and noting
+everything, runs the risk of never experiencing a deep and true emotion
+or accomplishing a right deed.</p>
+
+<p>Another habit in urgent need of correction, ordinary attendant on
+conventional life, is the mania for examining and analyzing one's self
+at every turn. I do not invite men to neglect introspection and the
+examination of conscience. The endeavor to understand one's own mental
+attitudes and motives of conduct is an essential element of good living.
+But quite other is this extreme vigilance, this incessant observation of
+one's life and thoughts, this dissecting of one's self, like a piece of
+mechanism. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>It is a waste of time, and goes wide of the mark. The man
+who, to prepare himself the better for walking, should begin by making a
+rigid anatomical examination of his means of locomotion, would risk
+dislocating something before he had taken a step. You have what you need
+to walk with, then forward! Take care not to fall, and use your forces
+with discretion. Potterers and scruple-mongers are soon reduced to
+inaction. It needs but a glimmer of common sense to perceive that man is
+not made to pass his life in a self-centered trance.</p>
+
+<p>And common sense&mdash;do you not find what is designated by this name
+becoming as rare as the common-sense customs of other days? Common sense
+has become an old story. We must have something new&mdash;and we create a
+factitious existence, a refinement of living, that the vulgar crowd has
+not the wherewithal to procure. It is so agreeable to be distinguished!
+Instead of conducting ourselves like rational beings, and using the
+means most obviously at our command, we arrive, by dint of absolute
+genius, at the most astonishing singularities. Better off the track than
+on the main line! All the bodily defects and deformities that orthopedy
+treats, give but a feeble idea of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>humps, the tortuosities, the
+dislocations we have inflicted upon ourselves in order to depart from
+simple common sense; and at our own expense we learn that one does not
+deform himself with impunity. Novelty, after all, is ephemeral. Nothing
+endures but the eternal commonplace; and if one departs from that, it is
+to run the most perilous risks. Happy he who is able to reclaim himself,
+who finds the way back to simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>Good plain sense is not, as is often imagined, the innate possession of
+the first chance-comer, a mean and paltry equipment that has cost
+nothing to anyone. I would compare it to those old folk-songs,
+unfathered but deathless, which seem to have risen out of the very heart
+of the people. Good sense is a fund slowly and painfully accumulated by
+the labor of centuries. It is a jewel of the first water, whose value he
+alone understands who has lost it, or who observes the lives of others
+who have lost it. For my part, I think no price too great to pay for
+gaining it and keeping it, for the possession of eyes that see and a
+judgment that discerns. One takes good care of his sword, that it be not
+bent or rusted: with greater reason should he give heed to his thought.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>But let this be well understood: an appeal to common sense is not an
+appeal to thought that grovels, to narrow positivism which denies
+everything it cannot see or touch. For to wish that man should be
+absorbed in material sensations, to the exclusion of the high realities
+of the inner life, is also a want of good sense. Here we touch upon a
+tender point, round which the greatest battles of humanity are waging.
+In truth we are striving to attain a conception of life, searching it
+out amid countless obscurities and griefs: and everything that touches
+upon spiritual realities becomes day by day more painful. In the midst
+of the grave perplexities and transient disorders that accompany great
+crises of thought, it seems more difficult than ever to escape with any
+simple principles. Yet necessity itself comes to our aid, as it has done
+for the men of all times. The program of life is terribly simple, after
+all, and in the fact that existence so imperiously forces herself upon
+us, she gives us notice that she precedes any idea of her which we may
+make for ourselves, and that no one can put off living pending an
+attempt to understand life. Our philosophies, our explanations, our
+beliefs are everywhere confronted by facts, and these facts, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>prodigious,
+irrefutable, call us to order when we would deduce life from our
+reasonings, and would wait to act until we have ended philosophizing. It
+is this happy necessity that prevents the world from stopping while man
+questions his route. Travelers of a day, we are carried along in a vast
+movement to which we are called upon to contribute, but which we have
+not foreseen, nor embraced in its entirety, nor penetrated as to its
+ultimate aims. Our part is to fill faithfully the r&ocirc;le of private, which
+has devolved upon us, and our thought should adapt itself to the
+situation. Do not say that we live in more trying times than our
+ancestors, for things seen from afar are often seen imperfectly: it is
+moreover scarcely gracious to complain of not having been born in the
+days of one's grandfather. What we may believe least contestable on the
+subject is this: from the beginning of the world it has been hard to see
+clearly; right thinking has been difficult everywhere and always. In the
+matter the ancients were in no wise privileged above the moderns, and it
+might be added that there is no difference between men when they are
+considered from this point of view. Master and servant, teacher and
+learner, writer and artisan discern truth at the same cost. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>The light
+that humanity acquires in advancing is no doubt of the greatest use; but
+it also multiplies the number and extent of human problems. The
+difficulty is never removed, the mind always encounters its obstacle.
+The unknown controls us and hems us in on all sides. But just as one
+need not exhaust a spring to quench his thirst, so we need not know
+everything to live. Humanity lives and always has lived on certain
+elemental <i>provisions</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We will try to point them out. First of all, humanity lives by
+confidence. In so doing it but reflects, commensurate with its conscious
+thought, that which is the hidden source of all beings. An imperturbable
+faith in the stability of the universe and its intelligent ordering,
+sleeps in everything that exists. The flowers, the trees, the beasts of
+the field, live in calm strength, in entire security. There is
+confidence in the falling rain, in dawning day, in the brook running to
+the sea. Everything that is seems to say: "I am, therefore I should be;
+there are good reasons for this, rest assured."</p>
+
+<p>So, too, mankind lives by confidence. From the simple fact that he is,
+man has within him the sufficient reason for his being&mdash;a pledge of
+assurance. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>He reposes in the power which has willed that he should be.
+To safeguard this confidence, to see that nothing disconcerts it, to
+cultivate it, render it more personal, more evident&mdash;toward this should
+tend the first effort of our thought. All that augments confidence
+within us is good, for from confidence is born the life without haste,
+tranquil energy, calm action, the love of life and its fruitful labor.
+Deep-seated confidence is the mysterious spring that sets in motion the
+energy within us. It is our nutriment. By it man lives, much more than
+by the bread he eats. And so everything that shakes this confidence is
+evil&mdash;poison, not food.</p>
+
+<p>Dangerous is every system of thought that attacks the very fact of life,
+declaring it to be an evil. Life has been too often wrongly estimated in
+this century. What wonder that the tree withers when its roots are
+watered with corrosives. And there is an extremely simple reflection
+that might be made in the face of all this negation. You say life is an
+evil. Well; what remedy for it do you offer? Can you combat it, suppress
+it? I do not ask you to suppress your own life, to commit suicide;&mdash;of
+what advantage would that be to us?&mdash;but to suppress <i>life</i>, not merely
+human life, but life at its deep and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>hidden origin, all this upspringing
+of existence that pushes toward the light and, to your mind, is rushing
+to misfortune; I ask you to suppress the will to live that trembles
+through the immensities of space, to suppress in short the source of
+life. Can you do it? No. Then leave us in peace. Since no one can hold
+life in check, is it not better to respect it and use it than to go
+about making other people disgusted with it? When one knows that certain
+food is dangerous to health, he does not eat it, and when a certain
+fashion of thinking robs us of confidence, cheerfulness and strength, we
+should reject that, certain not only that it is a nutriment noxious to
+the mind, but also that it is false. There is no truth for man but in
+thoughts that are human, and pessimism is inhuman. Besides, it wants as
+much in modesty as in logic. To permit one's self to count as evil this
+prodigious thing that we call life, one needs have seen its very
+foundation, almost to have made it. What a strange attitude is that of
+certain great thinkers of our times! They act as if they had created the
+world, very long ago, in their youth, but decidedly it was a mistake,
+and they had well repented it.</p>
+
+<p>Let us nourish ourselves from other meat; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>strengthen our souls with
+cheering thoughts. What is truest for man is what best fortifies him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">IF mankind lives by confidence, it lives also by hope&mdash;that form of
+confidence which turns toward the future. All life is a result and an
+aspiration, all that exists supposes an origin and tends toward an end.
+Life is progression: progression is aspiration. The progress of the
+future is an infinitude of hope. Hope is at the root of things, and must
+be reflected in the heart of man. No hope, no life. The same power which
+brought us into being, urges us to go up higher. What is the meaning of
+this persistent instinct which pushes us on? The true meaning is that
+something is to result from life, that out of it is being wrought a good
+greater than itself, toward which it slowly moves, and that this painful
+sower called man, needs, like every sower, to count on the morrow. The
+history of humanity is the history of indomitable hope; otherwise
+everything would have been over long ago. To press forward under his
+burdens, to guide himself in the night, to retrieve his falls and his
+failures, to escape despair even in death, man has need of hoping
+always, and sometimes against all hope. Here is the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>cordial that
+sustains him. Had we only logic, we should have long ago drawn the
+conclusion: Death has everywhere the last word!&mdash;and we should be dead
+of the idea. But we have hope, and that is why we live and believe in
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Suso, the great monk and mystic, one of the simplest and best men that
+ever lived, had a touching custom: whenever he encountered a woman, were
+she the poorest and oldest, he stepped respectfully aside, though his
+bare feet must tread among thorns or in the gutter. "I do that," he
+said, "to render homage to our Holy Lady, the Virgin Mary." Let us offer
+to hope a like reverence. If we meet it in the shape of a blade of wheat
+piercing the furrow; a bird brooding on its nest; a poor wounded beast,
+recovering itself, rising and continuing its way; a peasant ploughing
+and sowing a field that has been ravaged by flood or hail; a nation
+slowly repairing its losses and healing its wounds&mdash;under whatever guise
+of humanity or suffering it appears to us, let us salute it! When we
+encounter it in legends, in untutored songs, in simple creeds, let us
+still salute it! for it is always the same, indestructible, the immortal
+daughter of God.</p>
+
+<p>We do not dare hope enough. The men of our <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>day have developed strange
+timidities. The apprehension that the sky will fall&mdash;that acme of
+absurdity among the fears of our Gallic forefathers&mdash;has entered our own
+hearts. Does the rain-drop doubt the ocean? the ray mistrust the sun?
+Our senile wisdom has arrived at this prodigy. It resembles those testy
+old pedagogues whose chief office is to rail at the merry pranks or the
+youthful enthusiasms of their pupils. It is time to become little
+children once more, to learn again to stand with clasped hands and wide
+eyes before the mystery around us; to remember that, in spite of our
+knowledge, what we know is but a trifle, and that the world is greater
+than our mind, which is well; for being so prodigious, it must hold in
+reserve untold resources, and we may allow it some credit without
+accusing ourselves of improvidence. Let us not treat it as creditors do
+an insolvent debtor: we should fire its courage, relight the sacred
+flame of hope. Since the sun still rises, since earth puts forth her
+blossoms anew, since the bird builds its nest, and the mother smiles at
+her child, let us have the courage to be men, and commit the rest to Him
+who has numbered the stars. For my part, I would I might find glowing
+words to say to whomsoever has lost heart in these times of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>disillusion:
+Rouse your courage, hope on; he is sure of being least deluded who has
+the daring to do that; the most ingenuous hope is nearer truth than the
+most rational despair.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">ANOTHER source of light on the path of human life is goodness. I am not
+of those who believe in the natural perfection of man, and teach that
+society corrupts him. On the contrary, of all forms of evil, the one
+which most dismays me is heredity. But I sometimes ask myself how it is
+that this effete and deadly virus of low instincts, of vices inoculated
+in the blood, the whole assemblage of disabilities imposed upon us by
+the past&mdash;how all this has not got the better of us. It must be because
+of something else. This other thing is love.</p>
+
+<p>Given the unknown brooding above our heads, our limited intelligence,
+the grievous and contradictory enigma of human destiny, falsehood,
+hatred, corruption, suffering, death&mdash;what can we think, what do? To all
+these questions a sublime and mysterious voice has answered: <i>Love your
+fellow-men.</i> Love must indeed be divine, like faith and hope, since she
+cannot die when so many powers are arrayed against her. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>She has to
+combat the natural ferocity of what may be called the beast in man; she
+has to meet ruse, force, self-interest, above all, ingratitude. How is
+it that she passes pure and scathless in the midst of these dark
+enemies, like the prophet of the sacred legend among the roaring beasts?
+It is because her enemies are of the earth, and love is from above.
+Horns, teeth, claws, eyes full of murderous fire, are powerless against
+the swift wing that soars toward the heights and eludes them. Thus love
+escapes the undertakings of her foes. She does even better: she has
+sometimes known the fine triumph of winning over her persecutors: she
+has seen the wild beasts grow calm, lie down at her feet, obey her law.</p>
+
+<p>At the very heart of the Christian faith, the most sublime of its
+teachings, and to him who penetrates its deepest sense, the most human,
+is this: To save lost humanity, the invisible God came to dwell among
+us, in the form of a man, and willed to make Himself known by this
+single sign: <i>Love.</i></p>
+
+<p>Healing, consoling, tender to the unfortunate, even to the evil, love
+engenders light beneath her feet. She clarifies, she simplifies. She has
+chosen the humblest part&mdash;to bind up wounds, wipe away <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>tears, relieve
+distress, soothe aching hearts, pardon, make peace; yet it is of love
+that we have the greatest need. And as we meditate on the best way to
+render thought fruitful, simple, really conformable to our destiny, the
+method sums itself up in these words: <i>Have confidence and hope; be
+kind.</i></p>
+
+<p>I would not discourage lofty speculation, dissuade any one whomsoever
+from brooding over the problems of the unknown, over the vast abysses of
+science or philosophy. But we have always to come back from these far
+journeys to the point where we are, often to a place where we seem to
+stand marking time with no result. There are conditions of life and
+social complications in which the sage, the thinker, and the ignorant
+are alike unable to see clearly. The present age has often brought us
+face to face with such situations; I am sure that he who meets them with
+our method will soon recognize its worth.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">SINCE I have touched here upon religious ground, at least in a general
+way, someone may ask me to say in a few simple words, what religion is
+the best;and I gladly express myself on this subject. But it might be
+better not to  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>put the question in this form. All religions have, of
+necessity, certain fixed characteristics, and each has its inherent
+qualities or defects. Strictly speaking, then, they may be compared
+among themselves: but there are always involuntary partialities or
+foregone conclusions. It is better to put the question otherwise, and
+ask: Is my own religion good, and how may I know it? To this question,
+this answer: Your religion is good if it is vital and active, if it
+nourishes in you confidence, hope, love, and a sentiment of the infinite
+value of existence; if it is allied with what is best in you against
+what is worst, and holds forever before you the necessity of becoming a
+new man; if it makes you understand that pain is a deliverer; if it
+increases your respect for the conscience of others; if it renders
+forgiveness more easy, fortune less arrogant, duty more dear, the beyond
+less visionary. If it does these things it is good, little matter its
+name: however rudimentary it may be, when it fills this office it comes
+from the true source, it binds you to man and to God.</p>
+
+<p>But does it perchance serve to make you think yourself better than
+others, quibble over texts, wear sour looks, domineer over others'
+consciences or give your own over to bondage; stifle your scruples,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>follow religious forms for fashion or gain, do good in the hope of
+escaping future punishment?&mdash;oh, then, if you proclaim yourself the
+follower of Buddha, Moses, Mahomet, or even Christ, your religion is
+worthless&mdash;it separates you from God and man.</p>
+
+<p>I have not perhaps the right to speak thus in my own name; but others
+have so spoken before me who are greater than I, and notably He who
+recounted to the questioning scribe the parable of the Good Samaritan. I
+intrench myself behind His authority.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span><a name="iv" id="iv"></a>IV<br />
+<br />
+SIMPLICITY OF SPEECH</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">SPEECH is the chief revelation of the mind, the first visible form that
+it takes. As the thought, so the speech. To better one's life in the way
+of simplicity, one must set a watch on his lips and his pen. Let the
+word be as genuine as the thought, as artless, as valid: think justly,
+speak frankly.</p>
+
+<p>All social relations have their roots in mutual trust, and this trust is
+maintained by each man's sincerity. Once sincerity diminishes,
+confidence is weakened, society suffers, apprehension is born. This is
+true in the province of both natural and spiritual interests. With
+people whom we distrust, it is as difficult to do business as to search
+for scientific truth, arrive at religious harmony, or attain to justice.
+When one must first question words and intentions, and start from the
+premise that everything said and written is meant to offer us illusion
+in place of truth, life becomes strangely <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>complicated. This is the case
+to-day. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy, so much subtle
+legerdemain, that we all have no end of trouble to inform ourselves on
+the simplest subject and the one that most concerns us. Probably what I
+have just said would suffice to show my thought, and each one's
+experience might bring to its support an ample commentary with
+illustrations. But I am none the less moved to insist on this point, and
+to strengthen my position with examples.</p>
+
+<p>Formerly the means of communication between men were considerably
+restricted. It was natural to suppose that in perfecting and multiplying
+avenues of information, a better understanding would be brought about.
+Nations would learn to love each other as they became acquainted;
+citizens of one country would feel themselves bound in closer
+brotherhood as more light was thrown on what concerned their common
+life. When printing was invented, the cry arose: <i>fiat lux!</i> and with
+better cause when the habit of reading and the taste for newspapers
+increased. Why should not men have reasoned thus:&mdash;"Two lights illumine
+better than one, and many better than two: the more periodicals and
+books there are, the better we shall know <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>what happens, and those who
+wish to write history after us will be right fortunate; their hands will
+be full of documents"? Nothing could have seemed more evident. Alas!
+this reasoning was based upon the nature and capacity of the
+instruments, without taking into account the human element, always the
+most important factor. And what has really come about is this: that
+cavilers, calumniators, and crooks&mdash;all gentlemen glib of tongue, who
+know better than any one else how to turn voice and pen to account&mdash;have
+taken the utmost advantage of these extended means for circulating
+thought, with the result that the men of our times have the greatest
+difficulty in the world to know the truth about their own age and their
+own affairs. For every newspaper that fosters good feeling and good
+understanding between nations, by trying to rightly inform its neighbors
+and to study them without reservations, how many spread defamation and
+distrust! What unnatural and dangerous currents of opinion set in
+motion! what false alarms and malicious interpretations of words and
+facts! And in domestic affairs we are not much better informed than in
+foreign. As to commercial, industrial, and agricultural interests,
+political parties and social tendencies, or the personality of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>public
+men, it is alike difficult to obtain a disinterested opinion. The more
+newspapers one reads, the less clearly he sees in these matters. There
+are days when after having read them all, and admitting that he takes
+them at their word, the reader finds himself obliged to draw this
+conclusion:&mdash;Unquestionably nothing but corruption can be found any
+longer&mdash;no men of integrity except a few journalists. But the last part
+of the conclusion falls in its turn. It appears that the chroniclers
+devour each other. The reader has under his eyes a spectacle somewhat
+like the cartoon entitled, "The Combat of the Serpents." After having
+gorged themselves with everything around them, the reptiles fall upon
+each other, and there remain upon the field of battle two tails.</p>
+
+<p>And not the common people alone feel this embarrassment, but the
+cultivated also&mdash;almost everybody shares it. In politics, finance,
+business&mdash;even in science, art, literature and religion, there is
+everywhere disguise, trickery, wire-pulling; one truth for the public,
+another for the initiated. The result is that everybody is deceived. It
+is vain to be behind the scenes on one stage; a man cannot be there on
+them all, and the very people who deceive others with the most ability,
+are in turn deceived when <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>they need to count upon the sincerity of their
+neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>The result of such practices is the degradation of human speech. It is
+degraded first in the eyes of those who manipulate it as a base
+instrument. No word is respected by sophists, casuists, and quibblers,
+men who are moved only by a rage for gaining their point, or who assume
+that their interests are alone worth considering. Their penalty is to be
+forced to judge others by the rule they follow themselves: <i>Say what
+profits and not what is true.</i> They can no longer take any one
+seriously&mdash;a sad state of mind for those who write or teach! How lightly
+must one hold his readers and hearers to approach them in such an
+attitude! To him who has preserved enough honesty, nothing is more
+repugnant than the careless irony of an acrobat of the tongue or pen,
+who tries to dupe honest and ingenuous men. On one side openness,
+sincerity, the desire to be enlightened; on the other, chicanery making
+game of the public! But he knows not, the liar, how far he is misleading
+himself. The capital on which he lives is confidence, and nothing equals
+the confidence of the people, unless it be their distrust when once they
+find themselves <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>betrayed. They may follow for a time the exploiters of
+their artlessness, but then their friendly humor turns to hate. Doors
+which stood wide open offer an impassable front of wood, and ears once
+attentive are deaf. And the pity is that they have closed not to the
+evil alone, but to the good. This is the crime of those who distort and
+degrade speech: they shake confidence generally. We consider as a
+calamity the debasement of the currency, the lowering of interest, the
+abolition of credit:&mdash;there is a misfortune greater than these: the loss
+of confidence, of that moral credit which honest people give one
+another, and which makes speech circulate like an authentic currency.
+Away with counterfeiters, speculators, rotten financiers, for they bring
+under suspicion even the coin of the realm. Away with the makers of
+counterfeit speech, for because of them there is no longer confidence in
+anyone or anything, and what they say and write is not worth a
+continental.</p>
+
+<p>You see how urgent it is that each should guard his lips, chasten his
+pen, and aspire to simplicity of speech. No more perversion of sense,
+circumlocution, reticence, tergiversation! these things serve only to
+complicate and bewilder. Be men; speak the speech <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>of honor. An hour of
+plain-dealing does more for the salvation of the world than years of
+duplicity.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">A WORD now about a national bias, to those who have a veneration for
+diction and style. Assuredly there can be no quarrel with the taste for
+grace and elegance of speech. I am of opinion that one cannot say too
+well what he has to say. But it does not follow that the things best
+said and best written are most studied. Words should serve the fact, and
+not substitute themselves for it and make it forgotten in its
+embellishment. The greatest things are those which gain the most by
+being said most simply, since thus they show themselves for what they
+are: you do not throw over them the veil, however transparent, of
+beautiful discourse, nor that shadow so fatal to truth, called the
+writer's vanity. Nothing so strong, nothing so persuasive, as
+simplicity! There are sacred emotions, cruel griefs, splendid heroisms,
+passionate enthusiasms that a look, a movement, a cry interprets better
+than beautifully rounded periods. The most precious possessions of the
+heart of humanity manifest themselves most simply. To be convincing, a
+thing must be true, and certain truths are more evident when they <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>come
+in the speech of ingenuousness, even weakness, than when they fall from
+lips too well trained, or are proclaimed with trumpets. And these rules
+are good for each of us in his every-day life. No one can imagine what
+profit would accrue to his moral life from the constant observation of
+this principle: Be sincere, moderate, simple in the expression of your
+feelings and opinions, in private and public alike; never pass beyond
+bounds, give out faithfully what is within you, and above all,
+watch!&mdash;that is the main thing.</p>
+
+<p>For the danger in fine words is that they live from a life of their own.
+They are servants of distinction, that have kept their titles but no
+longer perform their functions&mdash;of which royal courts offer us example.
+You speak well, write well, and all is said. How many people content
+themselves with speaking, and believe that it exempts them from acting!
+And those who listen are content with having heard them. So it sometimes
+happens that a life may in the end be made up of a few well-turned
+speeches, a few fine books, and a few great plays. As for practicing
+what is so magisterially set forth, that is the last thing thought of.
+And if we pass from the world of talent to spheres which the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>mediocre
+exploit, there, in a pell-mell of confusion, we see those who think that
+we are in the world to talk and hear others talk&mdash;the great and hopeless
+rout of babblers, of everything that prates, bawls, and perorates and,
+after all, finds that there isn't talking enough. They all forget that
+those who make the least noise do the most work. An engine that expends
+all its steam in whistling, has nothing left with which to turn wheels.
+Then let us cultivate silence. All that we can save in noise we gain in
+power.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">THESE reflections lead us to consider a similar subject, also very
+worthy of attention: I mean what has been called "the vice of the
+superlative." If we study the inhabitants of a country, we notice
+differences of temperament, of which the language shows signs. Here the
+people are calm and phlegmatic; their speech is jejune, lacks color.
+Elsewhere temperaments are more evenly balanced; one finds precision,
+the word exactly fitted to the thing. But farther on&mdash;effect of the sun,
+the air, the wine perhaps&mdash;hot blood courses in the veins, tempers are
+excitable, language is extravagant, and the simplest things are said in
+the strongest terms.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>If the type of speech varies with climate, it differs also with epochs.
+Compare the language, written or spoken, of our own times with that of
+certain other periods of our history. Under the old <i>r&eacute;gime</i>, people
+spoke differently than at the time of the Revolution, and we have not
+the same language as the men of 1830, 1848, or the Second Empire. In
+general, language is now characterized by greater simplicity: we no
+longer wear perukes, we no longer write in lace frills: but there is one
+significant difference between us and almost all of our ancestors&mdash;and
+it is the source of our exaggerations&mdash;our nervousness. Upon
+over-excited nervous systems&mdash;and Heaven knows that to have nerves is no
+longer an aristocratic privilege!&mdash;words do not produce the same
+impression as under normal conditions. And quite as truly, simple
+language does not suffice the man of over-wrought sensibilities when he
+tries to express what he feels. In private life, in public, in books, on
+the stage, calm and temperate speech has given place to excess. The
+means that novelists and playwrights employ to galvanize the public mind
+and compel its attention, are to be found again, in their rudiments, in
+our most commonplace conversations, in our letter-writing, and above all
+in public <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>speaking. Our performances in language compared to those of a
+man well-balanced and serene, are what our hand-writing is compared to
+that of our fathers. The fault is laid to steel pens. If only the truth
+were acknowledged!&mdash;Geese, then, could save us! But the evil goes
+deeper; it is in ourselves. We write like men possessed: the pen of our
+ancestors was more restful, more sure. Here we face one of the results
+of our modern life, so complicated and so terribly exhaustive of energy.
+It leaves us impatient, breathless, in perpetual trepidation. Our
+hand-writing, like our speech, suffers thereby and betrays us. Let us go
+back from the effect to the cause, and understand well the warning it
+brings us!</p>
+
+<p>What good can come from this habit of exaggerated speech? False
+interpreters of our own impressions, we can not but warp the minds of
+our fellow-men as well as our own. Between people who exaggerate, good
+understanding ceases. Ruffled tempers, violent and useless disputes,
+hasty judgments devoid of all moderation, the utmost extravagance in
+education and social life&mdash;these things are the result of intemperance
+of speech.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">MAY<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> I be permitted, in this appeal for simplicity of speech, to frame a
+wish whose fulfilment would have the happiest results? I ask for
+simplicity in literature, not only as one of the best remedies for the
+dejection of our souls&mdash;<i>blas&eacute;s</i>, jaded, weary of eccentricities&mdash;but
+also as a pledge and source of social union. I ask also for simplicity
+in art. Our art and our literature are reserved for the privileged few
+of education and fortune. But do not misunderstand me. I do not ask
+poets, novelists, and painters to descend from the heights and walk
+along the mountain-sides, finding their satisfaction in mediocrity; but,
+on the contrary, to mount higher. The truly popular is not that which
+appeals to a certain class of society ordinarily called the common
+people; the truly popular is what is common to all classes and unites
+them. The sources of inspiration from which perfect art springs are in
+the depths of the human heart, in the eternal realities of life before
+which all men are equal. And the sources of a popular language must be
+found in the small number of simple and vigorous forms which express
+elementary sensations, and draw the master lines of human destiny. In
+them are truth, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>power, grandeur, immortality. Is there not enough in
+such an ideal to kindle the enthusiasm of youth, which, sensible that
+the sacred flame of the beautiful is burning within, feels pity, and to
+the disdainful adage, <i>Odi profanum vulgus</i>, prefers this more humane
+saying, <i>Misereor super turbam</i>. As for me, I have no artistic
+authority, but from out the multitude where I live, I have the right to
+raise my cry to those who have been given talents, and say to them:
+Labor for men whom the world forgets, make yourselves intelligible to
+the humble, so shall you accomplish a work of emancipation and peace; so
+shall you open again the springs whence those masters drew, whose works
+have defied the ages because they knew how to clothe genius in
+simplicity.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span><a name="v" id="v"></a>V<br />
+<br />
+SIMPLE DUTY</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">WHEN we talk to children on a subject that annoys them, they call our
+attention to some pigeon on the roof, giving food to its little one, or
+some coachman down in the street who is abusing his horse. Sometimes
+they even maliciously propose one of those alarming questions that put
+the minds of parents on the rack; all this to divert attention from the
+distressing topic. I fear that in the face of duty we are big children,
+and, when that is the theme, seek subterfuges to distract us.</p>
+
+<p>The first sophism consists in asking ourselves if there is such a thing
+as duty in the abstract, or if this word does not cover one of the
+numerous illusions of our forefathers. For duty, in truth, supposes
+liberty, and the question of liberty leads us into metaphysics. How can
+we talk of liberty so long as this grave problem of free-will is not
+solved? Theoretically there is no objection to this; and if <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>life were a
+theory, and we were here to work out a complete system of the universe,
+it would be absurd to concern ourselves with duty until we had clarified
+the subject of liberty, determined its conditions, fixed its limits.</p>
+
+<p>But life is not a theory. In this question of practical morality, as in
+the others, life has preceded hypothesis, and there is no room to
+believe that she ever yields it place. This liberty&mdash;relative, I admit,
+like everything we are acquainted with, for that matter&mdash;this duty whose
+existence we question, is none the less the basis of all the judgments
+we pass upon ourselves and our fellow-men. We hold each other to a
+certain extent responsible for our deeds and exploits.</p>
+
+<p>The most ardent theorist, once outside of his theory, scruples not a
+whit to approve or disapprove the acts of others, to take measures
+against his enemies, to appeal to the generosity and justice of those he
+would dissuade from an unworthy step. One can no more rid himself of the
+notion of moral obligation than of that of time or space; and as surely
+as we must resign ourselves to walking before we know how to define this
+space through which we move and this time that measures our movements,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>so surely must we submit to moral obligation before having put our
+finger on its deep-hidden roots. Moral law dominates man, whether he
+respects or defies it. See how it is in every-day life: each one is
+ready to cast his stone at him who neglects a plain duty, even if he
+allege that he has not yet arrived at philosophic certitude. Everybody
+will say to him, and with excellent reason: "Sir, we are men before
+everything. First play your part, do your duty as citizen, father, son;
+after that you shall return to the course of your meditations."</p>
+
+<p>However, let us be well understood. We should not wish to turn anyone
+away from scrupulous research into the foundations of morality. No
+thought which leads men to concern themselves once more with these grave
+questions, could be useless or indifferent. We simply challenge the
+thinker to find a way to wait till he has unearthed these foundations,
+before he does an act of humanity, of honesty or dishonesty, of valor or
+cowardice. And most of all do we wish to formulate a reply for all the
+insincere who have never tried to philosophize, and for ourselves when
+we would offer our state of philosophic doubt in justification of our
+practical omissions. From the simple fact that we <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>are men, before all
+theorizing, positive, or negative, about duty, we have the peremptory
+law to conduct ourselves like men. There is no getting out of it.</p>
+
+<p>But he little knows the resources of the human heart, who counts on the
+effect of such a reply. It matters not that it is itself unanswerable;
+it cannot keep other questions from arising. The sum of our pretexts for
+evading duty is equal to the sum of the sands of the sea or the stars of
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>We take refuge, then, behind duty that is obscure, difficult,
+contradictory. And these are certainly words to call up painful
+memories. To be a man of duty and to question one's route, grope in the
+dark, feel one's self torn between the contrary solicitations of
+conflicting calls, or again, to face a duty gigantic, overwhelming,
+beyond our strength&mdash;what is harder! And such things happen. We would
+neither deny nor contest the tragedy in certain situations or the
+anguish of certain lives. And yet, duty rarely has to make itself plain
+across such conflicting circumstances, or to be struck out from the
+tortured mind like lightning from a storm-cloud. Such formidable shocks
+are exceptional. Well for us if we stand staunch when they come! But if
+no one is astonished that oaks are uprooted by the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>whirlwind, that a
+wayfarer stumbles at night on an unknown road, or that a soldier caught
+between two fires is vanquished, no more should he condemn without
+appeal those who have been worsted in almost superhuman moral conflicts.
+To succumb under the force of numbers or obstacles has never been
+counted a disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>So my weapons are at the service of those who intrench themselves
+behind the impregnable rampart of duty ill-defined, complicated or
+contradictory. But it is not that which occupies me to-day; it is of
+plain, I had almost said easy duty, that I wish to speak.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">WE have yearly three or four high feast days, and many ordinary ones:
+there are likewise some very great and dark combats to wage, but beside
+these is the multitude of plain and simple duties. Now, while in the
+great encounters our equipment is generally adequate, it is precisely in
+the little emergencies that we are found wanting. Without fear of being
+misled by a paradoxical form of thought, I affirm, then, that the
+essential thing is to fulfil our simple duties and exercise elementary
+justice. In general, those <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>who lose their souls do so not because they
+fail to rise to difficult duty, but because they neglect to perform that
+which is simple. Let us illustrate this truth.</p>
+
+<p>He who tries to penetrate into the humble underworld of society is not
+slow to discover great misery, physical and moral. And the closer he
+looks, the greater number of unfortunates does he discover, till in the
+end this assembly of the wretched appears to him like a great black
+world, in whose presence the individual and his means of relief are
+reduced to helplessness. It is true that he feels impelled to run to the
+succor of these unfortunates, but at the same time he asks himself,
+"What is the use?" The case is certainly heartrending. Some, in despair,
+end by doing nothing. They lack neither pity nor good intention, but
+these bear no fruit. They are wrong. Often a man has not the means to do
+good on a large scale, but that is not a reason for failing to do it at
+all. So many people absolve themselves from any action, on the ground
+that there is too much to do! They should be recalled to simple duty,
+and this duty in the case of which we speak is that each one, according
+to his resources, leisure and capacity, should create relations for
+himself among the world's disinherited. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>There are people who by the
+exercise of a little good-will have succeeded in enrolling themselves
+among the followers of ministers, and have ingratiated themselves with
+princes. Why should you not succeed in forming relations with the poor,
+and in making acquaintances among the workers who lack somewhat the
+necessities of life? When a few families are known, with their
+histories, their antecedents and their difficulties, you may be of the
+greatest use to them by acting the part of a brother, with the moral and
+material aid that is yours to give. It is true, you will have attacked
+only one little corner, but you will have done what you could, and
+perhaps have led another on to follow you. Instead of stopping at the
+knowledge that much wretchedness, hatred, disunion and vice exist in
+society, you will have introduced a little good among these evils. And
+by however slow degrees such kindness as yours is emulated, the good
+will sensibly increase and the evil diminish. Even were you to remain
+alone in this undertaking, you would have the assurance that in
+fulfilling the duty, plain as a child's, which offered itself, you were
+doing the only reasonable thing. If you have felt it so, you have found
+out one of the secrets of right living.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>In its dreams, man's ambition embraces vast limits, but it is rarely
+given us to achieve great things, and even then, a quick and sure
+success always rests on a groundwork of patient preparation. Fidelity in
+small things is at the base of every great achievement. We too often
+forget this, and yet no truth needs more to be kept in mind,
+particularly in the troubled eras of history and in the crises of
+individual life. In shipwreck a splintered beam, an oar, any scrap of
+wreckage, saves us. On the tumbling waves of life, when everything seems
+shattered to fragments, let us not forget that a single one of these
+poor bits may become our plank of safety. To despise the remnants is
+demoralization.</p>
+
+<p>You are a ruined man, or you are stricken by a great bereavement, or
+again, you see the fruit of toilsome years perish before your eyes. You
+cannot rebuild your fortune, raise the dead, recover your lost toil, and
+in the face of the inevitable, your arms drop. Then you neglect to care
+for your person, to keep your house, to guide your children. All this is
+pardonable, and how easy to understand! But it is exceedingly dangerous.
+To fold one's hands and let things take their course, is to transform
+one evil into worse. You who think that you <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>have nothing left to lose,
+will by that very thought lose what you have. Gather up the fragments
+that remain to you, and keep them with scrupulous care. In good time
+this little that is yours will be your consolation. The effort made will
+come to your relief, as the effort missed will turn against you. If
+nothing but a branch is left for you to cling to, cling to that branch;
+and if you stand alone in defense of a losing cause, do not throw down
+your arms to join the rout. After the deluge a few survivors repeopled
+the earth. The future sometimes rests in a single life as truly as life
+sometimes hangs by a thread. For strength, go to history and Nature.
+From the long travail of both you will learn that failure and fortune
+alike may come from the slightest cause, that it is not wise to neglect
+detail, and, above all, that we must know how to wait and to begin
+again.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of simple duty I cannot help thinking of military life, and
+the examples it offers to combatants in this great struggle. He would
+little understand his soldier's duty who, the army once beaten, should
+cease to brush his garments, polish his rifle, and observe discipline.
+"But what would be the use?" perhaps you ask. Are there not <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>various
+fashions of being vanquished? Is it an indifferent matter to add to
+defeat, discouragement, disorder, and demoralization? No, it should
+never be forgotten that the least display of energy in these terrible
+moments is a sign of life and hope. At once everybody feels that all is
+not lost.</p>
+
+<p>During the disastrous retreat of 1813-1814, in the heart of the winter,
+when it had become almost impossible to present any sort of appearance,
+a general, I know not who, one morning presented himself to Napoleon, in
+full dress and freshly shaven. Seeing him thus, in the midst of the
+general demoralization, as elaborately attired as if for parade, the
+Emperor said: <i>My general, you are a brave man!</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">AGAIN, the plain duty is the near duty. A very common weakness keeps
+many people from finding what is near them interesting; they see that
+only on its paltry side. The distant, on the contrary, draws and
+fascinates them. In this way a fabulous amount of good-will is wasted.
+People burn with ardor for humanity, for the public good, for righting
+distant wrongs; they walk through life, their eyes fixed on marvelous
+sights along the horizon, treading meanwhile on the feet <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>of passers-by,
+or jostling them without being aware of their existence.</p>
+
+<p>Strange infirmity, that keeps us from seeing our fellows at our very
+doors! People widely read and far-travelled are often not acquainted
+with their fellow-citizens, great or small. Their lives depend upon the
+co&ouml;peration of a multitude of beings whose lot remains to them quite
+indifferent. Not those to whom they owe their knowledge and culture, not
+their rulers, nor those who serve them and supply their needs, have ever
+attracted their attention. That there is ingratitude or improvidence in
+not knowing one's workmen, one's servants, all those in short with whom
+one has indispensable social relations&mdash;this has never come into their
+minds. Others go much farther. To certain wives, their husbands are
+strangers, and conversely. There are parents who do not know their
+children: their development, their thoughts, the dangers they run, the
+hopes they cherish, are to them a closed book. Many children do not know
+their parents, have no suspicion of their difficulties and struggles, no
+conception of their aims. And I am not speaking of those piteously
+disordered homes where all the relations are false, but of honorable
+families. Only, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>all these people are greatly preoccupied: each has his
+outside interest that fills all his time. The distant duty&mdash;very
+attractive, I don't deny&mdash;claims them entirely, and they are not
+conscious of the duty near at hand. I fear they will have their trouble
+for their pains. Each person's base of operations is the field of his
+immediate duty. Neglect this field, and all you undertake at a distance
+is compromised. First, then, be of your own country, your own city, your
+own home, your own church, your own work-shop; then, if you can, set out
+from this to go beyond it. That is the plain and natural order, and a
+man must fortify himself with very bad reasons to arrive at reversing
+it. At all events, the result of so strange a confusion of duties is
+that many people employ their time in all sorts of affairs except those
+in which we have a right to demand it. Each is occupied with something
+else than what concerns him, is absent from his post, ignores his trade.
+This is what complicates life. And it would be so simple for each one to
+be about his own matter.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">ANOTHER <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>form of simple duty. When damage is done, who should repair it?
+He who did it. This is just, but it is only theory, and the consequence
+of following the theory would be the evil in force until the malefactors
+were found and had offset it. But suppose they are not found? or suppose
+they can not or will not make amends?</p>
+
+<p>The rain falls on your head through a hole in the roof, or the wind
+blows in at a broken window. Will you wait to find the man who caused
+the mischief? You would certainly think that absurd. And yet such is
+often the practice. Children indignantly protest, "I didn't put it
+there, and I shall not take it away!" And most men reason after the same
+fashion. It is logic. But it is not the kind of logic that makes the
+world move forward.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, what we must learn, and what life repeats to us daily,
+is that the injury done by one must be repaired by another. One tears
+down, another builds up; one defaces, another restores; one stirs up
+quarrels, another appeases them; one makes tears to flow, another wipes
+them away; one lives for evil-doing, another dies for the right. And in
+the workings of this grievous law lies salvation. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>This also is logic,
+but a logic of facts which makes the logic of theories pale. The
+conclusion of the matter is not doubtful; a single-hearted man draws it
+thus: given the evil, the great thing is to make it good, and to set
+about it on the spot; well indeed if Messrs. the Malefactors will
+contribute to the reparation; but experience warns us not to count too
+much on their aid.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">BUT however simple duty may be, there is still need of strength to do
+it. In what does this strength consist, or where is it found? One could
+scarcely tire of asking. Duty is for man an enemy and an intruder, so
+long as it appears as an appeal from without. When it comes in through
+the door, he leaves by the window; when it blocks up the windows, he
+escapes by the roof. The more plainly we see it coming, the more surely
+we flee. It is like those police, representatives of public order and
+official justice, whom an adroit thief succeeds in evading. Alas! the
+officer, though he finally collar the thief, can only conduct him to the
+station, not along the right road. Before man is able to accomplish his
+duty, he must fall into the hands of another power than that which says,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>"Do this, do that; shun this, shun that, or else beware!"</p>
+
+<p>This is an interior power; it is love. When a man hates his work, or
+goes about it with indifference, all the forces of earth cannot make
+him follow it with enthusiasm. But he who loves his office moves of
+himself; not only is it needless to compel him, but it would be
+impossible to turn him aside. And this is true of everybody. The great
+thing is to have felt the sanctity and immortal beauty in our obscure
+destiny; to have been led by a series of experiences to love this life
+for its griefs and its hopes, to love men for their weakness and their
+greatness, and to belong to humanity through the heart, the intelligence
+and the soul. Then an unknown power takes possession of us, as the wind
+of the sails of a ship, and bears us toward pity and justice. And
+yielding to its irresistible impulse, we say: <i>I cannot help it,
+something is there stronger than I.</i> In so saying, the men of all times
+and places have designated a power that is above humanity, but which may
+dwell in men's hearts. And everything truly lofty within us appears to
+us as a manifestation of this mystery beyond. Noble feelings, like great
+thoughts and deeds, are things of inspiration. When the tree <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>buds and
+bears fruit, it is because it draws vital forces from the soil, and
+receives light and warmth from the sun. If a man, in his humble sphere,
+in the midst of the ignorance and faults that are his inevitably,
+consecrates himself sincerely to his task, it is because he is in
+contact with the eternal source of goodness. This central force
+manifests itself under a thousand forms. Sometimes it is indomitable
+energy; sometimes winning tenderness; sometimes the militant spirit that
+grasps and uproots the evil; sometimes maternal solicitude, gathering to
+its arms from the wayside where it was perishing, some bruised and
+forgotten life; sometimes the humble patience of long research. All that
+it touches bears its seal, and the men it inspires know that through it
+we live and have our being. To serve it is their pleasure and reward.
+They are satisfied to be its instruments, and they no longer look at the
+outward glory of their office, well knowing that nothing is great,
+nothing small, but that our life and our deeds are only of worth because
+of the spirit which breathes through them.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span><a name="vi" id="vi"></a>VI<br />
+<br />
+SIMPLE NEEDS</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">WHEN we buy a bird of the fancier, the good man tells us briefly what is
+necessary for our new pensioner, and the whole thing&mdash;hygiene, food, and
+the rest&mdash;is comprehended in a dozen words. Likewise, to sum up the
+necessities of most men, a few concise lines would answer. Their r&eacute;gime
+is in general of supreme simplicity, and so long as they follow it, all
+is well with them, as with every obedient child of Mother Nature. Let
+them depart from it, complications arise, health fails, gayety vanishes.
+Only simple and natural living can keep a body in full vigor. Instead of
+remembering this basic principle, we fall into the strangest
+aberrations.</p>
+
+<p>What material things does a man need to live under the best conditions?
+A healthful diet, simple clothing, a sanitary dwelling-place, air and
+exercise. I am not going to enter into hygienic details, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>compose menus,
+or discuss model tenements and dress reform. My aim is to point out a
+direction and tell what advantage would come to each of us from ordering
+his life in a spirit of simplicity. To know that this spirit does not
+rule in our society we need but watch the lives of men of all classes.
+Ask different people, of very unlike surroundings, this question: What
+do you need to live? You will see how they respond. Nothing is more
+instructive. For some aboriginals of the Parisian asphalt, there is no
+life possible outside a region bounded by certain boulevards. There one
+finds the respirable air, the illuminating light, normal heat, classic
+cookery, and, in moderation, so many other things without which it would
+not be worth the while to promenade this round ball.</p>
+
+<p>On the various rungs of the bourgeois ladder people reply to the
+question, what is necessary to live? by figures varying with the degree
+of their ambition or education: and by education is oftenest understood
+the outward customs of life, the style of house, dress, table&mdash;an
+education precisely skin-deep. Upward from a certain income, fee, or
+salary, life becomes possible: below that it is impossible. We have seen
+men commit suicide because their <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>means had fallen under a certain
+minimum. They preferred to disappear rather than retrench. Observe that
+this minimum, the cause of their despair, would have been sufficient for
+others of less exacting needs, and enviable to men whose tastes are
+modest.</p>
+
+<p>On lofty mountains vegetation changes with the altitude. There is the
+region of ordinary flora, that of the forests, that of pastures, that of
+bare rocks and glaciers. Above a certain zone wheat is no longer found,
+but the vine still prospers. The oak ceases in the low regions, the pine
+flourishes at considerable heights. Human life, with its needs, reminds
+one of these phenomena of vegetation.</p>
+
+<p>At a certain altitude of fortune the financier thrives, the club-man,
+the society woman, all those in short for whom the strictly necessary
+includes a certain number of domestics and equipages, as well as several
+town and country houses. Further on flourishes the rich upper middle
+class, with its own standards and life. In other regions we find men of
+ample, moderate, or small means, and very unlike exigencies. Then come
+the people&mdash;artisans, day-laborers, peasants, in short, the masses, who
+live dense and serried like the thick, sturdy growths on <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>the summits of
+the mountains, where the larger vegetation can no longer find
+nourishment. In all these different regions of society men live, and no
+matter in which particular regions they flourish, all are alike human
+beings, bearing the same mark. How strange that among fellows there
+should be such a prodigious difference in requirements! And here the
+analogies of our comparison fail us. Plants and animals of the same
+families have identical wants. In human life we observe quite the
+contrary. What conclusion shall we draw from this, if not that with us
+there is a considerable elasticity in the nature and number of needs?</p>
+
+<p>Is it well, is it favorable to the development of the individual and his
+happiness, and to the development and happiness of society, that man
+should have a multitude of needs, and bend his energies to their
+satisfaction? Let us return for a moment to our comparison with inferior
+beings. Provided that their essential wants are satisfied, they live
+content. Is this true of men? No. In all classes of society we find
+discontent. I leave completely out of the question those who lack the
+necessities of life. One cannot with justice count in the number of
+malcontents those from whom hunger, cold, and misery <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>wring complaints. I
+am considering now that multitude of people who live under conditions at
+least supportable. Whence comes their heart-burning? Why is it found not
+only among those of modest though sufficient means, but also under
+shades of ever-increasing refinement, all along the ascending scale,
+even to opulence and the summits of social place? They talk of the
+contented middle classes. Who talk of them? People who, judging from
+without, think that as soon as one begins to enjoy ease he ought to be
+satisfied. But the middle classes themselves&mdash;do they consider
+themselves satisfied? Not the least in the world. If there are people at
+once rich and content, be assured that they are content because they
+know how to be so, not because they are rich. An animal is satisfied
+when it has eaten; it lies down and sleeps. A man also can lie down and
+sleep for a time, but it never lasts. When he becomes accustomed to this
+contentment, he tires of it and demands a greater. Man's appetite is not
+appeased by food; it increases with eating. This may seem absurd, but it
+is strictly true.</p>
+
+<p>And the fact that those who make the most outcry are almost always those
+who should find the best reasons for contentment, proves unquestionably
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>that happiness is not allied to the number of our needs and the zeal we
+put into their cultivation. It is for everyone's interest to let this
+truth sink deep into his mind. If it does not, if he does not by
+decisive action succeed in limiting his needs, he risks a descent,
+insensible and beyond retreat, along the declivity of desire.</p>
+
+<p>He who lives to eat, drink, sleep, dress, take his walk,&mdash;in short,
+pamper himself all that he can&mdash;be it the courtier basking in the sun,
+the drunken laborer, the commoner serving his belly, the woman absorbed
+in her toilettes, the profligate of low estate or high, or simply the
+ordinary pleasure-lover, a "good fellow," but too obedient to material
+needs&mdash;that man or woman is on the downward way of desire, and the
+descent is fatal. Those who follow it obey the same laws as a body on an
+inclined plane. Dupes of an illusion forever repeated, they think: "Just
+a few steps more, the last, toward the thing down there that we covet;
+then we will halt." But the velocity they gain sweeps them on, and the
+further they go the less able they are to resist it.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the secret of the unrest, the madness, of many of our
+contemporaries. Having condemned their will to the service of their
+appetites, they <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>suffer the penalty. They are delivered up to violent
+passions which devour their flesh, crush their bones, suck their blood,
+and cannot be sated. This is not a lofty moral denunciation. I have
+been listening to what life says, and have recorded, as I heard them,
+some of the truths that resound in every square.</p>
+
+<p>Has drunkenness, inventive as it is of new drinks, found the means of
+quenching thirst? Not at all. It might rather be called the art of
+making thirst inextinguishable. Frank libertinage, does it deaden the
+sting of the senses? No; it envenoms it, converts natural desire into a
+morbid obsession and makes it the dominant passion. Let your needs rule
+you, pamper them&mdash;you will see them multiply like insects in the sun.
+The more you give them, the more they demand. He is senseless who seeks
+for happiness in material prosperity alone. As well undertake to fill
+the cask of the Dana&iuml;des. To those who have millions, millions are
+wanting; to those who have thousands, thousands. Others lack a
+twenty-franc piece or a hundred sous. When they have a chicken in the
+pot, they ask for a goose; when they have the goose, they wish it were a
+turkey, and so on. We shall never learn how <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>fatal this tendency is.
+There are too many humble people who wish to imitate the great, too many
+poor working-men who ape the well-to-do middle classes, too many
+shop-girls who play at being ladies, too many clerks who act the
+club-man or sportsman; and among those in easy circumstances and the
+rich, are too many people who forget that what they possess could serve
+a better purpose than procuring pleasure for themselves, only to find in
+the end that one never has enough. Our needs, in place of the servants
+that they should be, have become a turbulent and seditious crowd, a
+legion of tyrants in miniature. A man enslaved to his needs may best be
+compared to a bear with a ring in its nose, that is led about and made
+to dance at will. The likeness is not flattering, but you will grant
+that it is true. It is in the train of their own needs that so many of
+those men are dragged along who rant for liberty, progress, and I don't
+know what else. They cannot take a step without asking themselves if it
+might not irritate their masters. How many men and women have gone on
+and on, even to dishonesty, for the sole reason that they had too many
+needs and could not resign themselves to simple living. There are many
+guests in the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>chambers of Mazas who could give us much light on the
+subject of too exigent needs.</p>
+
+<p>Let me tell you the story of an excellent man whom I knew. He tenderly
+loved his wife and children, and they all lived together, in France, in
+comfort and plenty, but with little of the luxury the wife coveted.
+Always short of money, though with a little management he might have
+been at ease, he ended by exiling himself to a distant colony, leaving
+his wife and children in the mother country. I don't know how the poor
+man can feel off there; but his family has a finer apartment, more
+beautiful toilettes, and what passes for an equipage. At present they
+are perfectly contented, but soon they will be used to this
+luxury&mdash;rudimentary after all. Then Madam will find her furniture common
+and her equipage mean. If this man loves his wife&mdash;and that cannot be
+doubted&mdash;he will migrate to the moon if there is hope of a larger
+stipend. In other cases the r&ocirc;les are reversed, and the wife and
+children are sacrificed to the ravenous needs of the head of the family,
+whom an irregular life, play, and countless other costly follies have
+robbed of all dignity. Between his appetites and his r&ocirc;le of father he
+has decided for the former, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>and he slowly drifts toward the most abject
+egoism.</p>
+
+<p>This forgetfulness of all responsibility, this gradual benumbing of
+noble feeling, is not alone to be found among pleasure-seekers of the
+upper classes: the people also are infected. I know more than one little
+household, which ought to be happy, where the mother has only pain and
+heartache day and night, the children are barefoot, and there is great
+ado for bread. Why? Because too much money is needed by the father. To
+speak only of the expenditure for alcohol, everybody knows the
+proportions that has reached in the last twenty years. The sums
+swallowed up in this gulf are fabulous&mdash;twice the indemnity of the war
+of 1870. How many legitimate needs could have been satisfied with that
+which has been thrown away on these artificial ones! The reign of wants
+is by no means the reign of brotherhood. The more things a man desires
+for himself, the less he can do for his neighbor, and even for those
+attached to him by ties of blood.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">THE <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>destruction of happiness, independence, moral fineness, even of the
+sentiment of common interests&mdash;such is the result of the reign of needs.
+A multitude of other unfortunate things might be added, of which not the
+least is the disturbance of the public welfare. When society has too
+great needs, it is absorbed with the present, sacrifices to it the
+conquests of the past, immolates to it the future. After us the deluge!
+To raze the forests in order to get gold; to squander your patrimony in
+youth, destroying in a day the fruit of long years; to warm your house
+by burning your furniture; to burden the future with debts for the sake
+of present pleasure; to live by expedients and sow for the morrow
+trouble, sickness, ruin, envy and hate&mdash;the enumeration of all the
+misdeeds of this fatal r&eacute;gime has no end.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, if we hold to simple needs we avoid all these evils
+and replace them by measureless good. That temperance and sobriety are
+the best guardians of health is an old story. They spare him who
+observes them many a misery that saddens existence; they insure him
+health, love of action, mental poise. Whether it be a question of food,
+dress, or dwelling, simplicity of taste is also a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>source of independence
+and safety. The more simply you live, the more secure is your future;
+you are less at the mercy of surprises and reverses. An illness or a
+period of idleness does not suffice to dispossess you: a change of
+position, even considerable, does not put you to confusion. Having
+simple needs, you find it less painful to accustom yourself to the
+hazards of fortune. You remain a man, though you lose your office or
+your income, because the foundation on which your life rests is not your
+table, your cellar, your horses, your goods and chattels, or your money.
+In adversity you will not act like a nursling deprived of its bottle and
+rattle. Stronger, better armed for the struggle, presenting, like those
+with shaven heads, less advantage to the hands of your enemy, you will
+also be of more profit to your neighbor. For you will not rouse his
+jealousy, his base desires or his censure, by your luxury, your
+prodigality, or the spectacle of a sycophant's life; and, less absorbed
+in your own comfort, you will find the means of working for that of
+others.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span><a name="vii" id="vii"></a>VII<br />
+<br />
+SIMPLE PLEASURES</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">DO you find life amusing in these days? For my part, on the whole, it
+seems rather depressing, and I fear that my opinion is not altogether
+personal. As I observe the lives of my contemporaries, and listen to
+their talk, I find myself unhappily confirmed in the opinion that they
+do not get much pleasure out of things. And certainly it is not from
+lack of trying; but it must be acknowledged that their success is
+meagre. Where can the fault be?</p>
+
+<p>Some accuse politics or business; others social problems or militarism.
+We meet only an embarrassment of choice when we start to unstring the
+chaplet of our carking cares. Suppose we set out in pursuit of pleasure.
+There is too much pepper in our soup to make it palatable. Our arms are
+filled with a multitude of embarrassments, any one of which would be
+enough to spoil our temper. From morning till night, wherever we go, the
+people <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>we meet are hurried, worried, preoccupied. Some have spilt their
+good blood in the miserable conflicts of petty politics: others are
+disheartened by the meanness and jealousy they have encountered in the
+world of literature or art. Commercial competition troubles the sleep of
+not a few. The crowded curricula of study and the exigencies of their
+opening careers, spoil life for young men. The working classes suffer
+the consequences of a ceaseless industrial struggle. It is becoming
+disagreeable to govern, because authority is diminishing; to teach,
+because respect is vanishing. Wherever one turns there is matter for
+discontent.</p>
+
+<p>And yet history shows us certain epochs of upheaval which were as
+lacking in idyllic tranquillity as is our own, but which the gravest
+events did not prevent from being gay. It even seems as if the
+seriousness of affairs, the uncertainty of the morrow, the violence of
+social convulsions, sometimes became a new source of vitality. It is not
+a rare thing to hear soldiers singing between two battles, and I think
+myself nowise mistaken in saying that human joy has celebrated its
+finest triumphs under the greatest tests of endurance. But to sleep
+peacefully on the eve of battle or to exult at the stake, men had <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>then
+the stimulus of an internal harmony which we perhaps lack. Joy is not in
+things, it is in us, and I hold to the belief that the causes of our
+present unrest, of this contagious discontent spreading everywhere, are
+in us at least as much as in exterior conditions.</p>
+
+<p>To give one's self up heartily to diversion one must feel himself on a
+solid basis, must believe in life and find it within him. And here lies
+our weakness. So many of us&mdash;even, alas! the younger men&mdash;are at
+variance with life; and I do not speak of philosophers only. How do you
+think a man can be amused while he has his doubts whether after all life
+is worth living? Besides this, one observes a disquieting depression of
+vital force, which must be attributed to the abuse man makes of his
+sensations. Excess of all kinds has blurred our senses and poisoned our
+faculty for happiness. Human nature succumbs under the irregularities
+imposed upon it. Deeply attainted at its root, the desire to live,
+persistent in spite of everything, seeks satisfaction in cheats and
+baubles. In medical science we have recourse to artificial respiration,
+artificial alimentation, and galvanism. So, too, around expiring
+pleasure we see a crowd of its votaries, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>exerting themselves to reawaken
+it, to reanimate it Most ingenious means have been invented; it can
+never be said that expense has been spared. Everything has been tried,
+the possible and the impossible. But in all these complicated alembics
+no one has ever arrived at distilling a drop of veritable joy. We must
+not confound pleasure with the instruments of pleasure. To be a painter,
+does it suffice to arm one's self with a brush, or does the purchase at
+great cost of a Stradivarius make one a musician? No more, if you had
+the whole paraphernalia of amusement in the perfection of its
+ingenuity, would it advance you upon your road. But with a bit of
+crayon a great artist makes an immortal sketch. It needs talent or
+genius to paint; and to amuse one's self, the faculty of being happy:
+whoever possesses it is amused at slight cost. This faculty is destroyed
+by scepticism, artificial living, over-abuse; it is fostered by
+confidence, moderation and normal habits of thought and action.</p>
+
+<p>An excellent proof of my proposition, and one very easily encountered,
+lies in the fact that wherever life is simple and sane, true pleasure
+accompanies it as fragrance does uncultivated flowers. Be this life
+hard, hampered, devoid of all things ordinarily <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>considered as the very
+conditions of pleasure, the rare and delicate plant, joy, flourishes
+there. It springs up between the flags of the pavement, on an arid wall,
+in the fissure of a rock. We ask ourselves how it comes, and whence: but
+it lives; while in the soft warmth of conservatories or in fields richly
+fertilized you cultivate it at a golden cost to see it fade and die in
+your hand.</p>
+
+<p>Ask actors what audience is happiest at the play; they will tell you the
+popular one. The reason is not hard to grasp. To these people the play
+is an exception, they are not bored by it from over-indulgence. And,
+too, to them it is a rest from rude toil. The pleasure they enjoy they
+have honestly earned, and they know its cost as they know that of each
+sou earned by the sweat of their labor. More, they have not frequented
+the wings, they have no intrigues with the actresses, they do not see
+the wires pulled. To them it is all real. And so they feel pleasure
+unalloyed. I think I see the sated sceptic, whose monocle glistens in
+that box, cast a disdainful glance over the smiling crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor stupid creatures, ignorant and gross!"</p>
+
+<p>And yet they are the true livers, while he is an artificial product, a
+mannikin, incapable of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>experiencing this fine and salutary intoxication
+of an hour of frank pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily, ingenuousness is disappearing, even in the rural districts.
+We see the people of our cities, and those of the country in their turn,
+breaking with the good traditions. The mind, warped by alcohol, by the
+passion for gambling, and by unhealthy literature, contracts little by
+little perverted tastes. Artificial life makes irruption into
+communities once simple in their pleasures, and it is like phylloxera to
+the vine. The robust tree of rustic joy finds its sap drained, its
+leaves turning yellow.</p>
+
+<p>Compare a <i>f&ecirc;te champ&ecirc;tre</i> of the good old style with the village
+festivals, so-called, of to-day. In the one case, in the honored setting
+of antique costumes, genuine countrymen sing the folk songs, dance
+rustic dances, regale themselves with native drinks, and seem entirely
+in their element. They take their pleasure as the blacksmith forges, as
+the cascade tumbles over the rocks, as the colts frisk in the meadows.
+It is contagious: it stirs your heart. In spite of yourself you are
+ready to cry: "Bravo, my children. That is fine!" You want to join in.
+In the other case, you see villagers disguised as city folk,
+countrywomen made hideous <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>by the modiste, and, as the chief ornament of
+the festival, a lot of degenerates who bawl the songs of music halls;
+and sometimes in the place of honor, a group of tenth-rate barnstormers,
+imported for the occasion, to civilize these rustics and give them a
+taste of refined pleasures. For drinks, liquors mixed with brandy or
+absinthe: in the whole thing neither originality nor picturesqueness.
+License, indeed, and clownishness, but not that <i>abandon</i> which
+ingenuous joy brings in its train.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">THIS question of pleasure is capital. Staid people generally neglect it
+as a frivolity; utilitarians, as a costly superfluity. Those whom we
+designate as pleasure-seekers forage in this delicate domain like wild
+boars in a garden. No one seems to doubt the immense human interest
+attached to joy. It is a sacred flame that must be fed, and that throws
+a splendid radiance over life. He who takes pains to foster it
+accomplishes a work as profitable for humanity as he who builds bridges,
+pierces tunnels, or cultivates the ground. So to order one's life as to
+keep, amid toils and suffering, the faculty of happiness, and be able to
+propagate it in a sort of salutary contagion among one's <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>fellow-men, is
+to do a work of fraternity in the noblest sense. To give a trifling
+pleasure, smooth an anxious brow, bring a little light into dark
+paths&mdash;what a truly divine office in the midst of this poor humanity!
+But it is only in great simplicity of heart that one succeeds in
+filling it.</p>
+
+<p>We are not simple enough to be happy and to render others so. We lack
+the singleness of heart and the self-forgetfulness. We spread joy, as we
+do consolation, by such methods as to obtain negative results. To
+console a person, what do we do? We set to work to dispute his
+suffering, persuade him that he is mistaken in thinking himself unhappy.
+In reality, our language translated into truthful speech would amount to
+this: "You suffer, my friend? That is strange; you must be mistaken, for
+I feel nothing." As the only human means of soothing grief is to share
+it in the heart, how must a sufferer feel, consoled in this fashion?</p>
+
+<p>To divert our neighbor, make him pass an agreeable hour, we set out in
+the same way. We invite him to admire our versatility, to laugh at our
+wit, to frequent our house, to sit at our table; through it all, our
+desire to shine breaks forth. Sometimes, also, with a patron's
+prodigality, we offer him the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>beneficence of a public entertainment of
+our own choosing, unless we ask him to find amusement at our home, as we
+sometimes do to make up a party at cards, with the <i>arri&egrave;re-pens&eacute;e</i> of
+exploiting him to our own profit. Do you think it the height of
+pleasure for others to admire us, to admit our superiority, and to act
+as our tools? Is there anything in the world so disgusting as to feel
+one's self patronized, made capital of, enrolled in a claque? To give
+pleasure to others and take it ourselves, we have to begin by removing
+the ego, which is hateful, and then keep it in chains as long as the
+diversions last. There is no worse kill-joy than the ego. We must be
+good children, sweet and kind, button our coats over our medals and
+titles, and with our whole heart put ourselves at the disposal of
+others.</p>
+
+<p>Let us sometimes live&mdash;be it only for an hour, and though we must lay
+all else aside&mdash;to make others smile. The sacrifice is only in
+appearance; no one finds more pleasure for himself than he who knows
+how, without ostentation, to give himself that he may procure for those
+around him a moment of forgetfulness and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>When shall we be so simply and truly <i>men</i> as not to obtrude our
+personal business and distresses upon <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>the people we meet socially? May
+we not forget for an hour our pretensions, our strife, our distributions
+into sets and cliques&mdash;in short, our "parts," and become as children
+once more, to laugh again that good laugh which does so much to make the
+world better?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">HERE I feel drawn to speak of something very particular, and in so doing
+to offer my well-disposed readers an opportunity to go about a splendid
+business. I want to call their attention to several classes of people
+seldom thought of with reference to their pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>It is understood that a broom serves only to sweep, a watering-pot to
+water plants, a coffee-mill to grind coffee, and likewise it is supposed
+that a nurse is designed only to care for the sick, a professor to
+teach, a priest to preach, bury, and confess, a sentinel to mount guard;
+and the conclusion is drawn that the people given up to the more serious
+business of life are dedicated to labor, like the ox. Amusement is
+incompatible with their activities. Pushing this view still further, we
+think ourselves warranted in believing that the infirm, the afflicted,
+the bankrupt, the vanquished in life's battle, and all <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>those who carry
+heavy burdens, are in the shade, like the northern slopes of mountains,
+and that it is so of necessity. Whence the conclusion that serious
+people have no need of pleasure, and that to offer it to them would be
+unseemly; while as to the afflicted, there would be a lack of delicacy
+in breaking the thread of their sad meditations. It seems therefore to
+be understood that certain persons are condemned to be <i>always</i> serious,
+that we should approach them in a serious frame of mind, and talk to
+them only of serious things: so, too, when we visit the sick or
+unfortunate; we should leave our smiles at the door, compose our face
+and manner to dolefulness, and talk of anything heartrending. Thus we
+carry darkness to those in darkness, shade to those in shade. We
+increase the isolation of solitary lives and the monotony of the dull
+and sad. We wall up some existences as it were in dungeons; and because
+the grass grows round their deserted prison-house, we speak low in
+approaching it, as though it were a tomb. Who suspects the work of
+infernal cruelty which is thus accomplished every day in the world! This
+ought not to be.</p>
+
+<p>When you find men or women whose lives are lost in hard tasks, or in the
+painful office of seeking <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>out human wretchedness and binding up wounds,
+remember that they are beings made like you, that they have the same
+wants, that there are hours when they need pleasure and diversion. You
+will not turn them aside from their mission by making them laugh
+occasionally&mdash;these people who see so many tears and griefs; on the
+contrary, you will give them strength to go on the better with their
+work.</p>
+
+<p>And when people whom you know are in trial, do not draw a sanitary
+cordon round them&mdash;as though they had the plague&mdash;that you cross only
+with precautions which recall to them their sad lot. On the contrary,
+after showing all your sympathy, all your respect for their grief,
+comfort them, help them to take up life again; carry them a breath from
+the out-of-doors&mdash;something in short to remind them that their
+misfortune does not shut them off from the world.</p>
+
+<p>And so extend your sympathy to those whose work quite absorbs them, who
+are, so to put it, tied down. The world is full of men and women
+sacrificed to others, who never have either rest or pleasure, and to
+whom the least relaxation, the slightest respite, is a priceless good.
+And this minimum of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>comfort could be so easily found for them if only
+we thought of it. But the broom, you know, is made for sweeping, and it
+seems as though it could not be fatigued. Let us rid ourselves of this
+criminal blindness which prevents us from seeing the exhaustion of those
+who are always in the breach. Relieve the sentinels perishing at their
+posts, give Sisyphus an hour to breathe; take for a moment the place of
+the mother, a slave to the cares of her house and her children;
+sacrifice an hour of our sleep for someone worn by long vigils with the
+sick. Young girl, tired sometimes perhaps of your walk with your
+governess, take the cook's apron, and give her the key to the fields.
+You will at once make others happy and be happy yourself. We go
+unconcernedly along beside our brothers who are bent under burdens we
+might take upon ourselves for a minute. And this short respite would
+suffice to soothe aches, revive the flame of joy in many a heart, and
+open up a wide place for brotherliness. How much better would one
+understand another if he knew how to put himself heartily in that
+other's place, and how much more pleasure there would be in life!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">I HAVE <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>spoken too fully elsewhere of systematizing amusements for the
+young, to return to it here in detail.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> But I wish to say in substance
+what cannot be too often repeated: If you wish youth to be moral, do not
+neglect its pleasures, or leave to chance the task of providing them.
+You will perhaps say that young people do not like to have their
+amusements submitted to regulations, and that besides, in our day, they
+are already over-spoiled and divert themselves only too much. I shall
+reply, first, that one may suggest ideas, indicate directions, offer
+opportunities for amusement, without making any regulations whatever. In
+the second place, I shall make you see that you deceive yourselves in
+thinking youth has too much diversion. Aside from amusements that are
+artificial, enervating and immoral, that blight life instead of making
+it bloom in splendor, there are very few left to-day. Abuse, that enemy
+of legitimate use, has so befouled the world, that it is becoming
+difficult to touch anything but what is unclean: whence watchfulness,
+warnings and endless prohibitions. One can hardly stir without
+encountering something that resembles unhealthy pleasure. Among young
+people of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>to-day, particularly the self-respecting, the dearth of
+amusements causes real suffering. One is not weaned from this generous
+wine without discomfort. Impossible to prolong this state of affairs
+without deepening the shadow round the heads of the younger generations.
+We must come to their aid. Our children are heirs of a joyless world. We
+bequeath them cares, hard questions, a life heavy with shackles and
+complexities. Let us at least make an effort to brighten the morning of
+their days. Let us interest ourselves in their sports, find them
+pleasure-grounds, open to them our hearts and our homes. Let us bring
+the family into our amusements. Let gayety cease to be a commodity of
+export. Let us call in our sons, whom our gloomy interiors send out into
+the street, and our daughters, moping in dismal solitude. Let us
+multiply anniversaries, family parties, and excursions. Let us raise
+good humor in our homes to the height of an institution. Let the
+schools, too, do their part. Let masters and students&mdash;school-boys and
+college-boys&mdash;meet together oftener for amusement. It will be so much
+the better for serious work. There is no such aid to understanding one's
+professor as to have laughed in his company; and conversely, to be well
+understood <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>a pupil must be met elsewhere than in class or examination.</p>
+
+<p>And who will furnish the money? What a question! That is exactly the
+error. Pleasure and money: people take them for the two wings of the
+same bird! A gross illusion! Pleasure, like all other truly precious
+things in this world, cannot be bought or sold. If you wish to be
+amused, you must do your part toward it; that is the essential. There is
+no prohibition against opening your purse, if you can do it, and find it
+desirable. But I assure you it is not indispensable. Pleasure and
+simplicity are two old acquaintances. Entertain simply, meet your
+friends simply. If you come from work well done, are as amiable and
+genuine as possible toward your companions, and speak no evil of the
+absent, your success is sure.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote footnotes">
+<p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> See "Youth," the chapter on "Joy."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span><a name="viii" id="viii"></a>VIII<br />
+<br />
+THE MERCENARY SPIRIT AND SIMPLICITY</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">WE have in passing touched upon a certain wide-spread prejudice which
+attributes to money a magic power. Having come so near enchanted ground
+we will not retire in awe, but plant a firm foot here, persuaded of many
+truths that should be spoken. They are not new, but how they are
+forgotten!</p>
+
+<p>I see no possible way of doing without money. The only thing that
+theorists or legislators who accuse it of all our ills have hitherto
+achieved, has been to change its name or form. But they have never been
+able to dispense with a symbol representative of the commercial value of
+things. One might as well wish to do away with written language as to do
+away with money. Nevertheless, this question of a circulating medium is
+very troublesome. It forms one of the chief elements of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>complication in
+our life. The economic difficulties amid which we still flounder, social
+conventionalities, and the entire organization of modern life, have
+carried gold to a rank so eminent that it is not astonishing to find the
+imagination of man attributing to it a sort of royalty. And it is on
+this side that we shall attack the problem.</p>
+
+<p>The term money has for appendage that of merchandise. If there were no
+merchandise there would be no money; but as long as there is merchandise
+there will be money, little matter under what form. The source of all
+the abuses which centre around money lies in a lack of discrimination.
+People have confused under the term and idea of merchandise, things
+which have no relation with one another. They have attempted to give a
+venal value to things which neither could have it nor ought to. The idea
+of purchase and sale has invaded ground where it may justly be
+considered an enemy and a usurper. It is reasonable that wheat,
+potatoes, wine, fabrics, should be bought and sold, and it is perfectly
+natural that a man's labor procure him rights to life, and that there be
+put into his hands something whose value represents them; but here
+already the analogy ceases to be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>complete. A man's labor is not
+merchandise in the same sense as a sack of flour or a ton of coal. Into
+this labor enter elements which cannot be valued in money. In short,
+there are things which can in no wise be bought: sleep, for instance,
+knowledge of the future, talent. He who offers them for sale must be
+considered a fool or an impostor. And yet there are gentlemen who coin
+money by such traffic. They sell what does not belong to them, and
+their dupes pay fictitious values in veritable coin. So, too, there are
+dealers in pleasure, dealers in love, dealers in miracles, dealers in
+patriotism, and the title of merchant, so honorable when it represents a
+man selling that which is in truth a commodity of trade, becomes the
+worst of stigmas when there is question of the heart, of religion, of
+country.</p>
+
+<p>Almost all men are agreed that to barter with one's sentiments, his
+honor, his cloth, his pen, or his note, is infamous. Unfortunately this
+idea, which suffers no contradiction as a theory, and which thus stated
+seems rather a commonplace than a high moral truth, has infinite trouble
+to make its way in practice. Traffic has invaded the world. The
+money-changers are established even in the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>sanctuary, and by sanctuary I
+do not mean religious things alone, but whatever mankind holds sacred
+and inviolable. It is not gold that complicates, corrupts, and debases
+life; it is our mercenary spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The mercenary spirit resolves everything into a single question: <i>How
+much is that going to bring me?</i> and sums up everything in a single
+axiom: <i>With money you can procure anything.</i> Following these two
+principles of conduct, a society may descend to a degree of infamy
+impossible to describe or to imagine.</p>
+
+<p><i>How much is it going to bring me?</i> This question, so legitimate while
+it concerns those precautions which each ought to take to assure his
+subsistence by his labor, becomes pernicious as soon as it passes its
+limits and dominates the whole life. This is so true that it vitiates
+even the toil which gains our daily bread. I furnish paid labor; nothing
+could be better: but if to inspire me in this labor I have only the
+desire to get the pay, nothing could be worse. A man whose only motive
+for action is his wages, does a bad piece of work: what interests him is
+not the doing, it's the gold. If he can retrench in pains without
+lessening his gains, be assured that he will do it. Plowman, mason,
+factory <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>laborer, he who loves not his work puts into it neither interest
+nor dignity&mdash;is, in short, a bad workman. It is not well to confide
+one's life to a doctor who is wholly engrossed in his fees, for the
+spring of his action is the desire to garnish his purse with the
+contents of yours. If it is for his interest that you should suffer
+longer, he is capable of fostering your malady instead of fortifying
+your strength. The instructor of children who cares for his work only so
+far as it brings him profit, is a sad teacher; for his pay is
+indifferent, and his teaching more indifferent still. Of what value is
+the mercenary journalist? The day you write for the dollar, your prose
+is not worth the dollar you write for. The more elevated in kind is the
+object of human labor, the more the mercenary spirit, if it be present,
+makes this labor void and corrupts it. There are a thousand reasons to
+say that all toil merits its wage, that every man who devotes his
+energies to providing for his life should have his place in the sun, and
+that he who does nothing useful, does not gain his livelihood, in short,
+is only a parasite. But there is no greater social error than to make
+gain the sole motive of action. The best we put into our work&mdash;be that
+work done by <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>strength of muscle, warmth of heart, or concentration of
+mind&mdash;is precisely that for which no one can pay us. Nothing better
+proves that man is not a machine than this fact: two men at work with
+the same forces and the same movements, produce totally different
+results. Where lies the cause of this phenomenon? In the divergence of
+their intentions. One has the mercenary spirit, the other has singleness
+of purpose. Both receive their pay, but the labor of the one is barren;
+the other has put his soul into his work. The work of the first is like
+a grain of sand, out of which nothing comes through all eternity; the
+other's work is like the living seed thrown into the ground; it
+germinates and brings forth harvests. This is the secret which explains
+why so many people have failed while employing the very processes by
+which others succeed. Automatons do not reproduce their kind, and
+mercenary labor yields no fruit.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">UNQUESTIONABLY we must bow before economic facts, and recognize the
+difficulties of living: from day to day it becomes more imperative to
+combine well one's forces in order to succeed in feeding, clothing,
+housing, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>and bringing up a family. He who does not rightly take account
+of these crying necessities, who makes no calculation, no provision for
+the future, is but a visionary or an incompetent, and runs the risk of
+sooner or later asking alms from those at whose parsimony he has
+sneered. And yet, what would become of us if these cares absorbed us
+entirely? if, mere accountants, we should wish to measure our effort by
+the money it brings, do nothing that does not end in a receipt, and
+consider as things worthless or pains lost whatever cannot be drawn up
+in figures on the pages of a ledger? Did our mothers look for pay in
+loving us and caring for us? What would become of filial piety if we
+asked it for loving and caring for our aged parents?</p>
+
+<p>What does it cost you to speak the truth? Misunderstandings, sometimes
+sufferings and persecutions. To defend your country? Weariness, wounds
+and often death. To do good? Annoyance, ingratitude, even resentment.
+Self-sacrifice enters into all the essential actions of humanity. I defy
+the closest calculators to maintain their position in the world without
+ever appealing to aught but their calculations. True, those who know how
+to make their "pile" are rated as men of ability. But <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>look a little
+closer. How much of it do they owe to the unselfishness of the
+simple-hearted? Would they have succeeded had they met only shrewd men
+of their own sort, having for device: "No money, no service?" Let us be
+outspoken; it is due to certain people who do not count too rigorously,
+that the world gets on. The most beautiful acts of service and the
+hardest tasks have generally little remuneration or none. Fortunately
+there are always men ready for unselfish deeds; and even for those paid
+only in suffering, though they cost gold, peace, and even life. The part
+these men play is often painful and discouraging. Who of us has not
+heard recitals of experiences wherein the narrator regretted some past
+kindness he had done, some trouble he had taken, to have nothing but
+vexation in return? These confidences generally end thus: "It was folly
+to do the thing!" Sometimes it is right so to judge; for it is always a
+mistake to cast pearls before swine; but how many lives there are whose
+sole acts of real beauty are these very ones of which the doers repent
+because of men's ingratitude! Our wish for humanity is that the number
+of these foolish deeds may go on increasing.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">AND <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>now I arrive at the <i>credo</i> of the mercenary spirit. It is
+characterized by brevity. For the mercenary man, the law and the
+prophets are contained in this one axiom: <i>With money you can get
+anything.</i> From a surface view of our social life, nothing seems more
+evident. "The sinews of war," "the shining mark," "the key that opens
+all doors," "king money!"&mdash;If one gathered up all the sayings about the
+glory and power of gold, he could make a litany longer than that which
+is chanted in honor of the Virgin. You must be without a penny, if only
+for a day or two, and try to live in this world of ours, to have any
+idea of the needs of him whose purse is empty. I invite those who love
+contrasts and unforeseen situations, to attempt to live without money
+three days, and far from their friends and acquaintances&mdash;in short, far
+from the society in which they are somebody. They will gain more
+experience in forty-eight hours than in a year otherwise. Alas for some
+people! they have this experience thrust upon them, and when veritable
+ruin descends around their heads, it is useless to remain in their own
+country, among the companions of their youth, their former colleagues,
+even those indebted to them. People affect to know them no <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>longer. With
+what bitterness do they comment on the creed of money:&mdash;With gold one
+may have what he will; without it, impossible to have anything! They
+become pariahs, lepers, whom everyone shuns. Flies swarm round cadavers,
+men round gold. Take away the gold, nobody is there. Oh, it has caused
+tears to flow, this creed of gain! bitter tears, tears of blood, even
+from those very eyes which once adored the golden calf.</p>
+
+<p>And with it all, this creed is false, quite false. I shall not advance
+to the attack with hackneyed tales of the rich man astray in a desert,
+who cannot get even a drop of water for his gold; or the decrepit
+millionaire who would give half he has to buy from a stalwart fellow
+without a cent, his twenty years and his lusty health. No more shall I
+attempt to prove that one cannot buy happiness. So many people who have
+money and so many more who have not would smile at this truth as the
+hardest ridden of saws. But I shall appeal to the common experience of
+each of you, to make you put your finger on the clumsy lie hidden
+beneath an axiom that all the world goes about repeating.</p>
+
+<p>Fill your purse to the best of your means, and let us set out for one of
+the watering-places of which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>there are so many. I mean some little town
+formerly unknown and full of simple folk, respectful and hospitable,
+among whom it was good to be, and cost little. Fame with her hundred
+trumpets has announced them to the world, and shown them how they can
+profit from their situation, their climate, their personality. You start
+out, on the faith of Dame Rumor, flattering yourself that with your
+money you are going to find a quiet place to rest, and, far from the
+world of civilization and convention, weave a bit of poetry into the
+warp of your days.</p>
+
+<p>The beginning is good. Nature's setting and some patriarchal costumes,
+slow to disappear, delight you. But as time passes, the impression is
+spoiled. The reverse side of things begins to show. This which you
+thought was as true antique as family heirlooms, is naught but trickery
+to mystify the credulous. Everything is labeled, all is for sale, from
+the earth to the inhabitants. These primitives have become the most
+consummate of sharpers. Given your money, they have resolved the problem
+of getting it with the least expense to themselves. On all sides are
+nets and traps, like spider-webs, and the fly that this gentry lies
+snugly <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>in wait for is <i>you</i>. This is what twenty or thirty years of
+venality has done for a population once simple and honest, whose contact
+was grateful indeed to men worn by city life. Home-made bread has
+disappeared, butter comes from the dealer, they know to an art how to
+skim milk and adulterate wine; they have all the vices of dwellers in
+cities without their virtues.</p>
+
+<p>As you leave, you count your money. So much is wanting, that you make
+complaint. You are wrong. One never pays too dear for the conviction
+that there are things which money will not buy.</p>
+
+<p>You have need in your house of an intelligent and competent servant:
+attempt to find this <i>rara avis</i>. According to the principle that with
+money one may get anything, you ought, as the position you offer is
+inferior, ordinary, good, or exceptional, to find servants unskilled,
+average, excellent, superior. But all those who present themselves for
+the vacant post are listed in the last category, and are fortified with
+certificates to support their pretensions. It is true that nine times
+out of ten, when put to the test, these experts are found totally
+wanting. Then why did they engage themselves with you? They ought in
+truth to reply as does <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>the cook in the comedy, who is dearly paid and
+proves to know nothing.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Why did you hire out as a <i>cordon bleu</i>?</span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>It was to get bigger commissions."</i></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>That is the great affair. You will always find people who like to get
+big wages. More rarely you find capability. And if you are looking for
+probity, the difficulty increases. Mercenaries may be had for the
+asking; faithfulness is another thing. Far be it from me to deny the
+existence of faithful servants, at once intelligent and upright. But you
+will encounter as many, if not more, among the illy paid as among those
+most highly salaried. And it little matters where you find them, you may
+be sure that they are not faithful in their own interest; they are
+faithful because they have somewhat of that simplicity which renders us
+capable of self-abnegation.</p>
+
+<p>We also hear on all sides the adage that money is the sinews of war.
+There is no question but that war costs much money, and we know
+something about it. Does this mean that in order to defend herself
+against her enemies and to honor her flag, a country need only be rich?
+In olden time the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>Greeks took it upon themselves to teach the Persians
+the contrary, and this lesson will never cease to be repeated in
+history. With money ships, cannon, horses may be bought; but not so
+military genius, administrative wisdom, discipline, enthusiasm. Put
+millions into the hands of your recruiters, and charge them to bring you
+a great leader and an army. You will find a hundred captains instead of
+one, and a thousand soldiers. But put them under fire: you will have
+enough of your hirelings! At least one might imagine that with money
+alone it is possible to lighten misery. Ah! that too is an illusion from
+which we must turn away. Money, be the sum great or small, is a seed
+which germinates into abuses. Unless there go with it intelligence,
+kindness, much knowledge of men, it will do nothing but harm, and we run
+great risk of corrupting both those who receive our bounty and those
+charged with its distribution.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">MONEY will not answer for everything: it is a power, but it is not
+all-powerful. Nothing complicates life, demoralizes man, perverts the
+normal course of society like the development of venality. Wherever it
+reigns, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>everybody is duped by everybody else: one can no longer put
+trust in persons or things, no longer obtain anything of value. We would
+not be detractors of money, but this general law must be applied to it:
+<i>Everything in its own place.</i> When gold, which should be a servant,
+becomes a tyrannical power, affronting morality, dignity and liberty;
+when some exert themselves to obtain it at any price, offering for sale
+what is not merchandise, and others, possessing wealth, fancy that they
+can purchase what no one may buy, it is time to rise against this gross
+and criminal superstition, and cry aloud to the imposture: "Thy money
+perish with thee!" The most precious things that man possesses he has
+almost always received gratuitously: let him learn so to give them.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span><a name="ix" id="ix"></a>IX<br />
+<br />
+NOTORIETY AND THE INGLORIOUS GOOD</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">ONE of the chief puerilities of our time is the love of advertisement.
+To emerge from obscurity, to be in the public eye, to make one's self
+talked of&mdash;some people are so consumed with this desire that we are
+justified in declaring them attacked with an itch for publicity. In
+their eyes obscurity is the height of ignominy: so they do their best to
+keep their names in every mouth. In their obscure position they look
+upon themselves as lost, like ship-wrecked sailors whom a night of
+tempest has cast on some lonely rock, and who have recourse to cries,
+volleys, fire, all the signals imaginable, to let it be known that they
+are there. Not content with setting off crackers and innocent rockets,
+many, to make themselves heard at any cost, have gone to the length of
+perfidy and even crime. The incendiary Erostratus has made numerous
+disciples. How many men of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>to-day have become notorious for having
+destroyed something of mark; pulled down&mdash;or tried to pull down&mdash;some
+man's high reputation; signalled their passage, in short, by a scandal,
+a meanness, or an atrocity!</p>
+
+<p>This rage for notoriety does not surge through cracked brains alone, or
+only in the world of adventurers, charlatans and pretenders generally;
+it has spread abroad in all the domains of life, spiritual and material.
+Politics, literature, even science, and&mdash;most odious of
+all&mdash;philanthropy and religion are infected. Trumpets announce a good
+deed done, and souls must be saved with din and clamor. Pursuing its way
+of destruction, the rage for noise has entered places ordinarily silent,
+troubled spirits naturally serene, and vitiated in large measure all
+activity for good. The abuse of showing everything, or rather, putting
+everything on exhibition; the growing incapacity to appreciate that
+which chooses to remain hidden, and the habit of estimating the value of
+things by the racket they make, have come to corrupt the judgment of the
+most earnest men, and one sometimes wonders if society will not end by
+transforming itself into a great fair, with each one beating his drum in
+front of his tent.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>Gladly do we quit the dust and din of like exhibitions, to go and
+breathe peacefully in some far-off nook of the woods, all surprise that
+the brook is so limpid, the forest so still, the solitude so enchanting.
+Thank God there are yet these uninvaded corners. However formidable the
+uproar, however deafening the babel of merry-andrews, it cannot carry
+beyond a certain limit; it grows faint and dies away. The realm of
+silence is vaster than the realm of noise. Herein is our consolation.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">REST a moment on the threshold of this infinite world of inglorious
+good, of quiet activities. Instantly we are under the charm we feel in
+stretches of untrodden snow, in hiding wood-flowers, in disappearing
+pathways that seem to lead to horizons without bourn. The world is so
+made that the engines of labor, the most active agencies, are everywhere
+concealed. Nature affects a sort of coquetry in masking her operations.
+It costs you pains to spy her out, ingenuity to surprise her, if you
+would see anything but results and penetrate the secrets of her
+laboratories. Likewise in human society, the forces which move for good
+remain invisible, and even in our individual lives; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>what is best in us
+is incommunicable, buried in the depths of us. And the more vital are
+these sensibilities and intuitions, confounding themselves with the very
+source of our being, the less ostentatious they are: they think
+themselves profaned by exposure to the light of day. There is a secret
+and inexpressible joy in possessing at the heart of one's being, an
+interior world known only to God, whence, nevertheless, come impulses,
+enthusiasms, the daily renewal of courage, and the most powerful motives
+for activity among our fellow men. When this intimate life loses in
+intensity, when man neglects it for what is superficial, he forfeits in
+worth all that he gains in appearance. By a sad fatality, it happens
+that in this way we often become less admirable in proportion as we are
+more admired. And we remain convinced that what is best in the world is
+unknown there; for only those know it who possess it, and if they speak
+of it, in so doing they destroy its charm.</p>
+
+<p>There are passionate lovers of nature whom she fascinates most in
+by-places, in the cool of forests, in the clefts of ca&ntilde;ons, everywhere
+that the careless lover is not admitted to her contemplation. Forgetting
+time and the life of the world, they pass <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>days in these inviolate
+stillnesses, watching a bird build its nest or brood over its young, or
+some little groundling at its gracious play. So to seek the good within
+himself&mdash;one must go where he no longer finds constraint, or pose, or
+"gallery" of any sort, but the simple fact of a life made up of wishing
+to be what it is good for it to be, without troubling about anything
+else.</p>
+
+<p>May we be permitted to record here some observations made from life? As
+no names are given, they cannot be considered indiscreet.</p>
+
+<p>In my country of Alsace, on the solitary route whose interminable ribbon
+stretches on and on under the forests of the Vosges, there is a
+stone-breaker whom I have seen at his work for thirty years. The first
+time I came upon him, I was a young student, setting out with swelling
+heart for the great city. The sight of this man did me good, for he was
+humming a song as he broke his stones. We exchanged a few words, and he
+said at the end: "Well, good-by, my boy, good courage and good luck!"
+Since then I have passed and repassed along that same route, under
+circumstances the most diverse, painful and joyful. The student has
+finished his course, the breaker of stones <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>remains what he was. He has
+taken a few more precautions against the seasons' storms: a rush-mat
+protects his back, and his felt hat is drawn further down to shield his
+face. But the forest is always sending back the echo of his valiant
+hammer. How many sudden tempests have broken over his bent back, how
+much adverse fate has fallen on his head, on his house, on his country!
+He continues to break his stones, and, coming and going I find him by
+the roadside, smiling in spite of his age and his wrinkles, benevolent,
+speaking&mdash;above all in dark days&mdash;those simple words of brave men, which
+have so much effect when they are scanned to the breaking of stones.</p>
+
+<p>It would be quite impossible to express the emotion the sight of this
+simple man gives me, and certainly he has no suspicion of it. I know of
+nothing more reassuring and at the same time more searching for the
+vanity which ferments in our hearts, than this coming face to face with
+an obscure worker who does his task as the oak grows and as the good God
+makes his sun to rise, without asking who is looking on.</p>
+
+<p>I have known, too, a number of old teachers, men and women who have
+passed their whole life at the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>same occupation&mdash;making the rudiments of
+human knowledge and a few principles of conduct penetrate heads
+sometimes harder than the rocks. They have done it with their whole
+soul, throughout the length of a hard life in which the attention of men
+had little place. When they lie in their unknown graves, no one
+remembers them but a few humble people like themselves. But their
+recompense is in their love. No one is greater than these unknown.</p>
+
+<p>How many hidden virtues may one not discover&mdash;if he know how to
+search&mdash;among people of a class he often ridicules without perceiving
+that in so doing he is guilty of cruelty, ingratitude and stupidity: I
+mean old maids. People amuse themselves with remarking the surprising
+dress and ways of some of them&mdash;things of no consequence, for that
+matter. They persist also in reminding us that others, very selfish,
+take interest in nothing but their own comfort and that of some cat or
+canary upon which their powers of affection center; and certainly these
+are not outdone in egoism by the most hardened celibates of the stronger
+sex. But what we oftenest forget is the amount of self-sacrifice hidden
+modestly away in so many of these truly admirable lives. Is it nothing
+to be without home and its love, w<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>ithout future, without personal
+ambition? to take upon one's self that cross of solitary life, so hard
+to bear, especially when there is added the solitude of the heart? to
+forget one's self and have no other interests than the care of the old,
+of orphans, the poor, the infirm&mdash;those whom the brutal mechanism of
+life casts out among its waste? Seen from without, these apparently tame
+and lusterless lives rouse pity rather than envy. Those who approach
+gently sometimes divine sad secrets, great trials undergone, heavy
+burdens beneath which too fragile shoulders bend; but this is only the
+side of shadow. We should learn to know and value this richness of
+heart, this pure goodness, this power to love, to console, to hope, this
+joyful giving up of self, this persistence in sweetness and forgiveness
+even toward the unworthy. Poor old maids! how many wrecked lives have
+you rescued, how many wounded have you healed, how many wanderers have
+you gently led aright, how many naked have you clothed, how many orphans
+have you taken in, and how many strangers, who would have been alone in
+the world but for you&mdash;you who yourselves are often remembered of no
+one. I mistake. Someone knows you; it is that great mysterious Pity
+which keeps watch over our <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>lives and suffers in our misfortunes.
+Forgotten like you, often blasphemed, it has confided to you some of its
+heavenliest messages, and that perhaps is why above your gentle comings
+and goings, we sometimes seem to hear the rustling wings of ministering
+angels.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">THE good hides itself under so many different forms, that one has often
+as much pains to discover it as to unearth the best concealed crimes. A
+Russian doctor, who had passed ten years of his life in Siberia,
+condemned for political reasons to forced labor, used to find great
+pleasure in telling of the generosity, courage and humanity he had
+observed, not only among a large number of the condemned, but also
+among the convict guards. For the moment one is tempted to exclaim:
+Where will not the good hide away! And in truth life offers here great
+surprises and embarrassing contrasts. There are good men, officially so
+recognized, quoted among their associates, I had almost said guaranteed
+by the Government or the Church, who can be reproached with nothing but
+dry and hard hearts; while we are astonished to encounter in certain
+fallen human <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>beings, the most genuine tenderness, and as it were a
+thirst for self-devotion.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">I SHOULD like to speak next&mdash;apropos of the inglorious good&mdash;of a class
+that to-day it is thought quite fitting to treat with the utmost
+one-sidedness. I mean the rich. Some people think the last word is said
+when they have stigmatized that infamy, capital. For them, all who
+possess great fortunes are monsters gorged with the blood of the
+miserable. Others, not so declamatory, persist, however, in confounding
+riches with egoism and insensibility. Justice should be visited on these
+errors, be they involuntary or calculated. No doubt there are rich men
+who concern themselves with nobody else, and others who do good only
+with ostentation; indeed, we know it too well. But does their inhumanity
+or hypocrisy take away the value of the good that others do, and that
+they often hide with a modesty so perfect?</p>
+
+<p>I knew a man to whom every misfortune had come which can strike us in
+our affections. He had lost a beloved wife, had seen all his children
+buried, one after another. But he had a great fortune, the result of his
+own labor. Living in the utmost simplicity, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>almost without personal
+wants, he spent his time in searching for opportunities to do good, and
+profiting by them. How many people he surprised in flagrant poverty,
+what means he combined for relieving distress and lighting up dark
+lives, with what kindly thoughtfulness he took his friends unawares, no
+one can imagine. He liked to do good to others and enjoy their surprise
+when they did not know whence the relief came. It pleased him to repair
+the injustices of fortune, to bring tears of happiness in families
+pursued by mischance. He was continually plotting, contriving,
+machinating in the dark, with a childish fear of being caught with his
+hand in the bag. The greater part of these fine deeds were not known
+till after his death; the whole of them we shall never know.</p>
+
+<p>He was a socialist of the right sort! for there are two kinds of them.
+Those who aspire to appropriate to themselves a part of the goods of
+others, are numerous and commonplace. To belong to their order it
+suffices to have a big appetite. Those who are hungering to divide their
+own goods with men who have none, are rare and precious, for to enter
+this choice company there is need of a brave and noble heart, free from
+selfishness, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>sensitive to both the happiness and unhappiness of its
+fellows. Fortunately the race of these socialists is not extinct, and I
+feel an unalloyed satisfaction in offering them a tribute they never
+claim.</p>
+
+<p>I must be pardoned for dwelling upon this. It does one good to offset
+the bitterness of so many infamies, so many calumnies, so much
+charlatanism, by resting the eyes upon something more beautiful,
+breathing the perfume of these stray corners where simple goodness
+flowers.</p>
+
+<p>A lady, a foreigner, doubtless little used to Parisian life, just now
+told me with what horror the things she sees here inspire her:&mdash;these
+vile posters, these "yellow" journals, these women with bleached hair,
+this crowd rushing to the races, to dance-halls, to roulette tables, to
+corruption&mdash;the whole flood of superficial and mundane life. She did not
+speak the word Babylon, but doubtless it was out of pity for one of the
+inhabitants of this city of perdition.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, yes, madam, these things are sad, but you have not seen all."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven preserve me from that!"</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, I wish you could see everything; for if the dark side
+is very ugly, there is so <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>much to atone for it. And believe me, madam,
+you have simply to change your quarter, or observe at another hour. For
+instance, take the Paris of early morning. It will offer much to correct
+your impressions of the Paris of the night. Go see, among so many other
+working people, the street-sweepers, who come out at the hour when the
+revellers and malefactors go in. Observe beneath these rags those
+caryatid bodies, those austere faces! How serious they are at their work
+of sweeping away the refuse of the night's revelry. One might liken
+them to the prophets at Ahasuerus's gates. There are women among them,
+many old people. When the air is cold they stop to blow their fingers,
+and then go at it again. So it is every day. And they, too, are
+inhabitants of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"Go next to the faubourgs, to the factories, especially the smaller
+ones, where the children or the employers labor with the men. Watch the
+army of workers marching to their tasks. How ready and willing these
+young girls seem, as they come gaily down from their distant quarters to
+the shops and stores and offices of the city. Then visit the homes from
+which they come. See the woman of the people at her work. Her husband's
+wages are modest, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>their dwelling is cramped, the children are many, the
+father is often harsh. Make a collection of the biographies of lowly
+people, budgets of modest family life: look at them attentively and
+long.</p>
+
+<p>"After that, go see the students. Those who have scandalized you in the
+streets are numerous, but those who labor hard are legion&mdash;only they
+stay at home, and are not talked about. If you knew the toil and dig of
+the Latin Quarter! You find the papers full of the rumpus made by a
+certain set of youths who call themselves students. The papers say
+enough of those who break windows; but why do they make no mention of
+those who spend their nights toiling over problems? Because it wouldn't
+interest the public. Yes, when now and then one of them, a medical
+student perhaps, dies a victim to professional duty, the matter has two
+lines in the dailies. A drunken brawl gets half a column, with every
+detail elaborated. Nothing is lacking but the portraits of the
+heroes&mdash;and not always that!</p>
+
+<p>"I should never end were I to try to point out to you all that you must
+go to see if you would see all: you would needs make the tour of society
+at large, rich and poor, wise and ignorant. And certainly you would not
+judge so severely then. Paris <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>is a world, and here, as in the world in
+general, the good hides away while the evil flaunts itself. Observing
+only the surface, you sometimes ask how there can possibly be so much
+riff-raff. When, on the contrary, you look into the depths, you are
+astonished that in this troublous, obscure and sometimes frightful life
+there can be so much of virtue."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">BUT why linger over these things? Am I <i>not</i> blowing trumpets for those
+who hold trumpet-blowing in horror? Do not understand me so. My aim is
+this&mdash;to make men think about unostentatious goodness; above all, to
+make them love it and practice it. The man who finds his satisfaction in
+things which glitter and hold his eyes, is lost: first, because he will
+thus see evil before all else; then, because he gets accustomed to the
+sight of only such good as seeks for notice, and therefore easily
+succumbs to the temptation to live himself for appearances. Not only
+must one be resigned to obscurity, he must love it, if he does not wish
+to slip insensibly into the ranks of figurants, who preserve their parts
+only while under the eyes of the spectators, and put off in the wings
+the restraints imposed on the stage. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>Here we are in the presence of one
+of the essential elements of the moral life. And this which we say is
+true not only for those who are called humble and whose lot it is to
+pass unremarked; it is just as true, and more so, for the chief actors.
+If you would not be a brilliant inutility, a man of gold lace and
+plumes, but empty inside, you must play the star r&ocirc;le in the simple
+spirit of the most obscure of your collaborators. He who is nothing
+worth except on hours of parade, is worth less than nothing. Have we the
+perilous honor of being always in view, of marching in the front ranks?
+Let us take so much the greater care of the sanctuary of silent good
+within us. Let us give to the structure whose fa&ccedil;ade is seen of our
+fellow-men, a wide foundation of simplicity, of humble fidelity. And
+then, out of sympathy, out of gratitude, let us stay near our brothers
+who are unknown to fame. We owe everything to them&mdash;do we not? I call to
+witness everyone who has found in life this encouraging experience, that
+stones hidden in the soil hold up the whole edifice. All those who
+arrive at having a public and recognized value, owe it to some humble
+spiritual ancestors, to some forgotten inspirers. A small number of the
+good, among them <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>simple women, peasants, vanquished heroes, parents as
+modest as they are revered, personify for us beautiful and noble living;
+their example inspires us and gives us strength. The remembrance of them
+is forever inseparable from that conscience before which we arraign
+ourselves. In our hours of trial, we think of them, courageous and
+serene, and our burdens lighten. In clouds they compass us about, these
+witnesses invisible and beloved who keep us from stumbling and our feet
+from falling in the battle; and day by day do they prove to us that the
+treasure of humanity is its hidden goodness.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span><a name="x" id="x"></a>X<br />
+<br />
+THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF THE HOME</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">IN the time of the Second Empire, in one of our pleasantest
+sub-prefectures of the provinces, a little way from some baths
+frequented by the Emperor, there was a mayor, a very worthy man and
+intelligent too, whose head was suddenly turned by the thought that his
+sovereign might one day descend upon his home. Up to this time he had
+lived in the house of his fathers, a son respectful of the slightest
+family traditions. But when once the all-absorbing idea of receiving the
+Emperor had taken possession of his brain, he became another man. In
+this new light, what had before seemed sufficient for his needs, even
+enjoyable, all this simplicity that his ancestors had loved, appeared
+poor, ugly, ridiculous. Out of the question to ask an Emperor to climb
+this wooden staircase, sit in these old arm-chairs, walk over such
+superannuated carpets. So the mayor called architect <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>and masons;
+pickaxes attacked walls and demolished partitions, and a drawing-room
+was made, out of all proportion to the rest of the house in size and
+splendor. He and his family retired into close quarters, where people
+and furniture incommoded each other generally. Then, having emptied his
+purse and upset his household by this stroke of genius, he awaited the
+royal guest. Alas, he soon saw the end of the Empire arrive, but the
+Emperor never.</p>
+
+<p>The folly of this poor man is not so rare. As mad as he are all those
+who sacrifice their home life to the demands of the world. And the
+danger in such a sacrifice is most menacing in times of unrest. Our
+contemporaries are constantly exposed to it, and constantly succumbing.
+How many family treasures have they literally thrown away to satisfy
+worldly ambitions and conventions; but the happiness upon which they
+thought to come through these impious immolations always eludes them.</p>
+
+<p>To give up the ancestral hearth, to let the family traditions fall into
+desuetude, to abandon the simple domestic customs, for whatever return,
+is to make a fool's bargain; and such is the place in society of family
+life, that if this be impoverished, the trouble <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>is felt throughout the
+whole social organism. To enjoy a normal development, this organism has
+need of well-tried individuals, each having his own value, his own
+hall-mark. Otherwise society becomes a flock, and sometimes a flock
+without a shepherd. But whence does the individual draw his
+originality&mdash;this unique something, which, joined to the distinctive
+qualities of others, constitutes the wealth and strength of a community?
+He can draw it only from his own family. Destroy the assemblage of
+memories and practices whence emanates for each home an atmosphere in
+miniature, and you dry up the sources of character, sap the strength of
+public spirit.</p>
+
+<p>It concerns the country that each home be a world, profound, respected,
+communicating to its members an ineffaceable moral imprint. But before
+pursuing the subject further, let us rid ourselves of a
+misunderstanding. Family feeling, like all beautiful things, has its
+caricature, which is family egoism. Some families are like barred and
+bolted citadels, their members organized for the exploitation of the
+whole world. Everything that does not directly concern them is
+indifferent to them. They live like colonists, I had almost said
+intruders, in the society <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>around them. Their particularism is pushed to
+such an excess that they make enemies of the whole human race. In their
+small way they resemble those powerful societies, formed from time to
+time through the ages, which possess themselves of universal rule, and
+for which no one outside their own community counts. This is the spirit
+that has sometimes made the family seem a retreat of egoism which it was
+necessary to destroy for the public safety. But as patriotism and
+jingoism are as far apart as the east from the west, so are family
+feeling and clannishness.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">HERE we are talking of right family feeling, and nothing else in the
+world can take its place; for in it lie in germ all those fine and
+simple virtues which assure the strength and duration of social
+institutions. And the very base of family feeling is respect for the
+past; for the best possessions of a family are its common memories. An
+intangible, indivisible and inalienable capital, these souvenirs
+constitute a sacred fund that each member of a family ought to consider
+more precious than anything else he possesses. They exist in a dual
+form: in idea and in fact. They show <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>themselves in language, habits of
+thought, sentiments, even instincts, and one sees them materialized in
+portraits, furniture, buildings, dress, songs. To profane eyes, they are
+nothing; to the eyes of those who know how to appreciate the things of
+the family, they are relics with which one should not part at any price.</p>
+
+<p>But what generally happens in our day? Worldliness wars upon the
+sentiment of family, and I know of no strife more impassioned. By great
+means and small, by all sorts of new customs, requirements and
+pretensions, the spirit of the world breaks into the domestic sanctuary.
+What are this stranger's rights? its titles? Upon what does it rest its
+peremptory claims? This is what people too often neglect to inquire.
+They make a mistake. We treat the invader as very poor and simple people
+do a pompous visitor. For this incommoding guest of a day, they pillage
+their garden, bully their children and servants, and neglect their
+work. Such conduct is not only wrong, it is impolitic. One should have
+the courage to remain what he is, in the face of all comers.</p>
+
+<p>The worldly spirit is full of impertinences. Here is a home which has
+formed characters of mark, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>is forming them yet. The people, the
+furnishings, the customs are all in harmony. By marriage or through
+relations of business or pleasure, the worldly spirit enters. It finds
+everything out of date, awkward, too simple, lacking the modern touch.
+At first it restricts itself to criticism and light raillery. But this
+is the dangerous moment. Look out for yourself; here is the enemy! If
+you so much as listen to his reasonings, to-morrow you will sacrifice a
+piece of furniture, the next day a good old tradition, and so one by one
+the family heirlooms dear to the heart will go to the bric-a-brac
+dealer&mdash;and filial piety with them.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of your new habits and in the changed atmosphere, your
+friends of other days, your old relatives, will be expatriated. Your
+next step will be to lay them aside in their turn; the worldly spirit
+leaves the old out of consideration. At last, established in an
+absolutely transformed setting, even you will view yourself with
+amazement. Nothing will be familiar, but surely it will be correct; at
+least the world will be satisfied!&mdash;Ah! that is where you are mistaken!
+After having made you cast out pure treasure as so much junk, it will
+find that your borrowed livery fits you ill, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>will hasten to make you
+sensible of the ridiculousness of the situation. Much better have had
+from the beginning the courage of your convictions, and have defended
+your home.</p>
+
+<p>Many young people when they marry, listen to this voice of the world.
+Their parents have given them the example of a modest life; but the new
+generation thinks it affirms its rights to existence and liberty, by
+repudiating ways in its eyes too patriarchal. So these young folks make
+efforts to set themselves up lavishly in the latest fashion, and rid
+themselves of useless property at dirt-cheap prices. Instead of filling
+their houses with objects which say: Remember! they garnish them with
+quite new furnishings that as yet have no meaning. Wait, I am wrong;
+these things are often symbols, as it were, of a facile and superficial
+existence. In their midst one breathes a certain heady vapor of
+mundanity. They recall the life outside, the turmoil, the rush. And were
+one sometimes disposed to forget this life, they would call back his
+wandering thought and say: Remember!&mdash;in another sense: Do not forget
+your appointment at the club, the play, the races! The home, then,
+becomes a sort of half-way house where one comes to rest a little
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>between two prolonged absences; it isn't a good place to stay. As it has
+no soul, it does not speak to yours. Time to eat and sleep, and then off
+again! Otherwise you become as dull as a hermit.</p>
+
+<p>We are all acquainted with people who have a rage for being abroad, who
+think the world would no longer go round if they didn't figure on all
+sides of it. To stay at home is penal; there they cease to be in view. A
+horror of home life possesses them to such a degree that they would
+rather pay to be bored outside than be amused gratuitously within.</p>
+
+<p>In this way society slowly gravitates toward life in herds, which must
+not be confounded with public life. The life in herds is somewhat like
+that of swarms of flies in the sun. Nothing so much resembles the
+worldly life of a man as the worldly life of another man. And this
+universal banality destroys the very essence of public spirit. One need
+not journey far to discover the ravages made in modern society by the
+spirit of worldliness; and if we have so little foundation, so little
+equilibrium, calm good sense and initiative, one of the chief reasons
+lies in the undermining of the home life. The masses <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>have timed their
+pace by that of people of fashion. They too have become worldly. Nothing
+can be more so than to quit one's own hearth for the life of saloons.
+The squalor and misery of the homes is not enough to explain the current
+which carries each man away from his own. Why does the peasant desert
+for the inn the house that his father and grandfather found so
+comfortable? It has remained the same. There is the same fire in the
+same chimney. Whence comes it that it lights only an incomplete circle,
+when in olden times young and old sat shoulder to shoulder? Something
+has changed in the minds of men. Yielding to dangerous impulses, they
+have broken with simplicity. The fathers have quitted their post of
+honor, the wives grow dull beside the solitary hearth, and the children
+quarrel while waiting their turn to go abroad, each after his own fancy.</p>
+
+<p>We must learn again to live the home life, to value our domestic
+traditions. A pious care has preserved certain monuments of the past. So
+antique dress, provincial dialects, old folk songs have found
+appreciative hands to gather them up before they should disappear from
+the earth. What a good deed, to guard these crumbs of a great past,
+these vestiges of the souls of our ancestors! Let us <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>do the same for our
+family traditions, save and guard as much as possible of the
+patriarchal, whatever its form.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">BUT not everyone has traditions to keep. All the more reason for
+redoubling the effort to constitute and foster a family life. And to do
+this there is need neither of numbers nor a rich establishment. To
+create a home you must have the spirit of home. Just as the smallest
+village may have its history, its moral stamp, so the smallest home may
+have its soul. Oh! the spirit of places, the atmosphere which surrounds
+us in human dwellings! What a world of mystery! Here, even on the
+threshold the cold begins to penetrate, you are ill at ease, something
+intangible repulses you. There, no sooner does the door shut you in than
+friendliness and good humor envelop you. It is said that walls have
+ears. They have also voices, a mute eloquence. Everything that a
+dwelling contains is bathed in an ether of personality. And I find proof
+of its quality even in the apartments of bachelors and solitary women.
+What an abyss between one room and another room! Here, all is dead,
+indifferent, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>commonplace: the device of the owner is written all over
+it, even in his fashion of arranging his photographs and books: All is
+the same to me! There, one breathes in animation, a contagious joy in
+life. The visitor hears repeated in countless fashions: "Whoever you
+are, guest of an hour, I wish you well, peace be with you!"</p>
+
+<p>Words can do little justice to the subject of home, tell little about
+the effect of a favorite flower in the window, or the charm of an old
+arm-chair where the grandfather used to sit, offering his wrinkled hands
+to the kisses of chubby children. Poor moderns, always moving or
+remodeling! We who from transforming our cities, our houses, our customs
+and creeds, have no longer where to lay our heads, let us not add to the
+pathos and emptiness of our changeful existence by abandoning the life
+of the home. Let us light again the flame put out on our hearths, make
+sanctuaries for ourselves, warm nests where the children may grow into
+men, where love may find privacy, old age repose, prayer an altar, and
+the fatherland a cult!</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span><a name="xi" id="xi"></a>XI<br />
+<br />
+SIMPLE BEAUTY</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">SOMEONE may protest against the nature of the simple life in the name of
+esthetics, or oppose to ours the theory of the service of luxury&mdash;that
+providence of business, fostering mother of arts, and grace of civilized
+society. We shall try, briefly, to anticipate these objections.</p>
+
+<p>It will no doubt have been evident that the spirit which animates these
+pages is not utilitarian. It would be an error to suppose that the
+simplicity we seek has anything in common with that which misers impose
+upon themselves through cupidity, or narrow-minded people through false
+austerity. To the former the simple life is the one that costs least; to
+the latter it is a flat and colorless existence, whose merit lies in
+depriving one's self of everything bright, smiling, seductive.</p>
+
+<p>It displeases us not a whit that people of large means should put their
+fortune into circulation instead of hoarding it, so giving life to
+commerce and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>the fine arts. That is using one's privileges to good
+advantage. What we would combat is foolish prodigality, the selfish use
+of wealth, and above all the quest of the superfluous on the part of
+those who have the greatest need of taking thought for the necessary.
+The lavishness of a M&aelig;cenas could not have the same effect in a society
+as that of a common spendthrift who astonishes his contemporaries by the
+magnificence of his life and the folly of his waste. In these two cases
+the same term means very different things&mdash;to scatter money broadcast
+does not say it all; there are ways of doing it which ennoble men, and
+others which degrade them. Besides, to scatter money supposes that one
+is well provided with it. When the love of sumptuous living takes
+possession of those whose means are limited, the matter becomes
+strangely altered. And a very striking characteristic of our time is
+the rage for scattering broadcast which the very people have who ought
+to husband their resources. Munificence is a benefit to society, that we
+grant willingly. Let us even allow that the prodigality of certain rich
+men is a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>safety-valve for the escape of the superabundant: we shall not
+attempt to gainsay it. Our contention is that too many people meddle
+with the safety-valve when to practice economy is the part of both their
+interest and their duty: their extravagance is a private misfortune and
+a public danger.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">SO much for the utility of luxury.</p>
+
+<p>We now wish to explain ourselves upon the question of esthetics&mdash;oh!
+very modestly, and without trespassing on the ground of the specialists.
+Through a too common illusion, simplicity and beauty are considered as
+rivals. But simple is not synonymous with ugly, any more than sumptuous,
+stylish and costly are synonymous with beautiful. Our eyes are wounded
+by the crying spectacle of gaudy ornament, venal art and senseless and
+graceless luxury. Wealth coupled with bad taste sometimes makes us
+regret that so much money is in circulation to provoke the creation of
+such a prodigality of horrors. Our contemporary art suffers as much from
+the want of simplicity as does our literature&mdash;too much in it that is
+irrelevant, over-wrought, falsely imagined. Rarely is it given us to
+contemplate in line, form, or color, that simplicity allied to
+perfection which commands the eyes as evidence does the mind. We need to
+be rebaptized in the ideal purity of immortal beauty which puts its <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>seal
+on the masterpieces; one shaft of its radiance is worth more than all
+our pompous exhibitions.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">YET what we now have most at heart is to speak of the ordinary esthetics
+of life, of the care one should bestow upon the adornment of his
+dwelling and his person, giving to existence that luster without which
+it lacks charm. For it is not a matter of indifference whether man pays
+attention to these superfluous necessities or whether he does not: it is
+by them that we know whether he puts soul into his work. Far from
+considering it as wasteful to give time and thought to the perfecting,
+beautifying and poetizing of forms, I think we should spend as much as
+we can upon it. Nature gives us her example, and the man who should
+affect contempt for the ephemeral splendor of beauty with which we
+garnish our brief days, would lose sight of the intentions of Him who
+has put the same care and love into the painting of the lily of an hour
+and the eternal hills.</p>
+
+<p>But we must not fall into the gross error of confounding true beauty
+with that which has only the name. The beauty and poetry of existence
+lie in the understanding we have of it. Our home, our <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>table, our dress
+should be the interpreters of intentions. That these intentions be so
+expressed, it is first necessary to have them, and he who possesses them
+makes them evident through the simplest means. One need not be rich to
+give grace and charm to his habit and his habitation: it suffices to
+have good taste and good-will. We come here to a point very important to
+everybody, but perhaps of more interest to women than to men.</p>
+
+<p>Those who would have women conceal themselves in coarse garments of the
+shapeless uniformity of bags, violate nature in her very heart, and
+misunderstand completely the spirit of things. If dress were only a
+precaution to shelter us from cold or rain, a piece of sacking or the
+skin of a beast would answer. But it is vastly more than this. Man puts
+himself entire into all that he does; he transforms into types the
+things that serve him. The dress is not simply a covering, it is a
+symbol. I call to witness the rich flowering of national and provincial
+costumes, and those worn by our early corporations. A woman's toilette,
+too, has something to say to us. The more meaning there is in it, the
+greater its worth. To be truly beautiful, it must tell us of beautiful
+things, things personal and veritable. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>Spend all the money you possess
+upon it, if its form is determined by chance or custom, if it has no
+relation to her who wears it, it is only toggery, a domino.
+Ultra-fashionable dress, which completely masks feminine personality
+under designs of pure convention, despoils it of its principal
+attraction. From this abuse it comes about that many things which women
+admire do as much wrong to their beauty as to the purses of their
+husbands and fathers. What would you say of a young girl who expressed
+her thoughts in terms very choice, indeed, but taken word for word from
+a phrase-book? What charm could you find in this borrowed language? The
+effect of toilettes well-designed in themselves but seen again and
+again on all women indiscriminately, is precisely the same.</p>
+
+<p>I can not resist citing here a passage from Camille Lemonnier, that
+harmonizes with my idea.</p>
+
+<p>"Nature has given to the fingers of woman a charming art, which she
+knows by instinct, and which is peculiarly her own&mdash;as silk to the worm,
+and lace-work to the swift and subtle spider. She is the poet, the
+interpreter of her own grace and ingenuousness, the spinner of the
+mystery in which her wish to please arrays itself. All the talent she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>expends in her effort to equal man in the other arts, is never worth the
+spirit and conception wrought out through a bit of stuff in her skillful
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wish that this art were more honored than it is. As education
+should consist in thinking with one's mind, feeling with one's heart,
+expressing the little personalities of the inmost, invisible <i>I</i>,&mdash;which
+on the contrary are repressed, leveled down by conformity,&mdash;I would that
+the young girl in her novitiate of womanhood, the future mother, might
+early become the little exponent of this art of the toilet, her own
+dressmaker in short&mdash;she who one day shall make the dresses of her
+children. But with the taste and the gift to improvise, to express
+herself in that masterpiece of feminine personality and skill&mdash;<i>a gown</i>,
+without which a woman is no more than a bundle of rags."</p>
+
+<p>The dress you have made for yourself is almost always the most becoming,
+and, however that may be, it is the one that pleases you most. Women of
+leisure too often forget this; working women, also, in city and country
+alike. Since these last are costumed by dressmakers and milliners, in
+very doubtful imitation of the modish world, grace has almost
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>disappeared from their dress. And has anything more surely the gift to
+please than the fresh apparition of a young working girl or a daughter
+of the fields, wearing the costume of her country, and beautiful from
+her simplicity alone?</p>
+
+<p>These same reflections might be applied to the fashion of decorating and
+arranging our houses. If there are toilettes which reveal an entire
+conception of life, hats that are poems, knots of ribbon that are
+veritable works of art, so there are interiors which after their manner
+speak to the mind. Why, under pretext of decorating our homes, do we
+destroy that personal character which always has such value? Why have
+our sleeping-rooms conform to those of hotels, our reception-rooms to
+waiting-rooms, by making predominant a uniform type of official beauty?</p>
+
+<p>What a pity to go through the houses of a city, the cities of a country,
+the countries of a vast continent, and encounter everywhere certain
+forms, identical, inevitable, exasperating by their repetition! How
+esthetics would gain by more simplicity! Instead of this luxury in job
+lots, all these decorations, pretentious but vapid from iteration, we
+should have an infinite variety; happy improvisations would <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>strike our
+eyes, the unexpected in a thousand forms would rejoice our hearts, and
+we should rediscover the secret of impressing on a drapery or a piece of
+furniture that stamp of human personality which makes certain antiques
+priceless.</p>
+
+<p>Let us pass at last to things simpler still; I mean the little details
+of housekeeping which many young people of our day find so unpoetical.
+Their contempt for material things, for the humble cares a house
+demands, arises from a confusion very common but none the less
+unfortunate, which comes from the belief that beauty and poetry are
+within some things, while others lack them; that some occupations are
+distinguished and agreeable, such as cultivating letters, playing the
+harp; and that others are menial and disagreeable, like blacking shoes,
+sweeping, and watching the pot boil. Childish error! Neither harp nor
+broom has anything to do with it; all depends on the hand in which they
+rest and the spirit that moves it. Poetry is not in things, it is in us.
+It must be impressed on objects from without, as the sculptor impresses
+his dream on the marble. If our life and our occupations remain too
+often without charm, in spite of any outward distinction they may have,
+it is because we have <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>not known how to put anything into them. The
+height of art is to make the inert live, and to tame the savage. I would
+have our young girls apply themselves to the development of the truly
+feminine art of giving a soul to things which have none. The triumph of
+woman's charm is in that work. Only a woman knows how to put into a home
+that indefinable something whose virtue has made the poet say, "The
+housetop rejoices and is glad." They say there are no such things as
+fairies, or that there are fairies no longer, but they know not what
+they say. The original of the fairies sung by poets was found, and is
+still, among those amiable mortals who knead bread with energy, mend
+rents with cheerfulness, nurse the sick with smiles, put witchery into
+a ribbon and genius into a stew.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">IT is indisputable that the culture of the fine arts has something
+refining about it, and that our thoughts and acts are in the end
+impregnated with that which strikes our eyes. But the exercise of the
+arts and the contemplation of their products is a restricted privilege.
+It is not given to everyone to possess, to comprehend or to create fine
+things. Yet there is a kind of ministering beauty <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>which may make its way
+everywhere&mdash;the beauty which springs from the hands of our wives and
+daughters. Without it, what is the most richly decorated house? A dead
+dwelling-place. With it the barest home has life and brightness. Among
+the forces capable of transforming the will and increasing happiness,
+there is perhaps none in more universal use than this beauty. It knows
+how to shape itself by means of the crudest tools, in the midst of the
+greatest difficulties. When the dwelling is cramped, the purse limited,
+the table modest, a woman who has the gift, finds a way to make order,
+fitness and convenience reign in her house. She puts care and art into
+everything she undertakes. To do well what one has to do is not in her
+eyes the privilege of the rich, but the right of all. That is her aim,
+and she knows how to give her home a dignity and an attractiveness that
+the dwellings of princes, if everything is left to mercenaries, cannot
+possess.</p>
+
+<p>Thus understood, life quickly shows itself rich in hidden beauties, in
+attractions and satisfactions close at hand. To be one's self, to
+realize in one's natural place the kind of beauty which is fitting
+there&mdash;this is the ideal. How the mission of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>woman broadens and deepens
+in significance when it is summed up in this: to put a soul into the
+inanimate, and to give to this gracious spirit of things those subtle
+and winsome outward manifestations to which the most brutish of human
+beings is sensible. Is not this better than to covet what one has not,
+and to give one's self up to longings for a poor imitation of others'
+finery?</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span><a name="xii" id="xii"></a>XII<br />
+<br />
+PRIDE AND SIMPLICITY IN THE INTERCOURSE OF MEN</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">IT would perhaps be difficult to find a more convincing example than
+pride to show that the obstacles to a better, stronger, serener life are
+rather in us than in circumstances. The diversity, and more than that,
+the contrasts in social conditions give rise inevitably to all sorts of
+conflicts. Yet in spite of this how greatly would social relations be
+simplified, if we put another spirit into mapping out our plan of
+outward necessities! Be well persuaded that it is not primarily
+differences of class and occupation, differences in the outward
+manifestations of their destinies, which embroil men. If such were the
+case, we should find an idyllic peace reigning among colleagues, and all
+those whose interests and lot are virtually equivalent. On the contrary,
+as everyone knows, the most violent shocks come when equal meets equal,
+and there is no war worse than civil war. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>But that which above all
+things else hinders men from good understanding, is pride. It makes a
+man a hedgehog, wounding everyone he touches. Let us speak first of the
+pride of the great.</p>
+
+<p>What offends me in this rich man passing in his carriage, is not his
+equipage, his dress, or the number and splendor of his retinue: it is
+his contempt. That he possesses a great fortune does not disturb me,
+unless I am badly disposed: but that he splashes me with mud, drives
+over my body, shows by his whole attitude that I count for nothing in
+his eyes because I am not rich like himself&mdash;this is what disturbs me,
+and righteously. He heaps suffering upon me needlessly. He humiliates
+and insults me gratuitously. It is not what is vulgar within me, but
+what is noblest that asserts itself in the face of this offensive pride.
+Do not accuse me of envy; I feel none; it is my manhood that is wounded.
+We need not search far to illustrate these ideas. Every man of any
+acquaintance with life has had numerous experiences which will justify
+our dictum in his eyes. In certain communities devoted to material
+interests, the pride of wealth dominates to such a degree that men are
+quoted like values in the stock market. The esteem in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>which a man is
+held is proportionate to the contents of his strong box. Here "Society"
+is made up of big fortunes, the middle class of medium fortunes. Then
+come people who have little, then those who have nothing. All
+intercourse is regulated by this principle. And the relatively rich man
+who has shown his disdain for those less opulent, is crushed in turn by
+the contempt of his superiors in fortune. So the madness of comparison
+rages from the summit to the base. Such an atmosphere is ready to
+perfection for the nurture of the worst feeling; yet it is not wealth,
+but the spirit of the wealthy that must be arraigned.</p>
+
+<p>Many rich men are free from this gross conception&mdash;especially is this
+true of those who from father to son are accustomed to ease&mdash;yet they
+sometimes forget that there is a certain delicacy in not making
+contrasts too marked. Suppose there is no wrong in enjoying a large
+superfluity: is it indispensable to display it, to wound the eyes of
+those who lack necessities, to flaunt one's magnificence at the doors of
+poverty? Good taste and a sort of modesty always hinder a well man from
+talking of his fine appetite, his sound sleep, his exuberance of
+spirits, in the presence of one dying of consumption. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>Many of the rich
+do not exercise this tact, and so are greatly wanting in pity and
+discretion. Are they not unreasonable to complain of envy, after having
+done everything to provoke it?</p>
+
+<p>But the greatest lack is that want of discernment which leads men to
+ground their pride in their fortune. To begin with, it is a childish
+confusion of thought to consider wealth as a personal quality; it would
+be hard to find a more ingenuous fashion of deceiving one's self as to
+the relative value of the container and the thing contained. I have no
+wish to dwell on this question: it is too painful. And yet one cannot
+resist saying to those concerned: "Take care, do not confound what you
+possess with what you are. Go learn to know the under side of worldly
+splendor, that you may feel its moral misery and its puerility." The
+traps pride sets for us are too ridiculous. We should distrust
+association with a thing that makes us hateful to our neighbors and robs
+us of clearness of vision.</p>
+
+<p>He who yields to the pride of riches, forgets this other point, the most
+important of all&mdash;that possession is a public trust. Without doubt,
+individual wealth is as legitimate as individual existence and liberty.
+These things are inseparable, and it is a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>dream pregnant with dangers
+that offers battle to such fundamentals of life. But the individual
+touches society at every point, and all he does should be done with the
+whole in view. Possession, then, is less a privilege of which to be
+proud than a charge whose gravity should be felt. As there is an
+apprenticeship, often very difficult to serve, for the exercise of every
+social office, so this profession we call wealth demands an
+apprenticeship. To know how to be rich is an art, and one of the least
+easy of arts to master. Most people, rich and poor alike, imagine that
+in opulence one has nothing to do but to take life easy. That is why so
+few men know how to be rich. In the hands of too many, wealth, according
+to the genial and redoubtable comparison of Luther, is like a harp in
+the hoofs of an ass. They have no idea of the manner of its use.</p>
+
+<p>So when we encounter a man at once rich and simple, that is to say, who
+considers his wealth as a means of fulfilling his mission in the world,
+we should offer him our homage, for he is surely mark-worthy. He has
+surmounted obstacles, borne trials, and triumphed in temptations both
+gross and subtle. He does not fail to discriminate between the contents
+of his pocketbook and the contents of his <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>head or heart, and he does
+not estimate his fellow-men in figures. His exceptional position, instead
+of exalting him, makes him humble, for he is very sensible of how far he
+falls short of reaching the level of his duty. He has remained a
+man&mdash;that says it all. He is accessible, helpful, and far from making of
+his wealth a barrier to separate him from other men, he makes it a means
+for coming nearer and nearer to them. Although the profession of riches
+has been so dishonored by the selfish and the proud, such a man as this
+always makes his worth felt by everyone not devoid of a sense of
+justice. Each of us who comes in contact with him and sees him live, is
+forced to look within and ask himself the question, "What would become
+of me in such a situation? Should I keep this modesty, this naturalness,
+this uprightness which uses its own as though it belonged to others?" So
+long as there is a human society in the world, so long as there are
+bitterly conflicting interests, so long as envy and egoism exist on the
+earth, nothing will be worthier of honor than wealth permeated by the
+spirit of simplicity. And it will do more than make itself forgiven; it
+will make itself beloved.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">MORE<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> dangerous than pride inspired by wealth is that inspired by power,
+and I mean by the word every prerogative that one man has over another,
+be it unlimited or restricted. I see no means of preventing the
+existence in the world of men of unequal authority. Every organism
+supposes a hierarchy of powers&mdash;we shall never escape from that law. But
+I fear that if the love of power is so wide-spread, the spirit of power
+is almost impossible to find. From wrong understanding and misuse of it,
+those who keep even a fraction of authority almost everywhere succeed in
+compromising it.</p>
+
+<p>Power exercises a great influence over him who holds it. A head must be
+very well balanced not to be disturbed by it. The sort of dementia which
+took possession of the Roman emperors in the time of their world-wide
+rule, is a universal malady whose symptoms belong to all times. In every
+man there sleeps a tyrant, awaiting only a favorable occasion for
+waking. Now the tyrant is the worst enemy of authority, because he
+furnishes us its intolerable caricature, whence come a multitude of
+social complications, collisions and hatreds. Every man who says to
+those dependent on him: "Do <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>this because it is my will and pleasure,"
+does ill. There is within each one of us something that invites us to
+resist personal power, and this something is very respectable. For at
+bottom we are equal, and there is no one who has the right to exact
+obedience from me because he is he and I am I: if he does so, his
+command degrades me, and I have no right to suffer myself to be
+degraded.</p>
+
+<p>One must have lived in schools, in work-shops, in the army, in
+Government offices, he must have closely followed the relations between
+masters and servants, have observed a little everywhere where the
+supremacy of man exercises itself over man, to form any idea of the
+injury done by those who use power arrogantly. Of every free soul they
+make a slave soul, which is to say the soul of a rebel. And it appears
+that this result, with its social disaster, is most certain when he who
+commands is least removed from the station of him who obeys. The most
+implacable tyrant is the tyrant himself under authority. Foremen and
+overseers put more violence into their dealings than superintendents and
+employers. The corporal is generally harsher than the colonel. In
+certain families where madam has not much more education than her maid,
+the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>relations between them are those of the convict and his warder. And
+woe everywhere to him who falls into the hands of a subaltern drunk with
+his authority!</p>
+
+<p>We forget that the first duty of him who exercises power is humility.
+Haughtiness is not authority. It is not we who are the law; the law is
+over our heads. We only interpret it, but to make it valid in the eyes
+of others, we must first be subject to it ourselves. To command and to
+obey in the society of men, are after all but two forms of the same
+virtue&mdash;voluntary servitude. If you are not obeyed, it is generally
+because you have not yourself obeyed first.</p>
+
+<p>The secret of moral ascendancy rests with those who rule with
+simplicity. They soften by the spirit the harshness of the fact. Their
+authority is not in shoulder-straps, titles or disciplinary measures.
+They make use of neither ferule nor threats, yet they achieve
+everything. Why? Because we feel that they are themselves ready for
+everything. That which confers upon a man the right to demand of another
+the sacrifice of his time, his money, his passions, even his life, is
+not only that he is resolved upon all these sacrifices himself, but <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>that
+he has made them in advance. In the command of a man animated by this
+spirit of renunciation, there is a mysterious force which communicates
+itself to him who is to obey, and helps him do his duty.</p>
+
+<p>In all the provinces of human activity there are chiefs who inspire,
+strengthen, magnetize their soldiers: under their direction the troops
+do prodigies. With them one feels himself capable of any effort, ready
+to go through fire, as the saying has it; and if he goes, it is with
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">BUT the pride of the exalted is not the only pride; there is also the
+pride of the humble&mdash;this arrogance of underlings, fit pendant to that
+of the great. The root of these two prides is the same. It is not alone
+that lofty and imperious being, the man who says, "I am the law," that
+provokes insurrection by his very attitude; it is also that pig-headed
+subaltern who will not admit that there is anything beyond his
+knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>There are really many people who find all superiority irritating. For
+them, every piece of advice is an offense, every criticism an
+imposition, every <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>order an outrage on their liberty. They would not
+know how to submit to rule. To respect anything or anybody would seem to
+them a mental aberration. They say to people after their fashion:
+"Beyond us there is nothing."</p>
+
+<p>To the family of the proud belong also those difficult and
+supersensitive people who in humble life find that their superiors never
+do them fitting honor, whom the best and most kindly do not succeed in
+satisfying, and who go about their duties with the air of a martyr. At
+bottom these disaffected minds have too much misplaced self-respect.
+They do not know how to fill their place simply, but complicate their
+life and that of others by unreasonable demands and morbid suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>When one takes the trouble to study men at short range, he is surprised
+to find that pride has so many lurking-places among those who are by
+common consent called the humble. So powerful is this vice, that it
+arrives at forming round those who live in the most modest circumstances
+a wall which isolates them from their neighbors. There they are,
+intrenched, barricaded with their ambitions and their contempts, as
+inaccessible as the powerful of earth behind their aristocratic
+prejudices. Obscure or <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>illustrious, pride wraps itself in its dark
+royalty of enmity to the human race. It is the same in misery and in
+high places&mdash;solitary and impotent, on guard against everybody,
+embroiling everything. And the last word about it is always this: If
+there is so much hostility and hatred between different classes of men,
+it is due less to exterior conditions than to an interior fatality.
+Conflicting interests and differences of situation dig ditches between
+us, it is true, but pride transforms the ditches into gulfs, and in
+reality it is pride alone which cries from brink to brink: "There is
+nothing in common between you and us."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">WE have not finished with pride, but it is impossible to picture it
+under all its forms. I feel most resentful against it when it meddles
+with knowledge and appropriates that. We owe our knowledge to our
+fellows, as we do our riches and power. It is a social force which ought
+to be of service to everybody, and it can only be so when those who know
+remain sympathetically near to those who know not. When knowledge is
+turned into a tool for ambition, it destroys itself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>And what shall we say of the pride of good men? for it exists, and makes
+even virtue hateful. The just who repent them of the evil others do,
+remain in brotherhood and social rectitude. But the just who despise
+others for their faults and misdeeds, cut themselves off from humanity,
+and their goodness, descended to the rank of an ornament for their
+vanity, becomes like those riches which kindness does not inform, like
+authority untempered by the spirit of obedience. Like proud wealth and
+arrogant power, supercilious virtue also is detestable. It fosters in
+man traits and an attitude provocative of I know not what. The sight of
+it repels instead of attracting, and those whom it deigns to distinguish
+with its benefits feel as though they had been slapped in the face.</p>
+
+<p>To resume and conclude, it is an error to think that our advantages,
+whatever they are, should be put to the service of our vanity. Each of
+them constitutes for him who enjoys it an obligation and not a reason
+for vainglory. Material wealth, power, knowledge, gifts of the heart and
+mind, become so much cause for discord when they serve to nourish
+pride. They remain beneficent only so long as they are the source of
+modesty in those who possess them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>Let us be humble if we have great possessions, for that proves that we
+are great debtors: all that a man has he owes to someone, and are we
+sure of being able to pay our debts?</p>
+
+<p>Let us be humble if we sit in high places and hold the fate of others in
+our hands; for no clear-sighted man can fail to be sensible of unfitness
+for so grave a r&ocirc;le.</p>
+
+<p>Let us be humble if we have much knowledge, for it only serves to better
+show the vastness of the unknown, and to compare the little we have
+discovered for ourselves with the amplitude of that which we owe to the
+pains of others.</p>
+
+<p>And, above all, let us be humble if we are virtuous, since no one should
+be more sensible of his defects than he whose conscience is illumined,
+and since he more than anyone else should feel the need of charity
+toward evil-doers, even of suffering in their stead.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 3.5em;">
+<img src="images/quote.png" width="8" height="7" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="cap3">AND what about the necessary distinctions in life?" someone may ask.
+"As a result of your simplifications, are you not going to destroy that
+sense of the difference between men which must be maintained if society
+exists at all?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>I have no mind to suppress distinctions and differences. But I think
+that what distinguishes a man is not found in his social rank, his
+occupation, his dress or his fortune, but solely in himself. More than
+any other our own age has pricked the vain bubble of purely outward
+greatness. To be somebody at present, it does not suffice to wear the
+mantle of an emperor or a royal crown: what honor is there in wielding
+power through gold lace, a coat of arms or a ribbon? Not that visible
+signs are to be despised; they have their meaning and use, but on
+condition that they cover something and not a vacuum. The moment they
+cease to stand for realities, they become useless and dangerous. The
+only true distinction is superior worth. If you would have social rank
+duly respected, you must begin by being worthy of the rank that is your
+own; otherwise you help to bring it into hatred and contempt. It is
+unhappily too true that respect is diminishing among us, and it
+certainly is not from a lack of lines drawn round those who wish to be
+respected. The root of the evil is in the mistaken idea that high
+station exempts him who holds it from observing the common obligations
+of life. As we rise, we believe that we free ourselves from the law,
+forgetting <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>that the spirit of obedience and humility should grow with
+our possessions and power. So it comes about that those who demand the
+most homage make the least effort to merit the homage they demand. This
+is why respect is diminishing.</p>
+
+<p>The sole distinction necessary is the wish to become better. The man who
+strives to be better becomes more humble, more approachable, more
+friendly even with those who owe him allegiance. But as he gains by
+being better known, he loses nothing in distinction, and he reaps the
+more respect in that he has sown the less pride.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span><a name="xiii" id="xiii"></a>XIII<br />
+<br />
+THE EDUCATION FOR SIMPLICITY</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">THE simple life being above all else the product of a direction of mind,
+it is natural that education should have much to do with it.</p>
+
+<p>In general but two methods of rearing children are practiced: the first
+is to bring them up for ourselves; the second, to bring them up for
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>In the first case the child is looked upon as a complement of the
+parents: he is part of their property, occupies a place among their
+possessions. Sometimes this place is the highest, especially when the
+parents value the life of the affections. Again, where material
+interests rule, the child holds second, third, or even the last place.
+In any case he is a nobody. While he is young, he gravitates round his
+parents, not only by obedience, which is right, but by the subordination
+of all his originality, all his being. As he grows older, this
+subordination <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>becomes a veritable confiscation, extending to his ideas,
+his feelings, everything. His minority becomes perpetual. Instead of
+slowly evolving into independence, the man advances into slavery. He is
+what he is permitted to be, what his father's business, religious
+beliefs, political opinions or esthetic tastes require him to be. He
+will think, speak, act, and marry according to the understanding and
+limits of the paternal absolutism. This family tyranny may be exercised
+by people with no strength of character. It is only necessary for them
+to be convinced that good order requires the child to be the property of
+the parents. In default of mental force, they possess themselves of him
+by other means&mdash;by sighs, supplications, or base seductions. If they
+cannot fetter him, they snare his feet in traps. But that he should live
+in them, through them, for them, is the only thing admissible.</p>
+
+<p>Education of this sort is not the practice of families only, but also of
+great social organizations whose chief educational function consists in
+putting a strong hand on every new-comer, in order to fit him, in the
+most iron-bound fashion, into existing forms. It is the attenuation,
+pulverization and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>assimilation of the individual in a social body, be it
+theocratic, communistic, or simply bureaucratic and routinary. Looked at
+from without, a like system seems the ideal of simplicity in education.
+Its processes, in fact, are absolutely simplistic, and if a man were not
+somebody, if he were only a sample of the race, this would be the
+perfect education. As all wild beasts, all fish and insects of the same
+genus and species have the same markings, so we should all be identical,
+having the same tastes, the same language, the same beliefs, the same
+tendencies. But man is not simply a specimen of the race, and for that
+reason this sort of education is far from being simple in its results.
+Men so vary from one another, that numberless methods have to be
+invented to repress, stupefy, and extinguish individual thought. And one
+never arrives at it then but in part, a fact which is continually
+deranging everything. At each moment, by some fissure, some interior
+force of initiative is making a violent way to the light, producing
+explosions, upheavals, all sorts of grave disorders. And where there are
+no outward manifestations, the evil lies dormant; beneath apparent order
+are hidden dumb revolt, flaws made by an abnormal existence, apathy,
+death.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>The system is evil which produces such fruit, and however simple it may
+appear, in reality it brings forth all possible complications.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">THE other system is the extreme opposite, that of bringing up children
+for themselves. The r&ocirc;les are reversed: the parents are there for the
+child. No sooner is he born than he becomes the center. White-headed
+grandfather and stalwart father bow before these curls. His lisping is
+their law. A sign from him suffices. If he cries in the night, no
+fatigue is of account, the whole household must be roused. The new-comer
+is not long in discovering his omnipotence, and before he can walk he is
+drunken with it. As he grows older all this deepens and broadens.
+Parents, grandparents, servants, teachers, everybody is at his command.
+He accepts the homage and even the immolation of his neighbor: he treats
+like a rebellious subject anyone who does not step out of his path.
+There is only himself. He is the unique, the perfect, the infallible.
+Too late it is perceived that all this has been evolving a master; and
+what a master! forgetful of sacrifices, without respect, even pity. He
+no longer has any regard for those to whom he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>owes everything, and he
+goes through life without law or check.</p>
+
+<p>This education, too, has its social counterpart. It flourishes wherever
+the past does not count, where history begins with the living, where
+there is no tradition, no discipline, no reverence; where those who know
+the least make the most noise; where those who stand for public order
+are alarmed by every chance comer whose power lies in his making a great
+outcry and respecting nothing. It insures the reign of transitory
+passion, the triumph of the inferior will. I compare these two
+educations&mdash;one, the exaltation of the environment, the other of the
+individual; one the absolutism of tradition, the other the tyranny of
+the new&mdash;and I find them equally baneful. But the most disastrous of all
+is the combination of the two, which produces human beings
+half-automatons, half-despots, forever vacillating between the spirit
+of a sheep and the spirit of revolt or domination.</p>
+
+<p>Children should be educated neither for themselves nor for their
+parents: for man is no more designed to be a personage than a specimen.
+They should be educated for life. The aim of their education is to aid
+them to become active members of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>humanity, brotherly forces, free
+servants of the civil organization. To follow a method of education
+inspired by any other principle, is to complicate life, deform it, sow
+the seeds of all disorders.</p>
+
+<p>When we would sum up in a phrase the destiny of the child, the word
+future springs to our lips. The child is the future. This word says
+all&mdash;the sufferings of the past, the stress of to-day, hope. But when
+the education of the child begins, he is incapable of estimating the
+reach of this word; for he is held by impressions of the present. Who
+then shall give him the first enlightenment and put him in the way he
+should go? The parents, the teachers. And with very little reflection
+they perceive that their work does not interest simply themselves and
+the child, but that they represent and administer impersonal powers and
+interests. The child should continually appear to them as a future
+citizen. With this ruling idea, they will take thought for two things
+that complement each other&mdash;for the initial and personal force which is
+germinating in the child, and for the social destination of this force.
+At no moment of their direction over him can they forget that this
+little being confided to their care must become <i>himself</i> and a
+<i>brother</i>. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>These two conditions, far from excluding each other, never
+exist apart. It is impossible to be brotherly, to love, to give one's
+self, unless one is master of himself; and reciprocally, none can
+possess himself, comprehend his own individual being, until he has first
+made his way through the outward accidents of his existence, down to the
+profound springs of life where man feels himself one with other men in
+all that is most intimately his own.</p>
+
+<p>To aid a child to become himself and a brother it is necessary to
+protect him against the violent and destructive action of the forces of
+disorder. These forces are exterior and interior. Every child is menaced
+from without not only by material dangers but by the meddlesomeness of
+alien wills; and from within, by an exaggerated idea of his own
+personality and all the fancies it breeds. There is a great outward
+danger which may come from the abuse of power in educators. The right of
+might finds itself a place in education with extreme facility. To
+educate another, one must have renounced this right, that is to say,
+made abnegation of the inferior sentiment of personal importance, which
+transforms us into the enemies of others, even of our own children. Our
+authority is beneficent only when it is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>inspired by one higher than our
+own. In this case it is not only salutary, but also indispensable, and
+becomes in its turn the best guarantee against the greater peril which
+threatens the child from within&mdash;that of exaggerating his own
+importance. At the beginning of life the vividness of personal
+impressions is so great, that to establish an equilibrium, they must be
+submitted to the gentle influence of a calm and superior will. The true
+quality of the office of educator is to represent this will to the
+child, in a manner as continuous and as disinterested as possible.
+Educators, then, stand for all that is to be respected in the world.
+They give to the child impressions of that which precedes it, outruns
+it, envelops it: but they do not crush it; on the contrary, their will
+and all the influence they transmit, become elements nutritive of its
+native energy. Such use of authority as this, cultivates that fruitful
+obedience out of which free souls are born. The purely personal
+authority of parents, masters and institutions is to the child like the
+brushwood beneath which the young plant withers and dies. Impersonal
+authority, the authority of a man who has first submitted himself to the
+time-honored realities before which he wishes the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>individual fancy of
+the child to bend, resembles pure and luminous air. True it has an
+activity, and influences us in its manner, but it nourishes our
+individuality and gives it firmness and stability. Without this
+authority there is no education. To watch, to guide, to keep a firm
+hand&mdash;such is the function of the educator. He should appear to the
+child not like a barrier of whims, which, if need be, one may clear,
+provided the leap be proportioned to the height of the obstacle; but
+like a transparent wall through which may be seen unchanging realities,
+laws, limits, and truths against which no action is possible. Thus
+arises respect, which is the faculty of conceiving something greater
+than ourselves&mdash;respect, which broadens us and frees us by making us
+more modest. This is the law of education for simplicity. It may be
+summed up in these words: to make <i>free</i> and <i>reverential</i> men, who
+shall be <i>individual</i> and <i>fraternal</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">LET us draw from this principle some practical applications.</p>
+
+<p>From the very fact that the child is the future, he must be linked to
+the past by piety. We owe it to him to clothe tradition in the forms
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>most practical and most fit to create a deep impression: whence the
+exceptional place that should be given in education to the ancients, to
+the cult of remembrance of the past, and by extension, to the history of
+the domestic rooftree. Above all do we fulfil a duty toward our children
+when we give the place of honor to the grandparents. Nothing speaks to a
+child with so much force, or so well develops his modesty, as to see his
+father and mother, on all occasions, preserve toward an old grandfather,
+often infirm, an attitude of respect. It is a perpetual object lesson
+that is irresistible. That it may have its full force, it is necessary
+for a tacit understanding to obtain among all the grown-up members of
+the family. To the child's eyes they must all be in league, held to
+mutual respect and understanding, under penalty of compromising their
+educational authority. And in their number must be counted the servants.
+Servants are big people, and the same sentiment of respect is injured in
+the child's disregard of them as in his disregard of his father or
+grandfather. The moment he addresses an impolite or arrogant word to a
+person older than himself, he strays from the path that a child ought
+never to quit; and if only occasionally the parents <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>neglect to point
+this out, they will soon perceive by his conduct toward themselves, that
+the enemy has found entrance to his heart.</p>
+
+<p>We mistake if we think that a child is naturally alien to respect,
+basing this opinion on the very numerous examples of irreverence which
+he offers us. Respect is for the child a fundamental need. His moral
+being feeds on it. The child aspires confusedly to revere and admire
+something. But when advantage is not taken of this aspiration, it gets
+corrupted or lost. By our lack of cohesion and mutual deference, we, the
+grown-ups, discredit daily in the child's eyes our own cause and that of
+everything worthy of respect. We inoculate in him a bad spirit whose
+effects then turn against us.</p>
+
+<p>This pitiful truth nowhere appears with more force than in the relations
+between masters and servants, as we have made them. Our social errors,
+our want of simplicity and kindness, all fall back upon the heads of our
+children. There are certainly few people of the middle classes who
+understand that it is better to part with many thousands of dollars than
+to lead their children to lose respect for servants, who represent in
+our households the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>humble. Yet nothing is truer. Maintain as strictly as
+you will conventions and distances,&mdash;that demarkation of social
+frontiers which permits each one to remain in his place and to observe
+the law of differences. That is a good thing, I am persuaded, but on
+condition of never forgetting that those who serve us are men and women
+like ourselves. You require of your domestics certain formulas of speech
+and certain attitudes, outward evidence of the respect they owe you. Do
+you also teach your children and use yourselves manners toward your
+servants which show them that you respect their dignity as individuals,
+as you desire them to respect yours? Here we have continually in our
+homes an excellent ground for experiment in the practice of that mutual
+respect which is one of the essential conditions of social sanity. I
+fear we profit by it too little. We do not fail to exact respect, but
+we fail to give it. So it is most frequently the case that we get only
+hypocrisy and this supplementary result, all unexpected,&mdash;the
+cultivation of pride in our children. These two factors combined heap up
+great difficulties for that future which we ought to be safeguarding. I
+am right then in saying that the day when by your own practices you have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>brought about the lessening of respect in your children, you have
+suffered a sensible loss.</p>
+
+<p>Why should I not say it? It seems to me that the greater part of us
+labor for this loss. On all sides, in almost every social rank, I notice
+that a pretty bad spirit is fostered in children, a spirit of reciprocal
+contempt. Here, those who have calloused hands and working-clothes are
+disdained; there, it is all who do not wear blue jeans. Children
+educated in this spirit make sad fellow-citizens. There is in all this
+the want of that simplicity which makes it possible for men of good
+intentions, of however diverse social standing, to collaborate without
+any friction arising from the conventional distance that separates them.</p>
+
+<p>If the spirit of caste causes the loss of respect, partisanship, of
+whatever sort, is quite as productive of it. In certain quarters
+children are brought up in such fashion that they respect but one
+country&mdash;their own; one system of government&mdash;that of their parents and
+masters; one religion&mdash;that which they have been taught. Does anyone
+suppose that in this way men can be shaped who shall respect country,
+religion and law? Is this a proper respect&mdash;this respect which does not
+extend <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>beyond what touches and belongs to ourselves? Strange blindness
+of cliques and coteries, which arrogate to themselves with so much
+ingenuous complacence the title of schools of respect, and which,
+outside themselves, respect nothing. In reality they teach: "Country,
+religion, law&mdash;we are all these!" Such teaching fosters fanaticism, and
+if fanaticism is not the sole anti-social ferment, it is surely one of
+the worst and most energetic.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">IF simplicity of heart is an essential condition of respect, simplicity
+of life is its best school. Whatever be the state of your fortune, avoid
+everything which could make your children think themselves more or
+better than others. Though your wealth would permit you to dress them
+richly, remember the evil you might do in exciting their vanity.
+Preserve them from the evil of believing that to be elegantly dressed
+suffices for distinction, and above all do not carelessly increase by
+their clothes and their habits of life, the distance which already
+separates them from other children: dress them simply. And if, on the
+contrary, it would be necessary for you to economize to give your
+children the pleasure of fine clothes, I <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>would that I might dispose you
+to reserve your spirit of sacrifice for a better cause. You risk seeing
+it illy recompensed. You dissipate your money when it would much better
+avail to save it for serious needs, and you prepare for yourself, later
+on, a harvest of ingratitude. How dangerous it is to accustom your sons
+and daughters to a style of living beyond your means and theirs! In the
+first place, it is very bad for your purse; in the second place it
+develops a contemptuous spirit in the very bosom of the family. If you
+dress your children like little lords, and give them to understand that
+they are superior to you, is it astonishing if they end by disdaining
+you? You will have nourished at your table the declassed&mdash;a product
+which costs dear and is worthless.</p>
+
+<p>Any fashion of instructing children whose most evident result is to
+lead them to despise their parents and the customs and activities among
+which they have grown up, is a calamity. It is effective for nothing but
+to produce a legion of malcontents, with hearts totally estranged from
+their origin, their race, their natural interests&mdash;everything, in short,
+that makes the fundamental fabric of a man. Once detached from the
+vigorous stock which produced them, the wind of their restless ambition
+drives <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>them over the earth, like dead leaves that will in the end be
+heaped up to ferment and rot together.</p>
+
+<p>Nature does not proceed by leaps and bounds, but by an evolution slow
+and certain. In preparing a career for our children, let us imitate her.
+Let us not confound progress and advancement with those violent
+exercises called somersaults. Let us not so bring up our children that
+they will come to despise work and the aspirations and simple spirit of
+their fathers: let us not expose them to the temptation of being ashamed
+of our poverty if they themselves come to fortune. A society is indeed
+diseased when the sons of peasants begin to feel disgust for the fields,
+when the sons of sailors desert the sea, when the daughters of
+working-men, in the hope of being taken for heiresses, prefer to walk
+the streets alone rather than beside their honest parents. A society is
+healthy, on the contrary, when each of its members applies himself to
+doing very nearly what his parents have done before him, but doing it
+better, and, looking to future elevation, is content first to fulfill
+conscientiously more modest duties.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote footnotes">
+<p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> This would be the place to speak of work in general, and of
+its tonic effect upon education. But I have discussed the subject in my
+books <i>Justice</i>, <i>Jeunesse</i>, and <i>Vaillanos</i>. I must limit myself to
+referring the reader to them.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">EDUCATION<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> should make independent men. If you wish to train your
+children for liberty, bring them up simply, and do not for a moment fear
+that in so doing you are putting obstacles in the way of their
+happiness. It will be quite the contrary. The more costly toys a child
+has, the more feasts and curious entertainments, the less is he amused.</p>
+
+<p>In this there is a sure sign. Let us be temperate in our methods of
+entertaining youth, and especially let us not thoughtlessly create for
+them artificial needs. Food, dress, nursery, amusements&mdash;let all these
+be as natural and simple as possible. With the idea of making life
+pleasant for their children, some parents bring them up in habits of
+gormandizing and idleness, accustom them to sensations not meant for
+their age, multiply their parties and entertainments. Sorry gifts these!
+In place of a free man, you are making a slave. Gorged with luxury, he
+tires of it in time; and yet when for one reason or another his
+pleasures fail him, he will be miserable, and you with him: and what is
+worse, perhaps in some capital encounter of life, you will be ready&mdash;you
+and he together&mdash;to sacrifice manly dignity, truth, and duty, from sheer
+sloth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>Let us bring up our children simply, I had almost said rudely. Let us
+entice them to exercise that gives them endurance&mdash;even to privations.
+Let them belong to those who are better trained to fatigue and the earth
+for a bed than to the comforts of the table and couches of luxury. So we
+shall make men of them, independent and staunch, who may be counted on,
+who will not sell themselves for pottage, and who will have withal the
+faculty of being happy.</p>
+
+<p>A too easy life brings with it a sort of lassitude in vital energy. One
+becomes blas&eacute;, disillusioned, an old young man, past being diverted. How
+many young people are in this state! Upon them have been deposited, like
+a sort of mold, the traces of our decrepitude, our skepticism, our
+vices, and the bad habits they have contracted in our company. What
+reflections upon ourselves these youths weary of life force us to make!
+What announcements are graven on their brows!</p>
+
+<p>These shadows say to us by contrast that happiness lies in a life true,
+active, spontaneous, ungalled by the yoke of the passions, of unnatural
+needs, of unhealthy stimulus; keeping intact the physical faculty of
+enjoying the light of day and the air we <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>breathe, and in the heart, the
+capacity to thrill with the love of all that is generous, simple and
+fine.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">THE artificial life engenders artificial thought, and a speech little
+sure of itself. Normal habits, deep impressions, the ordinary contact
+with reality, bring frankness with them. Falsehood is the vice of a
+slave, the refuge of the cowardly and weak. He who is free and strong is
+unflinching in speech. We should encourage in our children the hardihood
+to speak frankly. What do we ordinarily do? We trample on natural
+disposition, level it down to the uniformity which for the crowd is
+synonymous with good form. To think with one's own mind, feel with one's
+own heart, express one's own personality&mdash;how unconventional, how
+rustic!&mdash;Oh! the atrocity of an education which consists in the
+perpetual muzzling of the only thing that gives any of us his reason for
+being! Of how many soul-murders do we become guilty! Some are struck
+down with bludgeons, others gently smothered with pillows! Everything
+conspires against independence of character. When we are little, people
+wish us to be dolls or graven images; when we grow up, they approve of
+us <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>on condition that we are like all the rest of the world&mdash;automatons:
+when you have seen one of them you've seen them all. So the lack of
+originality and initiative is upon us, and platitude and monotony are
+the distinctions of to-day. Truth can free us from this bondage: let
+our children be taught to be themselves, to ring clear, without crack or
+muffle. Make loyalty a need to them, and in their gravest failures, if
+only they acknowledge them, account it for merit that they have not
+covered their sin.</p>
+
+<p>To frankness let us add ingenuousness, in our solicitude as educators.
+Let us have for this comrade of childhood&mdash;a trifle uncivilized, it is
+true, but so gracious and friendly!&mdash;all possible regard. We must not
+frighten it away: when it has once fled, it so rarely comes back!
+Ingenuousness is not simply the sister of truth, the guardian of the
+individual qualities of each of us; it is besides a great informing and
+educating force. I see among us too many practical people, so called,
+who go about armed with terrifying spectacles and huge shears to ferret
+out na&iuml;ve things and clip their wings. They uproot ingenuousness from
+life, from thought, from education, and pursue it even to the region of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>dreams. Under pretext of making men of their children, they prevent
+their being children at all;&mdash;as if before the ripe fruit of autumn,
+flowers did not have to be, and perfumes, and songs of birds, and all
+the fairy springtime.</p>
+
+<p>I ask indulgence for everything na&iuml;ve and simple, not alone for the
+innocent conceits that flutter round the curly heads of children, but
+also for the legend, the folk song, the tales of the world of marvel and
+mystery. The sense of the marvellous is in the child the first form of
+that sense of the infinite without which a man is like a bird deprived
+of wings. Let us not wean the child from it, but let us guard in him the
+faculty of rising above what is earthy, so that he may appreciate later
+on those pure and moving symbols of vanished ages wherein human truth
+has found forms of expression that our arid logic will never replace.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span><a name="xiv" id="xiv"></a>XIV<br />
+<br />
+CONCLUSION</h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap">I THINK I have said enough of the spirit and manifestations of the
+simple life, to make it evident that there is here a whole forgotten
+world of strength and beauty. He can make conquest of it who has
+sufficient energy to detach himself from the fatal rubbish that trammels
+our days. It will not take him long to perceive that in renouncing some
+surface satisfactions and childish ambitions, he increases his faculty
+of happiness and his possibilities of right judgment.</p>
+
+<p>These results concern as much the private as the public life. It is
+incontestable that in striving against the feverish will to shine, in
+ceasing to make the satisfaction of our desires the end of our activity,
+in returning to modest tastes, to the true life, we shall labor for the
+unity of the family. Another spirit will breath in our homes, creating
+new customs and an atmosphere more favorable to the education of
+children. Little by little our boys and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>girls will feel the enticement
+of ideals at once higher and more realizable. And transformation of the
+home will in time exercise its influence on public spirit. As the
+solidity of a wall depends upon the grain of the stones and the
+consistence of the cement which binds them together, so also the energy
+of public life depends upon the individual value of men and their power
+of cohesion. The great desideratum of our time is the culture of the
+component parts of society, of the individual man. Everything in the
+present social organism leads us back to this element. In neglecting it
+we expose ourselves to the loss of the benefits of progress, even to
+making our most persistent efforts turn to our own hurt. If in the midst
+of means continually more and more perfected, the workman diminishes in
+value, of what use are these fine tools at his disposal? By their very
+excellence to make more evident the faults of him who uses them without
+discernment or without conscience. The wheelwork of the great modern
+machine is infinitely delicate. Carelessness, incompetence or corruption
+may produce here disturbances of far greater gravity than would have
+threatened the more or less rudimentary organism of the society of the
+past. There is need then of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>looking to the quality of the individual
+called upon to contribute in any measure to the workings of this
+mechanism. This individual should be at once solid and pliable, inspired
+with the central law of life&mdash;to be one's self and fraternal. Everything
+within us and without us becomes simplified and unified under the
+influence of this law, which is the same for everybody and by which each
+one should guide his actions; for our essential interests are not
+opposing, they are identical. In cultivating the spirit of simplicity,
+we should arrive, then, at giving to public life a stronger cohesion.</p>
+
+<p>The phenomena of decomposition and destruction that we see there may all
+be attributed to the same cause,&mdash;lack of solidity and cohesion. It will
+never be possible to say how contrary to social good are the trifling
+interests of caste, of coterie, of church, the bitter strife for
+personal welfare, and, by a fatal consequence, how destructive these
+things are of individual happiness. A society in which each member is
+preoccupied with his own well-being, is organized disorder. This is all
+that we learn from the irreconcilable conflicts of our uncompromising
+egoism.</p>
+
+<p>We too much resemble those people who claim <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>the rights of family only to
+gain advantage from them, not to do honor to the connection. On all
+rounds of the social ladder we are forever putting forth claims. We all
+take the ground that we are creditors: no one recognizes the fact that
+he is a debtor, and our dealings with our fellows consist in inviting
+them, in tones sometimes amiable, sometimes arrogant, to discharge their
+indebtedness to us. No good thing is attained in this spirit. For in
+fact it is the spirit of privilege, that eternal enemy of universal law,
+that obstacle to brotherly understanding which is ever presenting itself
+anew.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap2">IN a lecture delivered in 1882, M. Renan said that a nation is "a
+spiritual family," and he added: "The essential of a nation is that all
+the individuals should have many things in common, and also that all
+should have forgotten much." It is important to know what to forget and
+what to remember, not only in the past, but also in our daily life. Our
+memories are lumbered with the things that divide us; the things which
+unite us slip away. Each of us keeps at the most luminous point of his
+souvenirs, a lively sense of his secondary quality, his part of
+agriculturist, day laborer, man of letters, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>public officer, proletary,
+bourgeois, or political or religious sectarian; but his essential
+quality, which is to be a son of his country and a man, is relegated to
+the shade. Scarcely does he keep even a theoretic notion of it. So that
+what occupies us and determines our actions, is precisely the thing that
+separates us from others, and there is hardly place for that spirit of
+unity which is as the soul of a people.</p>
+
+<p>So too do we foster bad feeling in our brothers. Men animated by a
+spirit of particularism, exclusiveness, and pride, are continually
+clashing. They cannot meet without rousing afresh the sentiment of
+division and rivalry. And so there slowly heaps up in their remembrance
+a stock of reciprocal ill-will, of mistrust, of rancor. All this is bad
+feeling with its consequences.</p>
+
+<p>It must be rooted out of our midst. Remember, forget! This we should say
+to ourselves every morning, in all our relations and affairs. Remember
+the essential, forget the accessory! How much better should we discharge
+our duties as citizens, if high and low were nourished from this spirit!
+How easy to cultivate pleasant remembrances in the mind of one's
+neighbor, by sowing it with kind <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>deeds and refraining from procedures of
+which in spite of himself he is forced to say, with hatred in his heart:
+"Never in the world will I forget!"</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of simplicity is a great magician. It softens asperities,
+bridges chasms, draws together hands and hearts. The forms which it
+takes in the world are infinite in number; but never does it seem to us
+more admirable than when it shows itself across the fatal barriers of
+position, interest, or prejudice, overcoming the greatest obstacles,
+permitting those whom everything seems to separate to understand one
+another, esteem one another, love one another. This is the true social
+cement, that goes into the building of a people.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<h4>THE END.</h4>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Simple Life, by Charles Wagner
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Simple Life, by Charles Wagner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Simple Life
+
+Author: Charles Wagner
+
+Translator: Mary Louise Hendee
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2007 [EBook #23092]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SIMPLE LIFE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Sarah Jensen, Matt Mello and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE SIMPLE LIFE
+
+  By CHARLES WAGNER
+  _Author of The Better Way_
+
+  _Translated from the French by Mary Louise Hendee_
+
+
+  GROSSET & DUNLAP
+  Publishers, New York
+
+
+  Copyright, 1901, by
+  McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+                                                           Page
+
+     I. OUR COMPLEX LIFE                                      1
+
+    II. THE ESSENCE OF SIMPLICITY                            15
+
+   III. SIMPLICITY OF THOUGHT                                22
+
+    IV. SIMPLICITY OF SPEECH                                 39
+
+     V. SIMPLE DUTY                                          52
+
+    VI. SIMPLE NEEDS                                         68
+
+   VII. SIMPLE PLEASURES                                     80
+
+  VIII. THE MERCENARY SPIRIT AND SIMPLICITY                  96
+
+    IX. NOTORIETY AND THE INGLORIOUS GOOD                   111
+
+     X. THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF THE HOME                  128
+
+    XI. SIMPLE BEAUTY                                       139
+
+   XII. PRIDE AND SIMPLICITY IN THE INTERCOURSE OF MEN      151
+
+  XIII. THE EDUCATION FOR SIMPLICITY                        167
+
+   XIV. CONCLUSION                                          188
+
+
+
+
+THE SIMPLE LIFE
+
+I
+
+OUR COMPLEX LIFE
+
+
+At the home of the Blanchards, everything is topsy-turvy, and with
+reason. Think of it! Mlle. Yvonne is to be married Tuesday, and to-day
+is Friday!
+
+Callers loaded with gifts, and tradesmen bending under packages, come
+and go in endless procession. The servants are at the end of their
+endurance. As for the family and the betrothed, they no longer have a
+life or a fixed abode. Their mornings are spent with dressmakers,
+milliners, upholsterers, jewelers, decorators, and caterers. After that,
+comes a rush through offices, where one waits in line, gazing vaguely at
+busy clerks engulfed in papers. A fortunate thing, if there be time when
+this is over, to run home and dress for the series of ceremonial
+dinners--betrothal dinners, dinners of presentation, the settlement
+dinner, receptions, balls. About midnight, home again, harassed and
+weary, to find the latest accumulation of parcels, and a deluge of
+letters--congratulations, felicitations, acceptances and regrets from
+bridesmaids and ushers, excuses of tardy tradesmen. And the
+_contretemps_ of the last minute--a sudden death that disarranges the
+bridal party; a wretched cold that prevents a favorite cantatrice from
+singing, and so forth, and so forth. Those poor Blanchards! They will
+never be ready, and they thought they had foreseen everything!
+
+Such has been their existence for a month. No longer possible to
+breathe, to rest a half-hour, to tranquillize one's thoughts. _No, this
+is not living!_
+
+Mercifully, there is Grandmother's room. Grandmother is verging on
+eighty. Through many toils and much suffering, she has come to meet
+things with the calm assurance which life brings to men and women of
+high thinking and large hearts. She sits there in her arm-chair,
+enjoying the silence of long meditative hours. So the flood of affairs
+surging through the house, ebbs at her door. At the threshold of this
+retreat, voices are hushed and footfalls softened; and when the young
+_fiances_ want to hide away for a moment, they flee to Grandmother.
+
+"Poor children!" is her greeting. "You are worn out! Rest a little and
+belong to each other. All these things count for nothing. Don't let them
+absorb you, it isn't worth while."
+
+They know it well, these two young people. How many times in the last
+weeks has their love had to make way for all sorts of conventions and
+futilities! Fate, at this decisive moment of their lives, seems bent
+upon drawing their minds away from the one thing essential, to harry
+them with a host of trivialities; and heartily do they approve the
+opinion of Grandmamma when she says, between a smile and a caress:
+
+"Decidedly, my dears, the world is growing too complex; and it does not
+make people happier--quite the contrary!"
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I also, am of Grandmamma's opinion. From the cradle to the grave, in his
+needs as in his pleasures, in his conception of the world and of
+himself, the man of modern times struggles through a maze of endless
+complication. Nothing is simple any longer: neither thought nor action;
+not pleasure, not even dying. With our own hands we have added to
+existence a train of hardships, and lopped off many a gratification. I
+believe that thousands of our fellow-men, suffering the consequences of
+a too artificial life, will be grateful if we try to give expression to
+their discontent, and to justify the regret for naturalness which
+vaguely oppresses them.
+
+Let us first speak of a series of facts that put into relief the truth
+we wish to show.
+
+The complexity of our life appears in the number of our material needs.
+It is a fact universally conceded, that our needs have grown with our
+resources. This is not an evil in itself; for the birth of certain needs
+is often a mark of progress. To feel the necessity of bathing, of
+wearing fresh linen, inhabiting wholesome houses, eating healthful food,
+and cultivating our minds, is a sign of superiority. But if certain
+needs exist by right, and are desirable, there are others whose effects
+are fatal, which, like parasites, live at our expense: numerous and
+imperious, they engross us completely.
+
+Could our fathers have foreseen that we should some day have at our
+disposal the means and forces we now use in sustaining and defending our
+material life, they would have predicted for us an increase of
+independence, and therefore of happiness, and a decrease in competition
+for worldly goods: they might even have thought that through the
+simplification of life thus made possible, a higher degree of morality
+would be attained. None of these things has come to pass. Neither
+happiness, nor brotherly love, nor power for good has been increased.
+In the first place, do you think your fellow-citizens, taken as a whole,
+are more contented than their forefathers, and less anxious about the
+future? I do not ask if they should find reason to be so, but if they
+really are so. To see them live, it seems to me that a majority of them
+are discontented with their lot, and, above all, absorbed in material
+needs and beset with cares for the morrow. Never has the question of
+food and shelter been sharper or more absorbing than since we are better
+nourished, better clothed, and better housed than ever. He errs greatly
+who thinks that the query, "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink,
+and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" presents itself to the poor alone,
+exposed as they are to the anguish of morrows without bread or a roof.
+With them the question is natural, and yet it is with them that it
+presents itself most simply. You must go among those who are beginning
+to enjoy a little ease, to learn how greatly satisfaction in what one
+has, may be disturbed by regret for what one lacks. And if you would see
+anxious care for future material good, material good in all its
+luxurious development, observe people of small fortune, and, above all,
+the rich. It is not the woman with one dress who asks most insistently
+how she shall be clothed, nor is it those reduced to the strictly
+necessary who make most question of what they shall eat to-morrow. As an
+inevitable consequence of the law that needs are increased by their
+satisfaction, _the more goods a man has, the more he wants_. The more
+assured he is of the morrow, according to the common acceptation, the
+more exclusively does he concern himself with how he shall live, and
+provide for his children and his children's children. Impossible to
+conceive of the fears of a man established in life--their number, their
+reach, and their shades of refinement.
+
+From all this, there has arisen throughout the different social orders,
+modified by conditions and varying in intensity, a common agitation--a
+very complex mental state, best compared to the petulance of a spoiled
+child, at once satisfied and discontented.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If we have not become happier, neither have we grown more peaceful and
+fraternal. The more desires and needs a man has, the more occasion he
+finds for conflict with his fellow-men; and these conflicts are more
+bitter in proportion as their causes are less just. It is the law of
+nature to fight for bread, for the necessities. This law may seem
+brutal, but there is an excuse in its very harshness, and it is
+generally limited to elemental cruelties. Quite different is the battle
+for the superfluous--for ambition, privilege, inclination, luxury. Never
+has hunger driven man to such baseness as have envy, avarice, and thirst
+for pleasure. Egotism grows more maleficent as it becomes more refined.
+We of these times have seen an increase of hostile feeling among
+brothers, and our hearts are less at peace than ever.[A]
+
+After this, is there any need to ask if we have become better? Do not
+the very sinews of virtue lie in man's capacity to care for something
+outside himself? And what place remains for one's neighbor in a life
+given over to material cares, to artificial needs, to the satisfaction
+of ambitions, grudges, and whims? The man who gives himself up entirely
+to the service of his appetites, makes them grow and multiply so well
+that they become stronger than he; and once their slave, he loses his
+moral sense, loses his energy, and becomes incapable of discerning and
+practicing the good. He has surrendered himself to the inner anarchy of
+desire, which in the end gives birth to outer anarchy. In the moral life
+we govern ourselves. In the immoral life we are governed by our needs
+and passions. Thus little by little, the bases of the moral life shift,
+and the law of judgment deviates.
+
+For the man enslaved to numerous and exacting needs, possession is the
+supreme good and the source of all other good things. It is true that in
+the fierce struggle for possession, we come to hate those who possess,
+and to deny the right of property when this right is in the hands of
+others and not in our own. But the bitterness of attack against others'
+possessions is only a new proof of the extraordinary importance we
+attach to possession itself. In the end, people and things come to be
+estimated at their selling price, or according to the profit to be drawn
+from them. What brings nothing is worth nothing: he who has nothing, is
+nothing. Honest poverty risks passing for shame, and lucre, however
+filthy, is not greatly put to it to be accounted for merit.
+
+Some one objects: "Then you make wholesale condemnation of progress, and
+would lead us back to the good old times--to asceticism perhaps."
+
+Not at all. The desire to resuscitate the past is the most unfruitful
+and dangerous of Utopian dreams, and the art of good living does not
+consist in retiring from life. But we are trying to throw light upon one
+of the errors that drag most heavily upon human progress, in order to
+find a remedy for it--namely, the belief that man becomes happier and
+better by the increase of outward well-being. Nothing is falser than
+this pretended social axiom; on the contrary, that material prosperity
+without an offset, diminishes the capacity for happiness and debases
+character, is a fact which a thousand examples are at hand to prove. The
+worth of a civilization is the worth of the man at its center. When this
+man lacks moral rectitude, progress only makes bad worse, and further
+embroils social problems.
+
+[A] The author refers to the unparalleled bitterness of the conflict in
+France between Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This principle may be verified in other domains than that of material
+well-being. We shall speak only of education and liberty. We remember
+when prophets in good repute announced that to transform this wicked
+world into an abode fit for the gods, all that was needed was the
+overthrow of tyranny, ignorance, and want--those three dread powers so
+long in league. To-day, other preachers proclaim the same gospel. We
+have seen that the unquestionable diminution of want has made man
+neither better nor happier. Has this desirable result been more nearly
+attained through the great care bestowed upon instruction? It does not
+yet appear so, and this failure is the despair of our national
+educators.
+
+Then shall we stop the people's ears, suppress public instruction, close
+the schools? By no means. But education, like the mass of our age's
+inventions, is after all only a tool; everything depends upon the
+workman who uses it.... So it is with liberty. It is fatal or lifegiving
+according to the use made of it. Is it liberty still, when it is the
+prerogative of criminals or heedless blunderers? Liberty is an
+atmosphere of the higher life, and it is only by a slow and patient
+inward transformation that one becomes capable of breathing it.
+
+All life must have its law, the life of man so much the more than that
+of inferior beings, in that it is more precious and of nicer adjustment.
+This law for man is in the first place an external law, but it may
+become an internal law. When man has once recognized the inner law, and
+bowed before it, through this reverence and voluntary submission he is
+ripe for liberty: so long as there is no vigorous and sovereign inner
+law, he is incapable of breathing its air; for he will be drunken with
+it, maddened, morally slain. The man who guides his life by inner law,
+can no more live servile to outward authority than can the full-grown
+bird live imprisoned in the eggshell. But the man who has not yet
+attained to governing himself can no more live under the law of liberty
+than can the unfledged bird live without its protective covering. These
+things are terribly simple, and the series of demonstrations old and new
+that proves them, increases daily under our eyes. And yet we are as far
+as ever from understanding even the elements of this most important law.
+In our democracy, how many are there, great and small, who know, from
+having personally verified it, lived it and obeyed it, this truth
+without which a people is incapable of governing itself? Liberty?--it is
+respect; liberty?--it is obedience to the inner law; and this law is
+neither the good pleasure of the mighty, nor the caprice of the crowd,
+but the high and impersonal rule before which those who govern are the
+first to bow the head. Shall liberty, then, be proscribed? No; but men
+must be made capable and worthy of it, otherwise public life becomes
+impossible, and the nation, undisciplined and unrestrained, goes on
+through license into the inextricable tangles of demagoguery.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+When one passes in review the individual causes that disturb and
+complicate our social life, by whatever names they are designated, and
+their list would be long, they all lead back to one general cause, which
+is this: _the confusion of the secondary with the essential_. Material
+comfort, education, liberty, the whole of civilization--these things
+constitute the frame of the picture; but the frame no more makes the
+picture than the frock the monk or the uniform the soldier. Here the
+picture is man, and man with his most intimate possessions--namely, his
+conscience, his character and his will. And while we have been
+elaborating and garnishing the frame, we have forgotten, neglected,
+disfigured the picture. Thus are we loaded with external good, and
+miserable in spiritual life; we have in abundance that which, if must
+be, we can go without, and are infinitely poor in the one thing needful.
+And when the depth of our being is stirred, with its need of loving,
+aspiring, fulfilling its destiny, it feels the anguish of one buried
+alive--is smothered under the mass of secondary things that weigh it
+down and deprive it of light and air.
+
+We must search out, set free, restore to honor the true life, assign
+things to their proper places, and remember that the center of human
+progress is moral growth. What is a good lamp? It is not the most
+elaborate, the finest wrought, that of the most precious metal. A good
+lamp is a lamp that gives good light. And so also we are men and
+citizens, not by reason of the number of our goods and the pleasures we
+procure for ourselves, not through our intellectual and artistic
+culture, nor because of the honors and independence we enjoy; but by
+virtue of the strength of our moral fibre. And this is not a truth of
+to-day but a truth of all times.
+
+At no epoch have the exterior conditions which man has made for himself
+by his industry or his knowledge, been able to exempt him from care for
+the state of his inner life. The face of the world alters around us, its
+intellectual and material factors vary; and no one can arrest these
+changes, whose suddenness is sometimes not short of perilous. But the
+important thing is that at the center of shifting circumstance man
+should remain man, live his life, make toward his goal. And whatever be
+his road, to make toward his goal, the traveler must not lose himself in
+crossways, nor hamper his movements with useless burdens. Let him heed
+well his direction and forces, and keep good faith; and that he may the
+better devote himself to the essential--which is to progress--at
+whatever sacrifice, let him simplify his baggage.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE ESSENCE OF SIMPLICITY
+
+
+Before considering the question of a practical return to the simplicity
+of which we dream, it will be necessary to define simplicity in its very
+essence. For in regard to it people commit the same error that we have
+just denounced, confounding the secondary with the essential, substance
+with form. They are tempted to believe that simplicity presents certain
+external characteristics by which it may be recognized, and in which it
+really consists. Simplicity and lowly station, plain dress, a modest
+dwelling, slender means, poverty--these things seem to go together.
+Nevertheless, this is not the case. Just now I passed three men on the
+street: the first in his carriage; the others on foot, and one of them
+shoeless. The shoeless man does not necessarily lead the least complex
+life of the three. It may be, indeed, that he who rides in his carriage
+is sincere and unaffected, in spite of his position, and is not at all
+the slave of his wealth; it may be also that the pedestrian in shoes
+neither envies him who rides nor despises him who goes unshod; and
+lastly, it is possible that under his rags, his feet in the dust, the
+third man has a hatred of simplicity, of labor, of sobriety, and dreams
+only of idleness and pleasure. For among the least simple and
+straightforward of men must be reckoned professional beggars, knights of
+the road, parasites, and the whole tribe of the obsequious and envious,
+whose aspirations are summed up in this: to arrive at seizing a
+morsel--the biggest possible--of that prey which the fortunate of earth
+consume. And to this same category, little matter what their station in
+life, belong the profligate, the arrogant, the miserly, the weak, the
+crafty. Livery counts for nothing: we must see the heart. No class has
+the prerogative of simplicity; no dress, however humble in appearance,
+is its unfailing badge. Its dwelling need not be a garret, a hut, the
+cell of the ascetic nor the lowliest fisherman's bark. Under all the
+forms in which life vests itself, in all social positions, at the top as
+at the bottom of the ladder, there are people who live simply, and
+others who do not. We do not mean by this that simplicity betrays itself
+in no visible signs, has not its own habits, its distinguishing tastes
+and ways; but this outward show, which may now and then be
+counterfeited, must not be confounded with its essence and its deep and
+wholly inward source. _Simplicity is a state of mind._ It dwells in the
+main intention of our lives. A man is simple when his chief care is the
+wish to be what he ought to be, that is, honestly and naturally human.
+And this is neither so easy nor so impossible as one might think. At
+bottom, it consists in putting our acts and aspirations in accordance
+with the law of our being, and consequently with the Eternal Intention
+which willed that we should be at all. Let a flower be a flower, a
+swallow a swallow, a rock a rock, and let a man be a man, and not a fox,
+a hare, a hog, or a bird of prey: this is the sum of the whole matter.
+
+Here we are led to formulate the practical ideal of man. Everywhere in
+life we see certain quantities of matter and energy associated for
+certain ends. Substances more or less crude are thus transformed and
+carried to a higher degree of organization. It is not otherwise with the
+life of man. The human ideal is to transform life into something more
+excellent than itself. We may compare existence to raw material. What it
+is, matters less than what is made of it, as the value of a work of art
+lies in the flowering of the workman's skill. We bring into the world
+with us different gifts: one has received gold, another granite, a third
+marble, most of us wood or clay. Our task is to fashion these
+substances. Everyone knows that the most precious material may be
+spoiled, and he knows, too, that out of the least costly an immortal
+work may be shaped. Art is the realization of a permanent idea in an
+ephemeral form. True life is the realization of the higher
+virtues,--justice, love, truth, liberty, moral power,--in our daily
+activities, whatever they may be. And this life is possible in social
+conditions the most diverse, and with natural gifts the most unequal. It
+is not fortune or personal advantage, but our turning them to account,
+that constitutes the value of life. Fame adds no more than does length
+of days: quality is the thing.
+
+Need we say that one does not rise to this point of view without a
+struggle? The spirit of simplicity is not an inherited gift, but the
+result of a laborious conquest. Plain living, like high thinking, is
+simplification. We know that science is the handful of ultimate
+principles gathered out of the tufted mass of facts; but what gropings
+to discover them! Centuries of research are often condensed into a
+principle that a line may state. Here the moral life presents strong
+analogy with the scientific. It, too, begins in a certain confusion,
+makes trial of itself, seeks to understand itself, and often mistakes.
+But by dint of action, and exacting from himself strict account of his
+deeds, man arrives at a better knowledge of life. Its law appears to
+him, and the law is this: _Work out your mission._ He who applies
+himself to aught else than the realization of this end, loses in living
+the _raison d'etre_ of life. The egoist does so, the pleasure-seeker,
+the ambitious: he consumes existence as one eating the full corn in the
+blade,--he prevents it from bearing its fruit; his life is lost.
+Whoever, on the contrary, makes his life serve a good higher than
+itself, saves it in giving it. Moral precepts, which to a superficial
+view appear arbitrary, and seem made to spoil our zest for life, have
+really but one object--to preserve us from the evil of having lived in
+vain. That is why they are constantly leading us back into the same
+paths; that is why they all have the same meaning: _Do not waste your
+life,_ make it bear fruit; learn how to give it, in order that it may
+not consume itself! Herein is summed up the experience of humanity, and
+this experience, which each man must remake for himself, is more
+precious in proportion as it costs more dear. Illumined by its light, he
+makes a moral advance more and more sure. Now he has his means of
+orientation, his internal norm to which he may lead everything back; and
+from the vacillating, confused, and complex being that he was, he
+becomes simple. By the ceaseless influence of this same law, which
+expands within him, and is day by day verified in fact, his opinions and
+habits become transformed.
+
+Once captivated by the beauty and sublimity of the true life, by what is
+sacred and pathetic in this strife of humanity for truth, justice, and
+brotherly love, his heart holds the fascination of it. Gradually
+everything subordinates itself to this powerful and persistent charm.
+The necessary hierarchy of powers is organized within him: the essential
+commands, the secondary obeys, and order is born of simplicity. We may
+compare this organization of the interior life to that of an army. An
+army is strong by its discipline, and its discipline consists in respect
+of the inferior for the superior, and the concentration of all its
+energies toward a single end: discipline once relaxed, the army suffers.
+It will not do to let the corporal command the general. Examine
+carefully your life and the lives of others. Whenever something halts
+or jars, and complications and disorder follow, it is because the
+corporal has issued orders to the general. Where the natural law rules
+in the heart, disorder vanishes.
+
+I despair of ever describing simplicity in any worthy fashion. All the
+strength of the world and all its beauty, all true joy, everything that
+consoles, that feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark
+paths, everything that makes us see across our poor lives a splendid
+goal and a boundless future, comes to us from people of simplicity,
+those who have made another object of their desires than the passing
+satisfaction of selfishness and vanity, and have understood that the art
+of living is to know how to give one's life.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SIMPLICITY OF THOUGHT
+
+
+It is not alone among the practical manifestations of our life that
+there is need of making a clearing: the domain of our ideas is in the
+same case. Anarchy reigns in human thought: we walk in the woods,
+without compass or sun, lost among the brambles and briars of infinite
+detail.
+
+When once man has recognized the fact that he has an aim, and that this
+aim is _to be a man_, he organizes his thought accordingly. Every mode
+of thinking or judging which does not make him better and stronger, he
+rejects as dangerous.
+
+And first of all he flees the too common contrariety of amusing himself
+with his thought. Thought is a tool, with its own proper function: it
+isn't a toy. Let us take an example. Here is the studio of a painter.
+The implements are all in place: everything indicates that this
+assemblage of means is arranged with view to an end. Throw the room open
+to apes. They will climb on the benches, swing from the cords, rig
+themselves in draperies, coif themselves with slippers, juggle with
+brushes, nibble the colors, and pierce the canvases to see what is
+behind the paint. I don't question their enjoyment; certainly they must
+find this kind of exercise extremely interesting. But an atelier is not
+made to let monkeys loose in. No more is thought a ground for acrobatic
+evolutions. A man worthy of the name, thinks as he is, as his tastes
+are: he goes about it with his whole heart, and not with that fitful and
+sterile curiosity which, under pretext of observing and noting
+everything, runs the risk of never experiencing a deep and true emotion
+or accomplishing a right deed.
+
+Another habit in urgent need of correction, ordinary attendant on
+conventional life, is the mania for examining and analyzing one's self
+at every turn. I do not invite men to neglect introspection and the
+examination of conscience. The endeavor to understand one's own mental
+attitudes and motives of conduct is an essential element of good living.
+But quite other is this extreme vigilance, this incessant observation of
+one's life and thoughts, this dissecting of one's self, like a piece of
+mechanism. It is a waste of time, and goes wide of the mark. The man
+who, to prepare himself the better for walking, should begin by making a
+rigid anatomical examination of his means of locomotion, would risk
+dislocating something before he had taken a step. You have what you need
+to walk with, then forward! Take care not to fall, and use your forces
+with discretion. Potterers and scruple-mongers are soon reduced to
+inaction. It needs but a glimmer of common sense to perceive that man is
+not made to pass his life in a self-centered trance.
+
+And common sense--do you not find what is designated by this name
+becoming as rare as the common-sense customs of other days? Common sense
+has become an old story. We must have something new--and we create a
+factitious existence, a refinement of living, that the vulgar crowd has
+not the wherewithal to procure. It is so agreeable to be distinguished!
+Instead of conducting ourselves like rational beings, and using the
+means most obviously at our command, we arrive, by dint of absolute
+genius, at the most astonishing singularities. Better off the track than
+on the main line! All the bodily defects and deformities that orthopedy
+treats, give but a feeble idea of the humps, the tortuosities, the
+dislocations we have inflicted upon ourselves in order to depart from
+simple common sense; and at our own expense we learn that one does not
+deform himself with impunity. Novelty, after all, is ephemeral. Nothing
+endures but the eternal commonplace; and if one departs from that, it is
+to run the most perilous risks. Happy he who is able to reclaim himself,
+who finds the way back to simplicity.
+
+Good plain sense is not, as is often imagined, the innate possession of
+the first chance-comer, a mean and paltry equipment that has cost
+nothing to anyone. I would compare it to those old folk-songs,
+unfathered but deathless, which seem to have risen out of the very heart
+of the people. Good sense is a fund slowly and painfully accumulated by
+the labor of centuries. It is a jewel of the first water, whose value he
+alone understands who has lost it, or who observes the lives of others
+who have lost it. For my part, I think no price too great to pay for
+gaining it and keeping it, for the possession of eyes that see and a
+judgment that discerns. One takes good care of his sword, that it be not
+bent or rusted: with greater reason should he give heed to his thought.
+
+But let this be well understood: an appeal to common sense is not an
+appeal to thought that grovels, to narrow positivism which denies
+everything it cannot see or touch. For to wish that man should be
+absorbed in material sensations, to the exclusion of the high realities
+of the inner life, is also a want of good sense. Here we touch upon a
+tender point, round which the greatest battles of humanity are waging.
+In truth we are striving to attain a conception of life, searching it
+out amid countless obscurities and griefs: and everything that touches
+upon spiritual realities becomes day by day more painful. In the midst
+of the grave perplexities and transient disorders that accompany great
+crises of thought, it seems more difficult than ever to escape with any
+simple principles. Yet necessity itself comes to our aid, as it has done
+for the men of all times. The program of life is terribly simple, after
+all, and in the fact that existence so imperiously forces herself upon
+us, she gives us notice that she precedes any idea of her which we may
+make for ourselves, and that no one can put off living pending an
+attempt to understand life. Our philosophies, our explanations, our
+beliefs are everywhere confronted by facts, and these facts, prodigious,
+irrefutable, call us to order when we would deduce life from our
+reasonings, and would wait to act until we have ended philosophizing. It
+is this happy necessity that prevents the world from stopping while man
+questions his route. Travelers of a day, we are carried along in a vast
+movement to which we are called upon to contribute, but which we have
+not foreseen, nor embraced in its entirety, nor penetrated as to its
+ultimate aims. Our part is to fill faithfully the role of private, which
+has devolved upon us, and our thought should adapt itself to the
+situation. Do not say that we live in more trying times than our
+ancestors, for things seen from afar are often seen imperfectly: it is
+moreover scarcely gracious to complain of not having been born in the
+days of one's grandfather. What we may believe least contestable on the
+subject is this: from the beginning of the world it has been hard to see
+clearly; right thinking has been difficult everywhere and always. In the
+matter the ancients were in no wise privileged above the moderns, and it
+might be added that there is no difference between men when they are
+considered from this point of view. Master and servant, teacher and
+learner, writer and artisan discern truth at the same cost. The light
+that humanity acquires in advancing is no doubt of the greatest use; but
+it also multiplies the number and extent of human problems. The
+difficulty is never removed, the mind always encounters its obstacle.
+The unknown controls us and hems us in on all sides. But just as one
+need not exhaust a spring to quench his thirst, so we need not know
+everything to live. Humanity lives and always has lived on certain
+elemental _provisions_.
+
+We will try to point them out. First of all, humanity lives by
+confidence. In so doing it but reflects, commensurate with its conscious
+thought, that which is the hidden source of all beings. An imperturbable
+faith in the stability of the universe and its intelligent ordering,
+sleeps in everything that exists. The flowers, the trees, the beasts of
+the field, live in calm strength, in entire security. There is
+confidence in the falling rain, in dawning day, in the brook running to
+the sea. Everything that is seems to say: "I am, therefore I should be;
+there are good reasons for this, rest assured."
+
+So, too, mankind lives by confidence. From the simple fact that he is,
+man has within him the sufficient reason for his being--a pledge of
+assurance. He reposes in the power which has willed that he should be.
+To safeguard this confidence, to see that nothing disconcerts it, to
+cultivate it, render it more personal, more evident--toward this should
+tend the first effort of our thought. All that augments confidence
+within us is good, for from confidence is born the life without haste,
+tranquil energy, calm action, the love of life and its fruitful labor.
+Deep-seated confidence is the mysterious spring that sets in motion the
+energy within us. It is our nutriment. By it man lives, much more than
+by the bread he eats. And so everything that shakes this confidence is
+evil--poison, not food.
+
+Dangerous is every system of thought that attacks the very fact of life,
+declaring it to be an evil. Life has been too often wrongly estimated in
+this century. What wonder that the tree withers when its roots are
+watered with corrosives. And there is an extremely simple reflection
+that might be made in the face of all this negation. You say life is an
+evil. Well; what remedy for it do you offer? Can you combat it, suppress
+it? I do not ask you to suppress your own life, to commit suicide;--of
+what advantage would that be to us?--but to suppress _life_, not merely
+human life, but life at its deep and hidden origin, all this upspringing
+of existence that pushes toward the light and, to your mind, is rushing
+to misfortune; I ask you to suppress the will to live that trembles
+through the immensities of space, to suppress in short the source of
+life. Can you do it? No. Then leave us in peace. Since no one can hold
+life in check, is it not better to respect it and use it than to go
+about making other people disgusted with it? When one knows that certain
+food is dangerous to health, he does not eat it, and when a certain
+fashion of thinking robs us of confidence, cheerfulness and strength, we
+should reject that, certain not only that it is a nutriment noxious to
+the mind, but also that it is false. There is no truth for man but in
+thoughts that are human, and pessimism is inhuman. Besides, it wants as
+much in modesty as in logic. To permit one's self to count as evil this
+prodigious thing that we call life, one needs have seen its very
+foundation, almost to have made it. What a strange attitude is that of
+certain great thinkers of our times! They act as if they had created the
+world, very long ago, in their youth, but decidedly it was a mistake,
+and they had well repented it.
+
+Let us nourish ourselves from other meat; strengthen our souls with
+cheering thoughts. What is truest for man is what best fortifies him.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+If mankind lives by confidence, it lives also by hope--that form of
+confidence which turns toward the future. All life is a result and an
+aspiration, all that exists supposes an origin and tends toward an end.
+Life is progression: progression is aspiration. The progress of the
+future is an infinitude of hope. Hope is at the root of things, and must
+be reflected in the heart of man. No hope, no life. The same power which
+brought us into being, urges us to go up higher. What is the meaning of
+this persistent instinct which pushes us on? The true meaning is that
+something is to result from life, that out of it is being wrought a good
+greater than itself, toward which it slowly moves, and that this painful
+sower called man, needs, like every sower, to count on the morrow. The
+history of humanity is the history of indomitable hope; otherwise
+everything would have been over long ago. To press forward under his
+burdens, to guide himself in the night, to retrieve his falls and his
+failures, to escape despair even in death, man has need of hoping
+always, and sometimes against all hope. Here is the cordial that
+sustains him. Had we only logic, we should have long ago drawn the
+conclusion: Death has everywhere the last word!--and we should be dead
+of the idea. But we have hope, and that is why we live and believe in
+life.
+
+Suso, the great monk and mystic, one of the simplest and best men that
+ever lived, had a touching custom: whenever he encountered a woman, were
+she the poorest and oldest, he stepped respectfully aside, though his
+bare feet must tread among thorns or in the gutter. "I do that," he
+said, "to render homage to our Holy Lady, the Virgin Mary." Let us offer
+to hope a like reverence. If we meet it in the shape of a blade of wheat
+piercing the furrow; a bird brooding on its nest; a poor wounded beast,
+recovering itself, rising and continuing its way; a peasant ploughing
+and sowing a field that has been ravaged by flood or hail; a nation
+slowly repairing its losses and healing its wounds--under whatever guise
+of humanity or suffering it appears to us, let us salute it! When we
+encounter it in legends, in untutored songs, in simple creeds, let us
+still salute it! for it is always the same, indestructible, the immortal
+daughter of God.
+
+We do not dare hope enough. The men of our day have developed strange
+timidities. The apprehension that the sky will fall--that acme of
+absurdity among the fears of our Gallic forefathers--has entered our own
+hearts. Does the rain-drop doubt the ocean? the ray mistrust the sun?
+Our senile wisdom has arrived at this prodigy. It resembles those testy
+old pedagogues whose chief office is to rail at the merry pranks or the
+youthful enthusiasms of their pupils. It is time to become little
+children once more, to learn again to stand with clasped hands and wide
+eyes before the mystery around us; to remember that, in spite of our
+knowledge, what we know is but a trifle, and that the world is greater
+than our mind, which is well; for being so prodigious, it must hold in
+reserve untold resources, and we may allow it some credit without
+accusing ourselves of improvidence. Let us not treat it as creditors do
+an insolvent debtor: we should fire its courage, relight the sacred
+flame of hope. Since the sun still rises, since earth puts forth her
+blossoms anew, since the bird builds its nest, and the mother smiles at
+her child, let us have the courage to be men, and commit the rest to Him
+who has numbered the stars. For my part, I would I might find glowing
+words to say to whomsoever has lost heart in these times of disillusion:
+Rouse your courage, hope on; he is sure of being least deluded who has
+the daring to do that; the most ingenuous hope is nearer truth than the
+most rational despair.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Another source of light on the path of human life is goodness. I am not
+of those who believe in the natural perfection of man, and teach that
+society corrupts him. On the contrary, of all forms of evil, the one
+which most dismays me is heredity. But I sometimes ask myself how it is
+that this effete and deadly virus of low instincts, of vices inoculated
+in the blood, the whole assemblage of disabilities imposed upon us by
+the past--how all this has not got the better of us. It must be because
+of something else. This other thing is love.
+
+Given the unknown brooding above our heads, our limited intelligence,
+the grievous and contradictory enigma of human destiny, falsehood,
+hatred, corruption, suffering, death--what can we think, what do? To all
+these questions a sublime and mysterious voice has answered: _Love your
+fellow-men._ Love must indeed be divine, like faith and hope, since she
+cannot die when so many powers are arrayed against her. She has to
+combat the natural ferocity of what may be called the beast in man; she
+has to meet ruse, force, self-interest, above all, ingratitude. How is
+it that she passes pure and scathless in the midst of these dark
+enemies, like the prophet of the sacred legend among the roaring beasts?
+It is because her enemies are of the earth, and love is from above.
+Horns, teeth, claws, eyes full of murderous fire, are powerless against
+the swift wing that soars toward the heights and eludes them. Thus love
+escapes the undertakings of her foes. She does even better: she has
+sometimes known the fine triumph of winning over her persecutors: she
+has seen the wild beasts grow calm, lie down at her feet, obey her law.
+
+At the very heart of the Christian faith, the most sublime of its
+teachings, and to him who penetrates its deepest sense, the most human,
+is this: To save lost humanity, the invisible God came to dwell among
+us, in the form of a man, and willed to make Himself known by this
+single sign: _Love._
+
+Healing, consoling, tender to the unfortunate, even to the evil, love
+engenders light beneath her feet. She clarifies, she simplifies. She has
+chosen the humblest part--to bind up wounds, wipe away tears, relieve
+distress, soothe aching hearts, pardon, make peace; yet it is of love
+that we have the greatest need. And as we meditate on the best way to
+render thought fruitful, simple, really conformable to our destiny, the
+method sums itself up in these words: _Have confidence and hope; be
+kind._
+
+I would not discourage lofty speculation, dissuade any one whomsoever
+from brooding over the problems of the unknown, over the vast abysses of
+science or philosophy. But we have always to come back from these far
+journeys to the point where we are, often to a place where we seem to
+stand marking time with no result. There are conditions of life and
+social complications in which the sage, the thinker, and the ignorant
+are alike unable to see clearly. The present age has often brought us
+face to face with such situations; I am sure that he who meets them with
+our method will soon recognize its worth.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Since I have touched here upon religious ground, at least in a general
+way, someone may ask me to say in a few simple words, what religion is
+the best; and I gladly express myself on this subject. But it might be
+better not to put the question in this form. All religions have, of
+necessity, certain fixed characteristics, and each has its inherent
+qualities or defects. Strictly speaking, then, they may be compared
+among themselves: but there are always involuntary partialities or
+foregone conclusions. It is better to put the question otherwise, and
+ask: Is my own religion good, and how may I know it? To this question,
+this answer: Your religion is good if it is vital and active, if it
+nourishes in you confidence, hope, love, and a sentiment of the infinite
+value of existence; if it is allied with what is best in you against
+what is worst, and holds forever before you the necessity of becoming a
+new man; if it makes you understand that pain is a deliverer; if it
+increases your respect for the conscience of others; if it renders
+forgiveness more easy, fortune less arrogant, duty more dear, the beyond
+less visionary. If it does these things it is good, little matter its
+name: however rudimentary it may be, when it fills this office it comes
+from the true source, it binds you to man and to God.
+
+But does it perchance serve to make you think yourself better than
+others, quibble over texts, wear sour looks, domineer over others'
+consciences or give your own over to bondage; stifle your scruples,
+follow religious forms for fashion or gain, do good in the hope of
+escaping future punishment?--oh, then, if you proclaim yourself the
+follower of Buddha, Moses, Mahomet, or even Christ, your religion is
+worthless--it separates you from God and man.
+
+I have not perhaps the right to speak thus in my own name; but others
+have so spoken before me who are greater than I, and notably He who
+recounted to the questioning scribe the parable of the Good Samaritan. I
+intrench myself behind His authority.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+SIMPLICITY OF SPEECH
+
+
+Speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first visible form that
+it takes. As the thought, so the speech. To better one's life in the way
+of simplicity, one must set a watch on his lips and his pen. Let the
+word be as genuine as the thought, as artless, as valid: think justly,
+speak frankly.
+
+All social relations have their roots in mutual trust, and this trust is
+maintained by each man's sincerity. Once sincerity diminishes,
+confidence is weakened, society suffers, apprehension is born. This is
+true in the province of both natural and spiritual interests. With
+people whom we distrust, it is as difficult to do business as to search
+for scientific truth, arrive at religious harmony, or attain to justice.
+When one must first question words and intentions, and start from the
+premise that everything said and written is meant to offer us illusion
+in place of truth, life becomes strangely complicated. This is the case
+to-day. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy, so much subtle
+legerdemain, that we all have no end of trouble to inform ourselves on
+the simplest subject and the one that most concerns us. Probably what I
+have just said would suffice to show my thought, and each one's
+experience might bring to its support an ample commentary with
+illustrations. But I am none the less moved to insist on this point, and
+to strengthen my position with examples.
+
+Formerly the means of communication between men were considerably
+restricted. It was natural to suppose that in perfecting and multiplying
+avenues of information, a better understanding would be brought about.
+Nations would learn to love each other as they became acquainted;
+citizens of one country would feel themselves bound in closer
+brotherhood as more light was thrown on what concerned their common
+life. When printing was invented, the cry arose: _fiat lux!_ and with
+better cause when the habit of reading and the taste for newspapers
+increased. Why should not men have reasoned thus:--"Two lights illumine
+better than one, and many better than two: the more periodicals and
+books there are, the better we shall know what happens, and those who
+wish to write history after us will be right fortunate; their hands will
+be full of documents"? Nothing could have seemed more evident. Alas!
+this reasoning was based upon the nature and capacity of the
+instruments, without taking into account the human element, always the
+most important factor. And what has really come about is this: that
+cavilers, calumniators, and crooks--all gentlemen glib of tongue, who
+know better than any one else how to turn voice and pen to account--have
+taken the utmost advantage of these extended means for circulating
+thought, with the result that the men of our times have the greatest
+difficulty in the world to know the truth about their own age and their
+own affairs. For every newspaper that fosters good feeling and good
+understanding between nations, by trying to rightly inform its neighbors
+and to study them without reservations, how many spread defamation and
+distrust! What unnatural and dangerous currents of opinion set in
+motion! what false alarms and malicious interpretations of words and
+facts! And in domestic affairs we are not much better informed than in
+foreign. As to commercial, industrial, and agricultural interests,
+political parties and social tendencies, or the personality of public
+men, it is alike difficult to obtain a disinterested opinion. The more
+newspapers one reads, the less clearly he sees in these matters. There
+are days when after having read them all, and admitting that he takes
+them at their word, the reader finds himself obliged to draw this
+conclusion:--Unquestionably nothing but corruption can be found any
+longer--no men of integrity except a few journalists. But the last part
+of the conclusion falls in its turn. It appears that the chroniclers
+devour each other. The reader has under his eyes a spectacle somewhat
+like the cartoon entitled, "The Combat of the Serpents." After having
+gorged themselves with everything around them, the reptiles fall upon
+each other, and there remain upon the field of battle two tails.
+
+And not the common people alone feel this embarrassment, but the
+cultivated also--almost everybody shares it. In politics, finance,
+business--even in science, art, literature and religion, there is
+everywhere disguise, trickery, wire-pulling; one truth for the public,
+another for the initiated. The result is that everybody is deceived. It
+is vain to be behind the scenes on one stage; a man cannot be there on
+them all, and the very people who deceive others with the most ability,
+are in turn deceived when they need to count upon the sincerity of their
+neighbors.
+
+The result of such practices is the degradation of human speech. It is
+degraded first in the eyes of those who manipulate it as a base
+instrument. No word is respected by sophists, casuists, and quibblers,
+men who are moved only by a rage for gaining their point, or who assume
+that their interests are alone worth considering. Their penalty is to be
+forced to judge others by the rule they follow themselves: _Say what
+profits and not what is true._ They can no longer take any one
+seriously--a sad state of mind for those who write or teach! How lightly
+must one hold his readers and hearers to approach them in such an
+attitude! To him who has preserved enough honesty, nothing is more
+repugnant than the careless irony of an acrobat of the tongue or pen,
+who tries to dupe honest and ingenuous men. On one side openness,
+sincerity, the desire to be enlightened; on the other, chicanery making
+game of the public! But he knows not, the liar, how far he is misleading
+himself. The capital on which he lives is confidence, and nothing equals
+the confidence of the people, unless it be their distrust when once they
+find themselves betrayed. They may follow for a time the exploiters of
+their artlessness, but then their friendly humor turns to hate. Doors
+which stood wide open offer an impassable front of wood, and ears once
+attentive are deaf. And the pity is that they have closed not to the
+evil alone, but to the good. This is the crime of those who distort and
+degrade speech: they shake confidence generally. We consider as a
+calamity the debasement of the currency, the lowering of interest, the
+abolition of credit:--there is a misfortune greater than these: the loss
+of confidence, of that moral credit which honest people give one
+another, and which makes speech circulate like an authentic currency.
+Away with counterfeiters, speculators, rotten financiers, for they bring
+under suspicion even the coin of the realm. Away with the makers of
+counterfeit speech, for because of them there is no longer confidence in
+anyone or anything, and what they say and write is not worth a
+continental.
+
+You see how urgent it is that each should guard his lips, chasten his
+pen, and aspire to simplicity of speech. No more perversion of sense,
+circumlocution, reticence, tergiversation! these things serve only to
+complicate and bewilder. Be men; speak the speech of honor. An hour of
+plain-dealing does more for the salvation of the world than years of
+duplicity.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+A word now about a national bias, to those who have a veneration for
+diction and style. Assuredly there can be no quarrel with the taste for
+grace and elegance of speech. I am of opinion that one cannot say too
+well what he has to say. But it does not follow that the things best
+said and best written are most studied. Words should serve the fact, and
+not substitute themselves for it and make it forgotten in its
+embellishment. The greatest things are those which gain the most by
+being said most simply, since thus they show themselves for what they
+are: you do not throw over them the veil, however transparent, of
+beautiful discourse, nor that shadow so fatal to truth, called the
+writer's vanity. Nothing so strong, nothing so persuasive, as
+simplicity! There are sacred emotions, cruel griefs, splendid heroisms,
+passionate enthusiasms that a look, a movement, a cry interprets better
+than beautifully rounded periods. The most precious possessions of the
+heart of humanity manifest themselves most simply. To be convincing, a
+thing must be true, and certain truths are more evident when they come
+in the speech of ingenuousness, even weakness, than when they fall from
+lips too well trained, or are proclaimed with trumpets. And these rules
+are good for each of us in his every-day life. No one can imagine what
+profit would accrue to his moral life from the constant observation of
+this principle: Be sincere, moderate, simple in the expression of your
+feelings and opinions, in private and public alike; never pass beyond
+bounds, give out faithfully what is within you, and above all,
+watch!--that is the main thing.
+
+For the danger in fine words is that they live from a life of their own.
+They are servants of distinction, that have kept their titles but no
+longer perform their functions--of which royal courts offer us example.
+You speak well, write well, and all is said. How many people content
+themselves with speaking, and believe that it exempts them from acting!
+And those who listen are content with having heard them. So it sometimes
+happens that a life may in the end be made up of a few well-turned
+speeches, a few fine books, and a few great plays. As for practicing
+what is so magisterially set forth, that is the last thing thought of.
+And if we pass from the world of talent to spheres which the mediocre
+exploit, there, in a pell-mell of confusion, we see those who think that
+we are in the world to talk and hear others talk--the great and hopeless
+rout of babblers, of everything that prates, bawls, and perorates and,
+after all, finds that there isn't talking enough. They all forget that
+those who make the least noise do the most work. An engine that expends
+all its steam in whistling, has nothing left with which to turn wheels.
+Then let us cultivate silence. All that we can save in noise we gain in
+power.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+These reflections lead us to consider a similar subject, also very
+worthy of attention: I mean what has been called "the vice of the
+superlative." If we study the inhabitants of a country, we notice
+differences of temperament, of which the language shows signs. Here the
+people are calm and phlegmatic; their speech is jejune, lacks color.
+Elsewhere temperaments are more evenly balanced; one finds precision,
+the word exactly fitted to the thing. But farther on--effect of the sun,
+the air, the wine perhaps--hot blood courses in the veins, tempers are
+excitable, language is extravagant, and the simplest things are said in
+the strongest terms.
+
+If the type of speech varies with climate, it differs also with epochs.
+Compare the language, written or spoken, of our own times with that of
+certain other periods of our history. Under the old _regime_, people
+spoke differently than at the time of the Revolution, and we have not
+the same language as the men of 1830, 1848, or the Second Empire. In
+general, language is now characterized by greater simplicity: we no
+longer wear perukes, we no longer write in lace frills: but there is one
+significant difference between us and almost all of our ancestors--and
+it is the source of our exaggerations--our nervousness. Upon
+over-excited nervous systems--and Heaven knows that to have nerves is no
+longer an aristocratic privilege!--words do not produce the same
+impression as under normal conditions. And quite as truly, simple
+language does not suffice the man of over-wrought sensibilities when he
+tries to express what he feels. In private life, in public, in books, on
+the stage, calm and temperate speech has given place to excess. The
+means that novelists and playwrights employ to galvanize the public mind
+and compel its attention, are to be found again, in their rudiments, in
+our most commonplace conversations, in our letter-writing, and above all
+in public speaking. Our performances in language compared to those of a
+man well-balanced and serene, are what our hand-writing is compared to
+that of our fathers. The fault is laid to steel pens. If only the truth
+were acknowledged!--Geese, then, could save us! But the evil goes
+deeper; it is in ourselves. We write like men possessed: the pen of our
+ancestors was more restful, more sure. Here we face one of the results
+of our modern life, so complicated and so terribly exhaustive of energy.
+It leaves us impatient, breathless, in perpetual trepidation. Our
+hand-writing, like our speech, suffers thereby and betrays us. Let us go
+back from the effect to the cause, and understand well the warning it
+brings us!
+
+What good can come from this habit of exaggerated speech? False
+interpreters of our own impressions, we can not but warp the minds of
+our fellow-men as well as our own. Between people who exaggerate, good
+understanding ceases. Ruffled tempers, violent and useless disputes,
+hasty judgments devoid of all moderation, the utmost extravagance in
+education and social life--these things are the result of intemperance
+of speech.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+May I be permitted, in this appeal for simplicity of speech, to frame a
+wish whose fulfilment would have the happiest results? I ask for
+simplicity in literature, not only as one of the best remedies for the
+dejection of our souls--_blases_, jaded, weary of eccentricities--but
+also as a pledge and source of social union. I ask also for simplicity
+in art. Our art and our literature are reserved for the privileged few
+of education and fortune. But do not misunderstand me. I do not ask
+poets, novelists, and painters to descend from the heights and walk
+along the mountain-sides, finding their satisfaction in mediocrity; but,
+on the contrary, to mount higher. The truly popular is not that which
+appeals to a certain class of society ordinarily called the common
+people; the truly popular is what is common to all classes and unites
+them. The sources of inspiration from which perfect art springs are in
+the depths of the human heart, in the eternal realities of life before
+which all men are equal. And the sources of a popular language must be
+found in the small number of simple and vigorous forms which express
+elementary sensations, and draw the master lines of human destiny. In
+them are truth, power, grandeur, immortality. Is there not enough in
+such an ideal to kindle the enthusiasm of youth, which, sensible that
+the sacred flame of the beautiful is burning within, feels pity, and to
+the disdainful adage, _Odi profanum vulgus_, prefers this more humane
+saying, _Misereor super turbam_. As for me, I have no artistic
+authority, but from out the multitude where I live, I have the right to
+raise my cry to those who have been given talents, and say to them:
+Labor for men whom the world forgets, make yourselves intelligible to
+the humble, so shall you accomplish a work of emancipation and peace; so
+shall you open again the springs whence those masters drew, whose works
+have defied the ages because they knew how to clothe genius in
+simplicity.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+SIMPLE DUTY
+
+
+When we talk to children on a subject that annoys them, they call our
+attention to some pigeon on the roof, giving food to its little one, or
+some coachman down in the street who is abusing his horse. Sometimes
+they even maliciously propose one of those alarming questions that put
+the minds of parents on the rack; all this to divert attention from the
+distressing topic. I fear that in the face of duty we are big children,
+and, when that is the theme, seek subterfuges to distract us.
+
+The first sophism consists in asking ourselves if there is such a thing
+as duty in the abstract, or if this word does not cover one of the
+numerous illusions of our forefathers. For duty, in truth, supposes
+liberty, and the question of liberty leads us into metaphysics. How can
+we talk of liberty so long as this grave problem of free-will is not
+solved? Theoretically there is no objection to this; and if life were a
+theory, and we were here to work out a complete system of the universe,
+it would be absurd to concern ourselves with duty until we had clarified
+the subject of liberty, determined its conditions, fixed its limits.
+
+But life is not a theory. In this question of practical morality, as in
+the others, life has preceded hypothesis, and there is no room to
+believe that she ever yields it place. This liberty--relative, I admit,
+like everything we are acquainted with, for that matter--this duty whose
+existence we question, is none the less the basis of all the judgments
+we pass upon ourselves and our fellow-men. We hold each other to a
+certain extent responsible for our deeds and exploits.
+
+The most ardent theorist, once outside of his theory, scruples not a
+whit to approve or disapprove the acts of others, to take measures
+against his enemies, to appeal to the generosity and justice of those he
+would dissuade from an unworthy step. One can no more rid himself of the
+notion of moral obligation than of that of time or space; and as surely
+as we must resign ourselves to walking before we know how to define this
+space through which we move and this time that measures our movements,
+so surely must we submit to moral obligation before having put our
+finger on its deep-hidden roots. Moral law dominates man, whether he
+respects or defies it. See how it is in every-day life: each one is
+ready to cast his stone at him who neglects a plain duty, even if he
+allege that he has not yet arrived at philosophic certitude. Everybody
+will say to him, and with excellent reason: "Sir, we are men before
+everything. First play your part, do your duty as citizen, father, son;
+after that you shall return to the course of your meditations."
+
+However, let us be well understood. We should not wish to turn anyone
+away from scrupulous research into the foundations of morality. No
+thought which leads men to concern themselves once more with these grave
+questions, could be useless or indifferent. We simply challenge the
+thinker to find a way to wait till he has unearthed these foundations,
+before he does an act of humanity, of honesty or dishonesty, of valor or
+cowardice. And most of all do we wish to formulate a reply for all the
+insincere who have never tried to philosophize, and for ourselves when
+we would offer our state of philosophic doubt in justification of our
+practical omissions. From the simple fact that we are men, before all
+theorizing, positive, or negative, about duty, we have the peremptory
+law to conduct ourselves like men. There is no getting out of it.
+
+But he little knows the resources of the human heart, who counts on the
+effect of such a reply. It matters not that it is itself unanswerable;
+it cannot keep other questions from arising. The sum of our pretexts for
+evading duty is equal to the sum of the sands of the sea or the stars of
+heaven.
+
+We take refuge, then, behind duty that is obscure, difficult,
+contradictory. And these are certainly words to call up painful
+memories. To be a man of duty and to question one's route, grope in the
+dark, feel one's self torn between the contrary solicitations of
+conflicting calls, or again, to face a duty gigantic, overwhelming,
+beyond our strength--what is harder! And such things happen. We would
+neither deny nor contest the tragedy in certain situations or the
+anguish of certain lives. And yet, duty rarely has to make itself plain
+across such conflicting circumstances, or to be struck out from the
+tortured mind like lightning from a storm-cloud. Such formidable shocks
+are exceptional. Well for us if we stand staunch when they come! But if
+no one is astonished that oaks are uprooted by the whirlwind, that a
+wayfarer stumbles at night on an unknown road, or that a soldier caught
+between two fires is vanquished, no more should he condemn without
+appeal those who have been worsted in almost superhuman moral conflicts.
+To succumb under the force of numbers or obstacles has never been
+counted a disgrace.
+
+So my weapons are at the service of those who intrench themselves
+behind the impregnable rampart of duty ill-defined, complicated or
+contradictory. But it is not that which occupies me to-day; it is of
+plain, I had almost said easy duty, that I wish to speak.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+We have yearly three or four high feast days, and many ordinary ones:
+there are likewise some very great and dark combats to wage, but beside
+these is the multitude of plain and simple duties. Now, while in the
+great encounters our equipment is generally adequate, it is precisely in
+the little emergencies that we are found wanting. Without fear of being
+misled by a paradoxical form of thought, I affirm, then, that the
+essential thing is to fulfil our simple duties and exercise elementary
+justice. In general, those who lose their souls do so not because they
+fail to rise to difficult duty, but because they neglect to perform that
+which is simple. Let us illustrate this truth.
+
+He who tries to penetrate into the humble underworld of society is not
+slow to discover great misery, physical and moral. And the closer he
+looks, the greater number of unfortunates does he discover, till in the
+end this assembly of the wretched appears to him like a great black
+world, in whose presence the individual and his means of relief are
+reduced to helplessness. It is true that he feels impelled to run to the
+succor of these unfortunates, but at the same time he asks himself,
+"What is the use?" The case is certainly heartrending. Some, in despair,
+end by doing nothing. They lack neither pity nor good intention, but
+these bear no fruit. They are wrong. Often a man has not the means to do
+good on a large scale, but that is not a reason for failing to do it at
+all. So many people absolve themselves from any action, on the ground
+that there is too much to do! They should be recalled to simple duty,
+and this duty in the case of which we speak is that each one, according
+to his resources, leisure and capacity, should create relations for
+himself among the world's disinherited. There are people who by the
+exercise of a little good-will have succeeded in enrolling themselves
+among the followers of ministers, and have ingratiated themselves with
+princes. Why should you not succeed in forming relations with the poor,
+and in making acquaintances among the workers who lack somewhat the
+necessities of life? When a few families are known, with their
+histories, their antecedents and their difficulties, you may be of the
+greatest use to them by acting the part of a brother, with the moral and
+material aid that is yours to give. It is true, you will have attacked
+only one little corner, but you will have done what you could, and
+perhaps have led another on to follow you. Instead of stopping at the
+knowledge that much wretchedness, hatred, disunion and vice exist in
+society, you will have introduced a little good among these evils. And
+by however slow degrees such kindness as yours is emulated, the good
+will sensibly increase and the evil diminish. Even were you to remain
+alone in this undertaking, you would have the assurance that in
+fulfilling the duty, plain as a child's, which offered itself, you were
+doing the only reasonable thing. If you have felt it so, you have found
+out one of the secrets of right living.
+
+In its dreams, man's ambition embraces vast limits, but it is rarely
+given us to achieve great things, and even then, a quick and sure
+success always rests on a groundwork of patient preparation. Fidelity in
+small things is at the base of every great achievement. We too often
+forget this, and yet no truth needs more to be kept in mind,
+particularly in the troubled eras of history and in the crises of
+individual life. In shipwreck a splintered beam, an oar, any scrap of
+wreckage, saves us. On the tumbling waves of life, when everything seems
+shattered to fragments, let us not forget that a single one of these
+poor bits may become our plank of safety. To despise the remnants is
+demoralization.
+
+You are a ruined man, or you are stricken by a great bereavement, or
+again, you see the fruit of toilsome years perish before your eyes. You
+cannot rebuild your fortune, raise the dead, recover your lost toil, and
+in the face of the inevitable, your arms drop. Then you neglect to care
+for your person, to keep your house, to guide your children. All this is
+pardonable, and how easy to understand! But it is exceedingly dangerous.
+To fold one's hands and let things take their course, is to transform
+one evil into worse. You who think that you have nothing left to lose,
+will by that very thought lose what you have. Gather up the fragments
+that remain to you, and keep them with scrupulous care. In good time
+this little that is yours will be your consolation. The effort made will
+come to your relief, as the effort missed will turn against you. If
+nothing but a branch is left for you to cling to, cling to that branch;
+and if you stand alone in defense of a losing cause, do not throw down
+your arms to join the rout. After the deluge a few survivors repeopled
+the earth. The future sometimes rests in a single life as truly as life
+sometimes hangs by a thread. For strength, go to history and Nature.
+From the long travail of both you will learn that failure and fortune
+alike may come from the slightest cause, that it is not wise to neglect
+detail, and, above all, that we must know how to wait and to begin
+again.
+
+In speaking of simple duty I cannot help thinking of military life, and
+the examples it offers to combatants in this great struggle. He would
+little understand his soldier's duty who, the army once beaten, should
+cease to brush his garments, polish his rifle, and observe discipline.
+"But what would be the use?" perhaps you ask. Are there not various
+fashions of being vanquished? Is it an indifferent matter to add to
+defeat, discouragement, disorder, and demoralization? No, it should
+never be forgotten that the least display of energy in these terrible
+moments is a sign of life and hope. At once everybody feels that all is
+not lost.
+
+During the disastrous retreat of 1813-1814, in the heart of the winter,
+when it had become almost impossible to present any sort of appearance,
+a general, I know not who, one morning presented himself to Napoleon, in
+full dress and freshly shaven. Seeing him thus, in the midst of the
+general demoralization, as elaborately attired as if for parade, the
+Emperor said: _My general, you are a brave man!_
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Again, the plain duty is the near duty. A very common weakness keeps
+many people from finding what is near them interesting; they see that
+only on its paltry side. The distant, on the contrary, draws and
+fascinates them. In this way a fabulous amount of good-will is wasted.
+People burn with ardor for humanity, for the public good, for righting
+distant wrongs; they walk through life, their eyes fixed on marvelous
+sights along the horizon, treading meanwhile on the feet of passers-by,
+or jostling them without being aware of their existence.
+
+Strange infirmity, that keeps us from seeing our fellows at our very
+doors! People widely read and far-travelled are often not acquainted
+with their fellow-citizens, great or small. Their lives depend upon the
+cooeperation of a multitude of beings whose lot remains to them quite
+indifferent. Not those to whom they owe their knowledge and culture, not
+their rulers, nor those who serve them and supply their needs, have ever
+attracted their attention. That there is ingratitude or improvidence in
+not knowing one's workmen, one's servants, all those in short with whom
+one has indispensable social relations--this has never come into their
+minds. Others go much farther. To certain wives, their husbands are
+strangers, and conversely. There are parents who do not know their
+children: their development, their thoughts, the dangers they run, the
+hopes they cherish, are to them a closed book. Many children do not know
+their parents, have no suspicion of their difficulties and struggles, no
+conception of their aims. And I am not speaking of those piteously
+disordered homes where all the relations are false, but of honorable
+families. Only, all these people are greatly preoccupied: each has his
+outside interest that fills all his time. The distant duty--very
+attractive, I don't deny--claims them entirely, and they are not
+conscious of the duty near at hand. I fear they will have their trouble
+for their pains. Each person's base of operations is the field of his
+immediate duty. Neglect this field, and all you undertake at a distance
+is compromised. First, then, be of your own country, your own city, your
+own home, your own church, your own work-shop; then, if you can, set out
+from this to go beyond it. That is the plain and natural order, and a
+man must fortify himself with very bad reasons to arrive at reversing
+it. At all events, the result of so strange a confusion of duties is
+that many people employ their time in all sorts of affairs except those
+in which we have a right to demand it. Each is occupied with something
+else than what concerns him, is absent from his post, ignores his trade.
+This is what complicates life. And it would be so simple for each one to
+be about his own matter.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Another form of simple duty. When damage is done, who should repair it?
+He who did it. This is just, but it is only theory, and the consequence
+of following the theory would be the evil in force until the malefactors
+were found and had offset it. But suppose they are not found? or suppose
+they can not or will not make amends?
+
+The rain falls on your head through a hole in the roof, or the wind
+blows in at a broken window. Will you wait to find the man who caused
+the mischief? You would certainly think that absurd. And yet such is
+often the practice. Children indignantly protest, "I didn't put it
+there, and I shall not take it away!" And most men reason after the same
+fashion. It is logic. But it is not the kind of logic that makes the
+world move forward.
+
+On the contrary, what we must learn, and what life repeats to us daily,
+is that the injury done by one must be repaired by another. One tears
+down, another builds up; one defaces, another restores; one stirs up
+quarrels, another appeases them; one makes tears to flow, another wipes
+them away; one lives for evil-doing, another dies for the right. And in
+the workings of this grievous law lies salvation. This also is logic,
+but a logic of facts which makes the logic of theories pale. The
+conclusion of the matter is not doubtful; a single-hearted man draws it
+thus: given the evil, the great thing is to make it good, and to set
+about it on the spot; well indeed if Messrs. the Malefactors will
+contribute to the reparation; but experience warns us not to count too
+much on their aid.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+But however simple duty may be, there is still need of strength to do
+it. In what does this strength consist, or where is it found? One could
+scarcely tire of asking. Duty is for man an enemy and an intruder, so
+long as it appears as an appeal from without. When it comes in through
+the door, he leaves by the window; when it blocks up the windows, he
+escapes by the roof. The more plainly we see it coming, the more surely
+we flee. It is like those police, representatives of public order and
+official justice, whom an adroit thief succeeds in evading. Alas! the
+officer, though he finally collar the thief, can only conduct him to the
+station, not along the right road. Before man is able to accomplish his
+duty, he must fall into the hands of another power than that which says,
+"Do this, do that; shun this, shun that, or else beware!"
+
+This is an interior power; it is love. When a man hates his work, or
+goes about it with indifference, all the forces of earth cannot make
+him follow it with enthusiasm. But he who loves his office moves of
+himself; not only is it needless to compel him, but it would be
+impossible to turn him aside. And this is true of everybody. The great
+thing is to have felt the sanctity and immortal beauty in our obscure
+destiny; to have been led by a series of experiences to love this life
+for its griefs and its hopes, to love men for their weakness and their
+greatness, and to belong to humanity through the heart, the intelligence
+and the soul. Then an unknown power takes possession of us, as the wind
+of the sails of a ship, and bears us toward pity and justice. And
+yielding to its irresistible impulse, we say: _I cannot help it,
+something is there stronger than I._ In so saying, the men of all times
+and places have designated a power that is above humanity, but which may
+dwell in men's hearts. And everything truly lofty within us appears to
+us as a manifestation of this mystery beyond. Noble feelings, like great
+thoughts and deeds, are things of inspiration. When the tree buds and
+bears fruit, it is because it draws vital forces from the soil, and
+receives light and warmth from the sun. If a man, in his humble sphere,
+in the midst of the ignorance and faults that are his inevitably,
+consecrates himself sincerely to his task, it is because he is in
+contact with the eternal source of goodness. This central force
+manifests itself under a thousand forms. Sometimes it is indomitable
+energy; sometimes winning tenderness; sometimes the militant spirit that
+grasps and uproots the evil; sometimes maternal solicitude, gathering to
+its arms from the wayside where it was perishing, some bruised and
+forgotten life; sometimes the humble patience of long research. All that
+it touches bears its seal, and the men it inspires know that through it
+we live and have our being. To serve it is their pleasure and reward.
+They are satisfied to be its instruments, and they no longer look at the
+outward glory of their office, well knowing that nothing is great,
+nothing small, but that our life and our deeds are only of worth because
+of the spirit which breathes through them.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SIMPLE NEEDS
+
+
+When we buy a bird of the fancier, the good man tells us briefly what is
+necessary for our new pensioner, and the whole thing--hygiene, food, and
+the rest--is comprehended in a dozen words. Likewise, to sum up the
+necessities of most men, a few concise lines would answer. Their regime
+is in general of supreme simplicity, and so long as they follow it, all
+is well with them, as with every obedient child of Mother Nature. Let
+them depart from it, complications arise, health fails, gayety vanishes.
+Only simple and natural living can keep a body in full vigor. Instead of
+remembering this basic principle, we fall into the strangest
+aberrations.
+
+What material things does a man need to live under the best conditions?
+A healthful diet, simple clothing, a sanitary dwelling-place, air and
+exercise. I am not going to enter into hygienic details, compose menus,
+or discuss model tenements and dress reform. My aim is to point out a
+direction and tell what advantage would come to each of us from ordering
+his life in a spirit of simplicity. To know that this spirit does not
+rule in our society we need but watch the lives of men of all classes.
+Ask different people, of very unlike surroundings, this question: What
+do you need to live? You will see how they respond. Nothing is more
+instructive. For some aboriginals of the Parisian asphalt, there is no
+life possible outside a region bounded by certain boulevards. There one
+finds the respirable air, the illuminating light, normal heat, classic
+cookery, and, in moderation, so many other things without which it would
+not be worth the while to promenade this round ball.
+
+On the various rungs of the bourgeois ladder people reply to the
+question, what is necessary to live? by figures varying with the degree
+of their ambition or education: and by education is oftenest understood
+the outward customs of life, the style of house, dress, table--an
+education precisely skin-deep. Upward from a certain income, fee, or
+salary, life becomes possible: below that it is impossible. We have seen
+men commit suicide because their means had fallen under a certain
+minimum. They preferred to disappear rather than retrench. Observe that
+this minimum, the cause of their despair, would have been sufficient for
+others of less exacting needs, and enviable to men whose tastes are
+modest.
+
+On lofty mountains vegetation changes with the altitude. There is the
+region of ordinary flora, that of the forests, that of pastures, that of
+bare rocks and glaciers. Above a certain zone wheat is no longer found,
+but the vine still prospers. The oak ceases in the low regions, the pine
+flourishes at considerable heights. Human life, with its needs, reminds
+one of these phenomena of vegetation.
+
+At a certain altitude of fortune the financier thrives, the club-man,
+the society woman, all those in short for whom the strictly necessary
+includes a certain number of domestics and equipages, as well as several
+town and country houses. Further on flourishes the rich upper middle
+class, with its own standards and life. In other regions we find men of
+ample, moderate, or small means, and very unlike exigencies. Then come
+the people--artisans, day-laborers, peasants, in short, the masses, who
+live dense and serried like the thick, sturdy growths on the summits of
+the mountains, where the larger vegetation can no longer find
+nourishment. In all these different regions of society men live, and no
+matter in which particular regions they flourish, all are alike human
+beings, bearing the same mark. How strange that among fellows there
+should be such a prodigious difference in requirements! And here the
+analogies of our comparison fail us. Plants and animals of the same
+families have identical wants. In human life we observe quite the
+contrary. What conclusion shall we draw from this, if not that with us
+there is a considerable elasticity in the nature and number of needs?
+
+Is it well, is it favorable to the development of the individual and his
+happiness, and to the development and happiness of society, that man
+should have a multitude of needs, and bend his energies to their
+satisfaction? Let us return for a moment to our comparison with inferior
+beings. Provided that their essential wants are satisfied, they live
+content. Is this true of men? No. In all classes of society we find
+discontent. I leave completely out of the question those who lack the
+necessities of life. One cannot with justice count in the number of
+malcontents those from whom hunger, cold, and misery wring complaints. I
+am considering now that multitude of people who live under conditions at
+least supportable. Whence comes their heart-burning? Why is it found not
+only among those of modest though sufficient means, but also under
+shades of ever-increasing refinement, all along the ascending scale,
+even to opulence and the summits of social place? They talk of the
+contented middle classes. Who talk of them? People who, judging from
+without, think that as soon as one begins to enjoy ease he ought to be
+satisfied. But the middle classes themselves--do they consider
+themselves satisfied? Not the least in the world. If there are people at
+once rich and content, be assured that they are content because they
+know how to be so, not because they are rich. An animal is satisfied
+when it has eaten; it lies down and sleeps. A man also can lie down and
+sleep for a time, but it never lasts. When he becomes accustomed to this
+contentment, he tires of it and demands a greater. Man's appetite is not
+appeased by food; it increases with eating. This may seem absurd, but it
+is strictly true.
+
+And the fact that those who make the most outcry are almost always those
+who should find the best reasons for contentment, proves unquestionably
+that happiness is not allied to the number of our needs and the zeal we
+put into their cultivation. It is for everyone's interest to let this
+truth sink deep into his mind. If it does not, if he does not by
+decisive action succeed in limiting his needs, he risks a descent,
+insensible and beyond retreat, along the declivity of desire.
+
+He who lives to eat, drink, sleep, dress, take his walk,--in short,
+pamper himself all that he can--be it the courtier basking in the sun,
+the drunken laborer, the commoner serving his belly, the woman absorbed
+in her toilettes, the profligate of low estate or high, or simply the
+ordinary pleasure-lover, a "good fellow," but too obedient to material
+needs--that man or woman is on the downward way of desire, and the
+descent is fatal. Those who follow it obey the same laws as a body on an
+inclined plane. Dupes of an illusion forever repeated, they think: "Just
+a few steps more, the last, toward the thing down there that we covet;
+then we will halt." But the velocity they gain sweeps them on, and the
+further they go the less able they are to resist it.
+
+Here is the secret of the unrest, the madness, of many of our
+contemporaries. Having condemned their will to the service of their
+appetites, they suffer the penalty. They are delivered up to violent
+passions which devour their flesh, crush their bones, suck their blood,
+and cannot be sated. This is not a lofty moral denunciation. I have
+been listening to what life says, and have recorded, as I heard them,
+some of the truths that resound in every square.
+
+Has drunkenness, inventive as it is of new drinks, found the means of
+quenching thirst? Not at all. It might rather be called the art of
+making thirst inextinguishable. Frank libertinage, does it deaden the
+sting of the senses? No; it envenoms it, converts natural desire into a
+morbid obsession and makes it the dominant passion. Let your needs rule
+you, pamper them--you will see them multiply like insects in the sun.
+The more you give them, the more they demand. He is senseless who seeks
+for happiness in material prosperity alone. As well undertake to fill
+the cask of the Danaides. To those who have millions, millions are
+wanting; to those who have thousands, thousands. Others lack a
+twenty-franc piece or a hundred sous. When they have a chicken in the
+pot, they ask for a goose; when they have the goose, they wish it were a
+turkey, and so on. We shall never learn how fatal this tendency is.
+There are too many humble people who wish to imitate the great, too many
+poor working-men who ape the well-to-do middle classes, too many
+shop-girls who play at being ladies, too many clerks who act the
+club-man or sportsman; and among those in easy circumstances and the
+rich, are too many people who forget that what they possess could serve
+a better purpose than procuring pleasure for themselves, only to find in
+the end that one never has enough. Our needs, in place of the servants
+that they should be, have become a turbulent and seditious crowd, a
+legion of tyrants in miniature. A man enslaved to his needs may best be
+compared to a bear with a ring in its nose, that is led about and made
+to dance at will. The likeness is not flattering, but you will grant
+that it is true. It is in the train of their own needs that so many of
+those men are dragged along who rant for liberty, progress, and I don't
+know what else. They cannot take a step without asking themselves if it
+might not irritate their masters. How many men and women have gone on
+and on, even to dishonesty, for the sole reason that they had too many
+needs and could not resign themselves to simple living. There are many
+guests in the chambers of Mazas who could give us much light on the
+subject of too exigent needs.
+
+Let me tell you the story of an excellent man whom I knew. He tenderly
+loved his wife and children, and they all lived together, in France, in
+comfort and plenty, but with little of the luxury the wife coveted.
+Always short of money, though with a little management he might have
+been at ease, he ended by exiling himself to a distant colony, leaving
+his wife and children in the mother country. I don't know how the poor
+man can feel off there; but his family has a finer apartment, more
+beautiful toilettes, and what passes for an equipage. At present they
+are perfectly contented, but soon they will be used to this
+luxury--rudimentary after all. Then Madam will find her furniture common
+and her equipage mean. If this man loves his wife--and that cannot be
+doubted--he will migrate to the moon if there is hope of a larger
+stipend. In other cases the roles are reversed, and the wife and
+children are sacrificed to the ravenous needs of the head of the family,
+whom an irregular life, play, and countless other costly follies have
+robbed of all dignity. Between his appetites and his role of father he
+has decided for the former, and he slowly drifts toward the most abject
+egoism.
+
+This forgetfulness of all responsibility, this gradual benumbing of
+noble feeling, is not alone to be found among pleasure-seekers of the
+upper classes: the people also are infected. I know more than one little
+household, which ought to be happy, where the mother has only pain and
+heartache day and night, the children are barefoot, and there is great
+ado for bread. Why? Because too much money is needed by the father. To
+speak only of the expenditure for alcohol, everybody knows the
+proportions that has reached in the last twenty years. The sums
+swallowed up in this gulf are fabulous--twice the indemnity of the war
+of 1870. How many legitimate needs could have been satisfied with that
+which has been thrown away on these artificial ones! The reign of wants
+is by no means the reign of brotherhood. The more things a man desires
+for himself, the less he can do for his neighbor, and even for those
+attached to him by ties of blood.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+The destruction of happiness, independence, moral fineness, even of the
+sentiment of common interests--such is the result of the reign of needs.
+A multitude of other unfortunate things might be added, of which not the
+least is the disturbance of the public welfare. When society has too
+great needs, it is absorbed with the present, sacrifices to it the
+conquests of the past, immolates to it the future. After us the deluge!
+To raze the forests in order to get gold; to squander your patrimony in
+youth, destroying in a day the fruit of long years; to warm your house
+by burning your furniture; to burden the future with debts for the sake
+of present pleasure; to live by expedients and sow for the morrow
+trouble, sickness, ruin, envy and hate--the enumeration of all the
+misdeeds of this fatal regime has no end.
+
+On the other hand, if we hold to simple needs we avoid all these evils
+and replace them by measureless good. That temperance and sobriety are
+the best guardians of health is an old story. They spare him who
+observes them many a misery that saddens existence; they insure him
+health, love of action, mental poise. Whether it be a question of food,
+dress, or dwelling, simplicity of taste is also a source of independence
+and safety. The more simply you live, the more secure is your future;
+you are less at the mercy of surprises and reverses. An illness or a
+period of idleness does not suffice to dispossess you: a change of
+position, even considerable, does not put you to confusion. Having
+simple needs, you find it less painful to accustom yourself to the
+hazards of fortune. You remain a man, though you lose your office or
+your income, because the foundation on which your life rests is not your
+table, your cellar, your horses, your goods and chattels, or your money.
+In adversity you will not act like a nursling deprived of its bottle and
+rattle. Stronger, better armed for the struggle, presenting, like those
+with shaven heads, less advantage to the hands of your enemy, you will
+also be of more profit to your neighbor. For you will not rouse his
+jealousy, his base desires or his censure, by your luxury, your
+prodigality, or the spectacle of a sycophant's life; and, less absorbed
+in your own comfort, you will find the means of working for that of
+others.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+SIMPLE PLEASURES
+
+
+Do you find life amusing in these days? For my part, on the whole, it
+seems rather depressing, and I fear that my opinion is not altogether
+personal. As I observe the lives of my contemporaries, and listen to
+their talk, I find myself unhappily confirmed in the opinion that they
+do not get much pleasure out of things. And certainly it is not from
+lack of trying; but it must be acknowledged that their success is
+meagre. Where can the fault be?
+
+Some accuse politics or business; others social problems or militarism.
+We meet only an embarrassment of choice when we start to unstring the
+chaplet of our carking cares. Suppose we set out in pursuit of pleasure.
+There is too much pepper in our soup to make it palatable. Our arms are
+filled with a multitude of embarrassments, any one of which would be
+enough to spoil our temper. From morning till night, wherever we go, the
+people we meet are hurried, worried, preoccupied. Some have spilt their
+good blood in the miserable conflicts of petty politics: others are
+disheartened by the meanness and jealousy they have encountered in the
+world of literature or art. Commercial competition troubles the sleep of
+not a few. The crowded curricula of study and the exigencies of their
+opening careers, spoil life for young men. The working classes suffer
+the consequences of a ceaseless industrial struggle. It is becoming
+disagreeable to govern, because authority is diminishing; to teach,
+because respect is vanishing. Wherever one turns there is matter for
+discontent.
+
+And yet history shows us certain epochs of upheaval which were as
+lacking in idyllic tranquillity as is our own, but which the gravest
+events did not prevent from being gay. It even seems as if the
+seriousness of affairs, the uncertainty of the morrow, the violence of
+social convulsions, sometimes became a new source of vitality. It is not
+a rare thing to hear soldiers singing between two battles, and I think
+myself nowise mistaken in saying that human joy has celebrated its
+finest triumphs under the greatest tests of endurance. But to sleep
+peacefully on the eve of battle or to exult at the stake, men had then
+the stimulus of an internal harmony which we perhaps lack. Joy is not in
+things, it is in us, and I hold to the belief that the causes of our
+present unrest, of this contagious discontent spreading everywhere, are
+in us at least as much as in exterior conditions.
+
+To give one's self up heartily to diversion one must feel himself on a
+solid basis, must believe in life and find it within him. And here lies
+our weakness. So many of us--even, alas! the younger men--are at
+variance with life; and I do not speak of philosophers only. How do you
+think a man can be amused while he has his doubts whether after all life
+is worth living? Besides this, one observes a disquieting depression of
+vital force, which must be attributed to the abuse man makes of his
+sensations. Excess of all kinds has blurred our senses and poisoned our
+faculty for happiness. Human nature succumbs under the irregularities
+imposed upon it. Deeply attainted at its root, the desire to live,
+persistent in spite of everything, seeks satisfaction in cheats and
+baubles. In medical science we have recourse to artificial respiration,
+artificial alimentation, and galvanism. So, too, around expiring
+pleasure we see a crowd of its votaries, exerting themselves to reawaken
+it, to reanimate it Most ingenious means have been invented; it can
+never be said that expense has been spared. Everything has been tried,
+the possible and the impossible. But in all these complicated alembics
+no one has ever arrived at distilling a drop of veritable joy. We must
+not confound pleasure with the instruments of pleasure. To be a painter,
+does it suffice to arm one's self with a brush, or does the purchase at
+great cost of a Stradivarius make one a musician? No more, if you had
+the whole paraphernalia of amusement in the perfection of its
+ingenuity, would it advance you upon your road. But with a bit of
+crayon a great artist makes an immortal sketch. It needs talent or
+genius to paint; and to amuse one's self, the faculty of being happy:
+whoever possesses it is amused at slight cost. This faculty is destroyed
+by scepticism, artificial living, over-abuse; it is fostered by
+confidence, moderation and normal habits of thought and action.
+
+An excellent proof of my proposition, and one very easily encountered,
+lies in the fact that wherever life is simple and sane, true pleasure
+accompanies it as fragrance does uncultivated flowers. Be this life
+hard, hampered, devoid of all things ordinarily considered as the very
+conditions of pleasure, the rare and delicate plant, joy, flourishes
+there. It springs up between the flags of the pavement, on an arid wall,
+in the fissure of a rock. We ask ourselves how it comes, and whence: but
+it lives; while in the soft warmth of conservatories or in fields richly
+fertilized you cultivate it at a golden cost to see it fade and die in
+your hand.
+
+Ask actors what audience is happiest at the play; they will tell you the
+popular one. The reason is not hard to grasp. To these people the play
+is an exception, they are not bored by it from over-indulgence. And,
+too, to them it is a rest from rude toil. The pleasure they enjoy they
+have honestly earned, and they know its cost as they know that of each
+sou earned by the sweat of their labor. More, they have not frequented
+the wings, they have no intrigues with the actresses, they do not see
+the wires pulled. To them it is all real. And so they feel pleasure
+unalloyed. I think I see the sated sceptic, whose monocle glistens in
+that box, cast a disdainful glance over the smiling crowd.
+
+"Poor stupid creatures, ignorant and gross!"
+
+And yet they are the true livers, while he is an artificial product, a
+mannikin, incapable of experiencing this fine and salutary intoxication
+of an hour of frank pleasure.
+
+Unhappily, ingenuousness is disappearing, even in the rural districts.
+We see the people of our cities, and those of the country in their turn,
+breaking with the good traditions. The mind, warped by alcohol, by the
+passion for gambling, and by unhealthy literature, contracts little by
+little perverted tastes. Artificial life makes irruption into
+communities once simple in their pleasures, and it is like phylloxera to
+the vine. The robust tree of rustic joy finds its sap drained, its
+leaves turning yellow.
+
+Compare a _fete champetre_ of the good old style with the village
+festivals, so-called, of to-day. In the one case, in the honored setting
+of antique costumes, genuine countrymen sing the folk songs, dance
+rustic dances, regale themselves with native drinks, and seem entirely
+in their element. They take their pleasure as the blacksmith forges, as
+the cascade tumbles over the rocks, as the colts frisk in the meadows.
+It is contagious: it stirs your heart. In spite of yourself you are
+ready to cry: "Bravo, my children. That is fine!" You want to join in.
+In the other case, you see villagers disguised as city folk,
+countrywomen made hideous by the modiste, and, as the chief ornament of
+the festival, a lot of degenerates who bawl the songs of music halls;
+and sometimes in the place of honor, a group of tenth-rate barnstormers,
+imported for the occasion, to civilize these rustics and give them a
+taste of refined pleasures. For drinks, liquors mixed with brandy or
+absinthe: in the whole thing neither originality nor picturesqueness.
+License, indeed, and clownishness, but not that _abandon_ which
+ingenuous joy brings in its train.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+This question of pleasure is capital. Staid people generally neglect it
+as a frivolity; utilitarians, as a costly superfluity. Those whom we
+designate as pleasure-seekers forage in this delicate domain like wild
+boars in a garden. No one seems to doubt the immense human interest
+attached to joy. It is a sacred flame that must be fed, and that throws
+a splendid radiance over life. He who takes pains to foster it
+accomplishes a work as profitable for humanity as he who builds bridges,
+pierces tunnels, or cultivates the ground. So to order one's life as to
+keep, amid toils and suffering, the faculty of happiness, and be able to
+propagate it in a sort of salutary contagion among one's fellow-men, is
+to do a work of fraternity in the noblest sense. To give a trifling
+pleasure, smooth an anxious brow, bring a little light into dark
+paths--what a truly divine office in the midst of this poor humanity!
+But it is only in great simplicity of heart that one succeeds in
+filling it.
+
+We are not simple enough to be happy and to render others so. We lack
+the singleness of heart and the self-forgetfulness. We spread joy, as we
+do consolation, by such methods as to obtain negative results. To
+console a person, what do we do? We set to work to dispute his
+suffering, persuade him that he is mistaken in thinking himself unhappy.
+In reality, our language translated into truthful speech would amount to
+this: "You suffer, my friend? That is strange; you must be mistaken, for
+I feel nothing." As the only human means of soothing grief is to share
+it in the heart, how must a sufferer feel, consoled in this fashion?
+
+To divert our neighbor, make him pass an agreeable hour, we set out in
+the same way. We invite him to admire our versatility, to laugh at our
+wit, to frequent our house, to sit at our table; through it all, our
+desire to shine breaks forth. Sometimes, also, with a patron's
+prodigality, we offer him the beneficence of a public entertainment of
+our own choosing, unless we ask him to find amusement at our home, as we
+sometimes do to make up a party at cards, with the _arriere-pensee_ of
+exploiting him to our own profit. Do you think it the height of
+pleasure for others to admire us, to admit our superiority, and to act
+as our tools? Is there anything in the world so disgusting as to feel
+one's self patronized, made capital of, enrolled in a claque? To give
+pleasure to others and take it ourselves, we have to begin by removing
+the ego, which is hateful, and then keep it in chains as long as the
+diversions last. There is no worse kill-joy than the ego. We must be
+good children, sweet and kind, button our coats over our medals and
+titles, and with our whole heart put ourselves at the disposal of
+others.
+
+Let us sometimes live--be it only for an hour, and though we must lay
+all else aside--to make others smile. The sacrifice is only in
+appearance; no one finds more pleasure for himself than he who knows
+how, without ostentation, to give himself that he may procure for those
+around him a moment of forgetfulness and happiness.
+
+When shall we be so simply and truly _men_ as not to obtrude our
+personal business and distresses upon the people we meet socially? May
+we not forget for an hour our pretensions, our strife, our distributions
+into sets and cliques--in short, our "parts," and become as children
+once more, to laugh again that good laugh which does so much to make the
+world better?
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Here I feel drawn to speak of something very particular, and in so doing
+to offer my well-disposed readers an opportunity to go about a splendid
+business. I want to call their attention to several classes of people
+seldom thought of with reference to their pleasures.
+
+It is understood that a broom serves only to sweep, a watering-pot to
+water plants, a coffee-mill to grind coffee, and likewise it is supposed
+that a nurse is designed only to care for the sick, a professor to
+teach, a priest to preach, bury, and confess, a sentinel to mount guard;
+and the conclusion is drawn that the people given up to the more serious
+business of life are dedicated to labor, like the ox. Amusement is
+incompatible with their activities. Pushing this view still further, we
+think ourselves warranted in believing that the infirm, the afflicted,
+the bankrupt, the vanquished in life's battle, and all those who carry
+heavy burdens, are in the shade, like the northern slopes of mountains,
+and that it is so of necessity. Whence the conclusion that serious
+people have no need of pleasure, and that to offer it to them would be
+unseemly; while as to the afflicted, there would be a lack of delicacy
+in breaking the thread of their sad meditations. It seems therefore to
+be understood that certain persons are condemned to be _always_ serious,
+that we should approach them in a serious frame of mind, and talk to
+them only of serious things: so, too, when we visit the sick or
+unfortunate; we should leave our smiles at the door, compose our face
+and manner to dolefulness, and talk of anything heartrending. Thus we
+carry darkness to those in darkness, shade to those in shade. We
+increase the isolation of solitary lives and the monotony of the dull
+and sad. We wall up some existences as it were in dungeons; and because
+the grass grows round their deserted prison-house, we speak low in
+approaching it, as though it were a tomb. Who suspects the work of
+infernal cruelty which is thus accomplished every day in the world! This
+ought not to be.
+
+When you find men or women whose lives are lost in hard tasks, or in the
+painful office of seeking out human wretchedness and binding up wounds,
+remember that they are beings made like you, that they have the same
+wants, that there are hours when they need pleasure and diversion. You
+will not turn them aside from their mission by making them laugh
+occasionally--these people who see so many tears and griefs; on the
+contrary, you will give them strength to go on the better with their
+work.
+
+And when people whom you know are in trial, do not draw a sanitary
+cordon round them--as though they had the plague--that you cross only
+with precautions which recall to them their sad lot. On the contrary,
+after showing all your sympathy, all your respect for their grief,
+comfort them, help them to take up life again; carry them a breath from
+the out-of-doors--something in short to remind them that their
+misfortune does not shut them off from the world.
+
+And so extend your sympathy to those whose work quite absorbs them, who
+are, so to put it, tied down. The world is full of men and women
+sacrificed to others, who never have either rest or pleasure, and to
+whom the least relaxation, the slightest respite, is a priceless good.
+And this minimum of comfort could be so easily found for them if only
+we thought of it. But the broom, you know, is made for sweeping, and it
+seems as though it could not be fatigued. Let us rid ourselves of this
+criminal blindness which prevents us from seeing the exhaustion of those
+who are always in the breach. Relieve the sentinels perishing at their
+posts, give Sisyphus an hour to breathe; take for a moment the place of
+the mother, a slave to the cares of her house and her children;
+sacrifice an hour of our sleep for someone worn by long vigils with the
+sick. Young girl, tired sometimes perhaps of your walk with your
+governess, take the cook's apron, and give her the key to the fields.
+You will at once make others happy and be happy yourself. We go
+unconcernedly along beside our brothers who are bent under burdens we
+might take upon ourselves for a minute. And this short respite would
+suffice to soothe aches, revive the flame of joy in many a heart, and
+open up a wide place for brotherliness. How much better would one
+understand another if he knew how to put himself heartily in that
+other's place, and how much more pleasure there would be in life!
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I have spoken too fully elsewhere of systematizing amusements for the
+young, to return to it here in detail.[B] But I wish to say in substance
+what cannot be too often repeated: If you wish youth to be moral, do not
+neglect its pleasures, or leave to chance the task of providing them.
+You will perhaps say that young people do not like to have their
+amusements submitted to regulations, and that besides, in our day, they
+are already over-spoiled and divert themselves only too much. I shall
+reply, first, that one may suggest ideas, indicate directions, offer
+opportunities for amusement, without making any regulations whatever. In
+the second place, I shall make you see that you deceive yourselves in
+thinking youth has too much diversion. Aside from amusements that are
+artificial, enervating and immoral, that blight life instead of making
+it bloom in splendor, there are very few left to-day. Abuse, that enemy
+of legitimate use, has so befouled the world, that it is becoming
+difficult to touch anything but what is unclean: whence watchfulness,
+warnings and endless prohibitions. One can hardly stir without
+encountering something that resembles unhealthy pleasure. Among young
+people of to-day, particularly the self-respecting, the dearth of
+amusements causes real suffering. One is not weaned from this generous
+wine without discomfort. Impossible to prolong this state of affairs
+without deepening the shadow round the heads of the younger generations.
+We must come to their aid. Our children are heirs of a joyless world. We
+bequeath them cares, hard questions, a life heavy with shackles and
+complexities. Let us at least make an effort to brighten the morning of
+their days. Let us interest ourselves in their sports, find them
+pleasure-grounds, open to them our hearts and our homes. Let us bring
+the family into our amusements. Let gayety cease to be a commodity of
+export. Let us call in our sons, whom our gloomy interiors send out into
+the street, and our daughters, moping in dismal solitude. Let us
+multiply anniversaries, family parties, and excursions. Let us raise
+good humor in our homes to the height of an institution. Let the
+schools, too, do their part. Let masters and students--school-boys and
+college-boys--meet together oftener for amusement. It will be so much
+the better for serious work. There is no such aid to understanding one's
+professor as to have laughed in his company; and conversely, to be well
+understood a pupil must be met elsewhere than in class or examination.
+
+And who will furnish the money? What a question! That is exactly the
+error. Pleasure and money: people take them for the two wings of the
+same bird! A gross illusion! Pleasure, like all other truly precious
+things in this world, cannot be bought or sold. If you wish to be
+amused, you must do your part toward it; that is the essential. There is
+no prohibition against opening your purse, if you can do it, and find it
+desirable. But I assure you it is not indispensable. Pleasure and
+simplicity are two old acquaintances. Entertain simply, meet your
+friends simply. If you come from work well done, are as amiable and
+genuine as possible toward your companions, and speak no evil of the
+absent, your success is sure.
+
+[B] See "Youth," the chapter on "Joy."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE MERCENARY SPIRIT AND SIMPLICITY
+
+
+We have in passing touched upon a certain wide-spread prejudice which
+attributes to money a magic power. Having come so near enchanted ground
+we will not retire in awe, but plant a firm foot here, persuaded of many
+truths that should be spoken. They are not new, but how they are
+forgotten!
+
+I see no possible way of doing without money. The only thing that
+theorists or legislators who accuse it of all our ills have hitherto
+achieved, has been to change its name or form. But they have never been
+able to dispense with a symbol representative of the commercial value of
+things. One might as well wish to do away with written language as to do
+away with money. Nevertheless, this question of a circulating medium is
+very troublesome. It forms one of the chief elements of complication in
+our life. The economic difficulties amid which we still flounder, social
+conventionalities, and the entire organization of modern life, have
+carried gold to a rank so eminent that it is not astonishing to find the
+imagination of man attributing to it a sort of royalty. And it is on
+this side that we shall attack the problem.
+
+The term money has for appendage that of merchandise. If there were no
+merchandise there would be no money; but as long as there is merchandise
+there will be money, little matter under what form. The source of all
+the abuses which centre around money lies in a lack of discrimination.
+People have confused under the term and idea of merchandise, things
+which have no relation with one another. They have attempted to give a
+venal value to things which neither could have it nor ought to. The idea
+of purchase and sale has invaded ground where it may justly be
+considered an enemy and a usurper. It is reasonable that wheat,
+potatoes, wine, fabrics, should be bought and sold, and it is perfectly
+natural that a man's labor procure him rights to life, and that there be
+put into his hands something whose value represents them; but here
+already the analogy ceases to be complete. A man's labor is not
+merchandise in the same sense as a sack of flour or a ton of coal. Into
+this labor enter elements which cannot be valued in money. In short,
+there are things which can in no wise be bought: sleep, for instance,
+knowledge of the future, talent. He who offers them for sale must be
+considered a fool or an impostor. And yet there are gentlemen who coin
+money by such traffic. They sell what does not belong to them, and
+their dupes pay fictitious values in veritable coin. So, too, there are
+dealers in pleasure, dealers in love, dealers in miracles, dealers in
+patriotism, and the title of merchant, so honorable when it represents a
+man selling that which is in truth a commodity of trade, becomes the
+worst of stigmas when there is question of the heart, of religion, of
+country.
+
+Almost all men are agreed that to barter with one's sentiments, his
+honor, his cloth, his pen, or his note, is infamous. Unfortunately this
+idea, which suffers no contradiction as a theory, and which thus stated
+seems rather a commonplace than a high moral truth, has infinite trouble
+to make its way in practice. Traffic has invaded the world. The
+money-changers are established even in the sanctuary, and by sanctuary I
+do not mean religious things alone, but whatever mankind holds sacred
+and inviolable. It is not gold that complicates, corrupts, and debases
+life; it is our mercenary spirit.
+
+The mercenary spirit resolves everything into a single question: _How
+much is that going to bring me?_ and sums up everything in a single
+axiom: _With money you can procure anything._ Following these two
+principles of conduct, a society may descend to a degree of infamy
+impossible to describe or to imagine.
+
+_How much is it going to bring me?_ This question, so legitimate while
+it concerns those precautions which each ought to take to assure his
+subsistence by his labor, becomes pernicious as soon as it passes its
+limits and dominates the whole life. This is so true that it vitiates
+even the toil which gains our daily bread. I furnish paid labor; nothing
+could be better: but if to inspire me in this labor I have only the
+desire to get the pay, nothing could be worse. A man whose only motive
+for action is his wages, does a bad piece of work: what interests him is
+not the doing, it's the gold. If he can retrench in pains without
+lessening his gains, be assured that he will do it. Plowman, mason,
+factory laborer, he who loves not his work puts into it neither interest
+nor dignity--is, in short, a bad workman. It is not well to confide
+one's life to a doctor who is wholly engrossed in his fees, for the
+spring of his action is the desire to garnish his purse with the
+contents of yours. If it is for his interest that you should suffer
+longer, he is capable of fostering your malady instead of fortifying
+your strength. The instructor of children who cares for his work only so
+far as it brings him profit, is a sad teacher; for his pay is
+indifferent, and his teaching more indifferent still. Of what value is
+the mercenary journalist? The day you write for the dollar, your prose
+is not worth the dollar you write for. The more elevated in kind is the
+object of human labor, the more the mercenary spirit, if it be present,
+makes this labor void and corrupts it. There are a thousand reasons to
+say that all toil merits its wage, that every man who devotes his
+energies to providing for his life should have his place in the sun, and
+that he who does nothing useful, does not gain his livelihood, in short,
+is only a parasite. But there is no greater social error than to make
+gain the sole motive of action. The best we put into our work--be that
+work done by strength of muscle, warmth of heart, or concentration of
+mind--is precisely that for which no one can pay us. Nothing better
+proves that man is not a machine than this fact: two men at work with
+the same forces and the same movements, produce totally different
+results. Where lies the cause of this phenomenon? In the divergence of
+their intentions. One has the mercenary spirit, the other has singleness
+of purpose. Both receive their pay, but the labor of the one is barren;
+the other has put his soul into his work. The work of the first is like
+a grain of sand, out of which nothing comes through all eternity; the
+other's work is like the living seed thrown into the ground; it
+germinates and brings forth harvests. This is the secret which explains
+why so many people have failed while employing the very processes by
+which others succeed. Automatons do not reproduce their kind, and
+mercenary labor yields no fruit.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Unquestionably we must bow before economic facts, and recognize the
+difficulties of living: from day to day it becomes more imperative to
+combine well one's forces in order to succeed in feeding, clothing,
+housing, and bringing up a family. He who does not rightly take account
+of these crying necessities, who makes no calculation, no provision for
+the future, is but a visionary or an incompetent, and runs the risk of
+sooner or later asking alms from those at whose parsimony he has
+sneered. And yet, what would become of us if these cares absorbed us
+entirely? if, mere accountants, we should wish to measure our effort by
+the money it brings, do nothing that does not end in a receipt, and
+consider as things worthless or pains lost whatever cannot be drawn up
+in figures on the pages of a ledger? Did our mothers look for pay in
+loving us and caring for us? What would become of filial piety if we
+asked it for loving and caring for our aged parents?
+
+What does it cost you to speak the truth? Misunderstandings, sometimes
+sufferings and persecutions. To defend your country? Weariness, wounds
+and often death. To do good? Annoyance, ingratitude, even resentment.
+Self-sacrifice enters into all the essential actions of humanity. I defy
+the closest calculators to maintain their position in the world without
+ever appealing to aught but their calculations. True, those who know how
+to make their "pile" are rated as men of ability. But look a little
+closer. How much of it do they owe to the unselfishness of the
+simple-hearted? Would they have succeeded had they met only shrewd men
+of their own sort, having for device: "No money, no service?" Let us be
+outspoken; it is due to certain people who do not count too rigorously,
+that the world gets on. The most beautiful acts of service and the
+hardest tasks have generally little remuneration or none. Fortunately
+there are always men ready for unselfish deeds; and even for those paid
+only in suffering, though they cost gold, peace, and even life. The part
+these men play is often painful and discouraging. Who of us has not
+heard recitals of experiences wherein the narrator regretted some past
+kindness he had done, some trouble he had taken, to have nothing but
+vexation in return? These confidences generally end thus: "It was folly
+to do the thing!" Sometimes it is right so to judge; for it is always a
+mistake to cast pearls before swine; but how many lives there are whose
+sole acts of real beauty are these very ones of which the doers repent
+because of men's ingratitude! Our wish for humanity is that the number
+of these foolish deeds may go on increasing.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+And now I arrive at the _credo_ of the mercenary spirit. It is
+characterized by brevity. For the mercenary man, the law and the
+prophets are contained in this one axiom: _With money you can get
+anything._ From a surface view of our social life, nothing seems more
+evident. "The sinews of war," "the shining mark," "the key that opens
+all doors," "king money!"--If one gathered up all the sayings about the
+glory and power of gold, he could make a litany longer than that which
+is chanted in honor of the Virgin. You must be without a penny, if only
+for a day or two, and try to live in this world of ours, to have any
+idea of the needs of him whose purse is empty. I invite those who love
+contrasts and unforeseen situations, to attempt to live without money
+three days, and far from their friends and acquaintances--in short, far
+from the society in which they are somebody. They will gain more
+experience in forty-eight hours than in a year otherwise. Alas for some
+people! they have this experience thrust upon them, and when veritable
+ruin descends around their heads, it is useless to remain in their own
+country, among the companions of their youth, their former colleagues,
+even those indebted to them. People affect to know them no longer. With
+what bitterness do they comment on the creed of money:--With gold one
+may have what he will; without it, impossible to have anything! They
+become pariahs, lepers, whom everyone shuns. Flies swarm round cadavers,
+men round gold. Take away the gold, nobody is there. Oh, it has caused
+tears to flow, this creed of gain! bitter tears, tears of blood, even
+from those very eyes which once adored the golden calf.
+
+And with it all, this creed is false, quite false. I shall not advance
+to the attack with hackneyed tales of the rich man astray in a desert,
+who cannot get even a drop of water for his gold; or the decrepit
+millionaire who would give half he has to buy from a stalwart fellow
+without a cent, his twenty years and his lusty health. No more shall I
+attempt to prove that one cannot buy happiness. So many people who have
+money and so many more who have not would smile at this truth as the
+hardest ridden of saws. But I shall appeal to the common experience of
+each of you, to make you put your finger on the clumsy lie hidden
+beneath an axiom that all the world goes about repeating.
+
+Fill your purse to the best of your means, and let us set out for one of
+the watering-places of which there are so many. I mean some little town
+formerly unknown and full of simple folk, respectful and hospitable,
+among whom it was good to be, and cost little. Fame with her hundred
+trumpets has announced them to the world, and shown them how they can
+profit from their situation, their climate, their personality. You start
+out, on the faith of Dame Rumor, flattering yourself that with your
+money you are going to find a quiet place to rest, and, far from the
+world of civilization and convention, weave a bit of poetry into the
+warp of your days.
+
+The beginning is good. Nature's setting and some patriarchal costumes,
+slow to disappear, delight you. But as time passes, the impression is
+spoiled. The reverse side of things begins to show. This which you
+thought was as true antique as family heirlooms, is naught but trickery
+to mystify the credulous. Everything is labeled, all is for sale, from
+the earth to the inhabitants. These primitives have become the most
+consummate of sharpers. Given your money, they have resolved the problem
+of getting it with the least expense to themselves. On all sides are
+nets and traps, like spider-webs, and the fly that this gentry lies
+snugly in wait for is _you_. This is what twenty or thirty years of
+venality has done for a population once simple and honest, whose contact
+was grateful indeed to men worn by city life. Home-made bread has
+disappeared, butter comes from the dealer, they know to an art how to
+skim milk and adulterate wine; they have all the vices of dwellers in
+cities without their virtues.
+
+As you leave, you count your money. So much is wanting, that you make
+complaint. You are wrong. One never pays too dear for the conviction
+that there are things which money will not buy.
+
+You have need in your house of an intelligent and competent servant:
+attempt to find this _rara avis_. According to the principle that with
+money one may get anything, you ought, as the position you offer is
+inferior, ordinary, good, or exceptional, to find servants unskilled,
+average, excellent, superior. But all those who present themselves for
+the vacant post are listed in the last category, and are fortified with
+certificates to support their pretensions. It is true that nine times
+out of ten, when put to the test, these experts are found totally
+wanting. Then why did they engage themselves with you? They ought in
+truth to reply as does the cook in the comedy, who is dearly paid and
+proves to know nothing.
+
+    "Why did you hire out as a _cordon bleu_?
+    _It was to get bigger commissions."_
+
+That is the great affair. You will always find people who like to get
+big wages. More rarely you find capability. And if you are looking for
+probity, the difficulty increases. Mercenaries may be had for the
+asking; faithfulness is another thing. Far be it from me to deny the
+existence of faithful servants, at once intelligent and upright. But you
+will encounter as many, if not more, among the illy paid as among those
+most highly salaried. And it little matters where you find them, you may
+be sure that they are not faithful in their own interest; they are
+faithful because they have somewhat of that simplicity which renders us
+capable of self-abnegation.
+
+We also hear on all sides the adage that money is the sinews of war.
+There is no question but that war costs much money, and we know
+something about it. Does this mean that in order to defend herself
+against her enemies and to honor her flag, a country need only be rich?
+In olden time the Greeks took it upon themselves to teach the Persians
+the contrary, and this lesson will never cease to be repeated in
+history. With money ships, cannon, horses may be bought; but not so
+military genius, administrative wisdom, discipline, enthusiasm. Put
+millions into the hands of your recruiters, and charge them to bring you
+a great leader and an army. You will find a hundred captains instead of
+one, and a thousand soldiers. But put them under fire: you will have
+enough of your hirelings! At least one might imagine that with money
+alone it is possible to lighten misery. Ah! that too is an illusion from
+which we must turn away. Money, be the sum great or small, is a seed
+which germinates into abuses. Unless there go with it intelligence,
+kindness, much knowledge of men, it will do nothing but harm, and we run
+great risk of corrupting both those who receive our bounty and those
+charged with its distribution.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Money will not answer for everything: it is a power, but it is not
+all-powerful. Nothing complicates life, demoralizes man, perverts the
+normal course of society like the development of venality. Wherever it
+reigns, everybody is duped by everybody else: one can no longer put
+trust in persons or things, no longer obtain anything of value. We would
+not be detractors of money, but this general law must be applied to it:
+_Everything in its own place._ When gold, which should be a servant,
+becomes a tyrannical power, affronting morality, dignity and liberty;
+when some exert themselves to obtain it at any price, offering for sale
+what is not merchandise, and others, possessing wealth, fancy that they
+can purchase what no one may buy, it is time to rise against this gross
+and criminal superstition, and cry aloud to the imposture: "Thy money
+perish with thee!" The most precious things that man possesses he has
+almost always received gratuitously: let him learn so to give them.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+NOTORIETY AND THE INGLORIOUS GOOD
+
+
+One of the chief puerilities of our time is the love of advertisement.
+To emerge from obscurity, to be in the public eye, to make one's self
+talked of--some people are so consumed with this desire that we are
+justified in declaring them attacked with an itch for publicity. In
+their eyes obscurity is the height of ignominy: so they do their best to
+keep their names in every mouth. In their obscure position they look
+upon themselves as lost, like ship-wrecked sailors whom a night of
+tempest has cast on some lonely rock, and who have recourse to cries,
+volleys, fire, all the signals imaginable, to let it be known that they
+are there. Not content with setting off crackers and innocent rockets,
+many, to make themselves heard at any cost, have gone to the length of
+perfidy and even crime. The incendiary Erostratus has made numerous
+disciples. How many men of to-day have become notorious for having
+destroyed something of mark; pulled down--or tried to pull down--some
+man's high reputation; signalled their passage, in short, by a scandal,
+a meanness, or an atrocity!
+
+This rage for notoriety does not surge through cracked brains alone, or
+only in the world of adventurers, charlatans and pretenders generally;
+it has spread abroad in all the domains of life, spiritual and material.
+Politics, literature, even science, and--most odious of
+all--philanthropy and religion are infected. Trumpets announce a good
+deed done, and souls must be saved with din and clamor. Pursuing its way
+of destruction, the rage for noise has entered places ordinarily silent,
+troubled spirits naturally serene, and vitiated in large measure all
+activity for good. The abuse of showing everything, or rather, putting
+everything on exhibition; the growing incapacity to appreciate that
+which chooses to remain hidden, and the habit of estimating the value of
+things by the racket they make, have come to corrupt the judgment of the
+most earnest men, and one sometimes wonders if society will not end by
+transforming itself into a great fair, with each one beating his drum in
+front of his tent.
+
+Gladly do we quit the dust and din of like exhibitions, to go and
+breathe peacefully in some far-off nook of the woods, all surprise that
+the brook is so limpid, the forest so still, the solitude so enchanting.
+Thank God there are yet these uninvaded corners. However formidable the
+uproar, however deafening the babel of merry-andrews, it cannot carry
+beyond a certain limit; it grows faint and dies away. The realm of
+silence is vaster than the realm of noise. Herein is our consolation.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Rest a moment on the threshold of this infinite world of inglorious
+good, of quiet activities. Instantly we are under the charm we feel in
+stretches of untrodden snow, in hiding wood-flowers, in disappearing
+pathways that seem to lead to horizons without bourn. The world is so
+made that the engines of labor, the most active agencies, are everywhere
+concealed. Nature affects a sort of coquetry in masking her operations.
+It costs you pains to spy her out, ingenuity to surprise her, if you
+would see anything but results and penetrate the secrets of her
+laboratories. Likewise in human society, the forces which move for good
+remain invisible, and even in our individual lives; what is best in us
+is incommunicable, buried in the depths of us. And the more vital are
+these sensibilities and intuitions, confounding themselves with the very
+source of our being, the less ostentatious they are: they think
+themselves profaned by exposure to the light of day. There is a secret
+and inexpressible joy in possessing at the heart of one's being, an
+interior world known only to God, whence, nevertheless, come impulses,
+enthusiasms, the daily renewal of courage, and the most powerful motives
+for activity among our fellow men. When this intimate life loses in
+intensity, when man neglects it for what is superficial, he forfeits in
+worth all that he gains in appearance. By a sad fatality, it happens
+that in this way we often become less admirable in proportion as we are
+more admired. And we remain convinced that what is best in the world is
+unknown there; for only those know it who possess it, and if they speak
+of it, in so doing they destroy its charm.
+
+There are passionate lovers of nature whom she fascinates most in
+by-places, in the cool of forests, in the clefts of canons, everywhere
+that the careless lover is not admitted to her contemplation. Forgetting
+time and the life of the world, they pass days in these inviolate
+stillnesses, watching a bird build its nest or brood over its young, or
+some little groundling at its gracious play. So to seek the good within
+himself--one must go where he no longer finds constraint, or pose, or
+"gallery" of any sort, but the simple fact of a life made up of wishing
+to be what it is good for it to be, without troubling about anything
+else.
+
+May we be permitted to record here some observations made from life? As
+no names are given, they cannot be considered indiscreet.
+
+In my country of Alsace, on the solitary route whose interminable ribbon
+stretches on and on under the forests of the Vosges, there is a
+stone-breaker whom I have seen at his work for thirty years. The first
+time I came upon him, I was a young student, setting out with swelling
+heart for the great city. The sight of this man did me good, for he was
+humming a song as he broke his stones. We exchanged a few words, and he
+said at the end: "Well, good-by, my boy, good courage and good luck!"
+Since then I have passed and repassed along that same route, under
+circumstances the most diverse, painful and joyful. The student has
+finished his course, the breaker of stones remains what he was. He has
+taken a few more precautions against the seasons' storms: a rush-mat
+protects his back, and his felt hat is drawn further down to shield his
+face. But the forest is always sending back the echo of his valiant
+hammer. How many sudden tempests have broken over his bent back, how
+much adverse fate has fallen on his head, on his house, on his country!
+He continues to break his stones, and, coming and going I find him by
+the roadside, smiling in spite of his age and his wrinkles, benevolent,
+speaking--above all in dark days--those simple words of brave men, which
+have so much effect when they are scanned to the breaking of stones.
+
+It would be quite impossible to express the emotion the sight of this
+simple man gives me, and certainly he has no suspicion of it. I know of
+nothing more reassuring and at the same time more searching for the
+vanity which ferments in our hearts, than this coming face to face with
+an obscure worker who does his task as the oak grows and as the good God
+makes his sun to rise, without asking who is looking on.
+
+I have known, too, a number of old teachers, men and women who have
+passed their whole life at the same occupation--making the rudiments of
+human knowledge and a few principles of conduct penetrate heads
+sometimes harder than the rocks. They have done it with their whole
+soul, throughout the length of a hard life in which the attention of men
+had little place. When they lie in their unknown graves, no one
+remembers them but a few humble people like themselves. But their
+recompense is in their love. No one is greater than these unknown.
+
+How many hidden virtues may one not discover--if he know how to
+search--among people of a class he often ridicules without perceiving
+that in so doing he is guilty of cruelty, ingratitude and stupidity: I
+mean old maids. People amuse themselves with remarking the surprising
+dress and ways of some of them--things of no consequence, for that
+matter. They persist also in reminding us that others, very selfish,
+take interest in nothing but their own comfort and that of some cat or
+canary upon which their powers of affection center; and certainly these
+are not outdone in egoism by the most hardened celibates of the stronger
+sex. But what we oftenest forget is the amount of self-sacrifice hidden
+modestly away in so many of these truly admirable lives. Is it nothing
+to be without home and its love, without future, without personal
+ambition? to take upon one's self that cross of solitary life, so hard
+to bear, especially when there is added the solitude of the heart? to
+forget one's self and have no other interests than the care of the old,
+of orphans, the poor, the infirm--those whom the brutal mechanism of
+life casts out among its waste? Seen from without, these apparently tame
+and lusterless lives rouse pity rather than envy. Those who approach
+gently sometimes divine sad secrets, great trials undergone, heavy
+burdens beneath which too fragile shoulders bend; but this is only the
+side of shadow. We should learn to know and value this richness of
+heart, this pure goodness, this power to love, to console, to hope, this
+joyful giving up of self, this persistence in sweetness and forgiveness
+even toward the unworthy. Poor old maids! how many wrecked lives have
+you rescued, how many wounded have you healed, how many wanderers have
+you gently led aright, how many naked have you clothed, how many orphans
+have you taken in, and how many strangers, who would have been alone in
+the world but for you--you who yourselves are often remembered of no
+one. I mistake. Someone knows you; it is that great mysterious Pity
+which keeps watch over our lives and suffers in our misfortunes.
+Forgotten like you, often blasphemed, it has confided to you some of its
+heavenliest messages, and that perhaps is why above your gentle comings
+and goings, we sometimes seem to hear the rustling wings of ministering
+angels.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+The good hides itself under so many different forms, that one has often
+as much pains to discover it as to unearth the best concealed crimes. A
+Russian doctor, who had passed ten years of his life in Siberia,
+condemned for political reasons to forced labor, used to find great
+pleasure in telling of the generosity, courage and humanity he had
+observed, not only among a large number of the condemned, but also
+among the convict guards. For the moment one is tempted to exclaim:
+Where will not the good hide away! And in truth life offers here great
+surprises and embarrassing contrasts. There are good men, officially so
+recognized, quoted among their associates, I had almost said guaranteed
+by the Government or the Church, who can be reproached with nothing but
+dry and hard hearts; while we are astonished to encounter in certain
+fallen human beings, the most genuine tenderness, and as it were a
+thirst for self-devotion.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I should like to speak next--apropos of the inglorious good--of a class
+that to-day it is thought quite fitting to treat with the utmost
+one-sidedness. I mean the rich. Some people think the last word is said
+when they have stigmatized that infamy, capital. For them, all who
+possess great fortunes are monsters gorged with the blood of the
+miserable. Others, not so declamatory, persist, however, in confounding
+riches with egoism and insensibility. Justice should be visited on these
+errors, be they involuntary or calculated. No doubt there are rich men
+who concern themselves with nobody else, and others who do good only
+with ostentation; indeed, we know it too well. But does their inhumanity
+or hypocrisy take away the value of the good that others do, and that
+they often hide with a modesty so perfect?
+
+I knew a man to whom every misfortune had come which can strike us in
+our affections. He had lost a beloved wife, had seen all his children
+buried, one after another. But he had a great fortune, the result of his
+own labor. Living in the utmost simplicity, almost without personal
+wants, he spent his time in searching for opportunities to do good, and
+profiting by them. How many people he surprised in flagrant poverty,
+what means he combined for relieving distress and lighting up dark
+lives, with what kindly thoughtfulness he took his friends unawares, no
+one can imagine. He liked to do good to others and enjoy their surprise
+when they did not know whence the relief came. It pleased him to repair
+the injustices of fortune, to bring tears of happiness in families
+pursued by mischance. He was continually plotting, contriving,
+machinating in the dark, with a childish fear of being caught with his
+hand in the bag. The greater part of these fine deeds were not known
+till after his death; the whole of them we shall never know.
+
+He was a socialist of the right sort! for there are two kinds of them.
+Those who aspire to appropriate to themselves a part of the goods of
+others, are numerous and commonplace. To belong to their order it
+suffices to have a big appetite. Those who are hungering to divide their
+own goods with men who have none, are rare and precious, for to enter
+this choice company there is need of a brave and noble heart, free from
+selfishness, and sensitive to both the happiness and unhappiness of its
+fellows. Fortunately the race of these socialists is not extinct, and I
+feel an unalloyed satisfaction in offering them a tribute they never
+claim.
+
+I must be pardoned for dwelling upon this. It does one good to offset
+the bitterness of so many infamies, so many calumnies, so much
+charlatanism, by resting the eyes upon something more beautiful,
+breathing the perfume of these stray corners where simple goodness
+flowers.
+
+A lady, a foreigner, doubtless little used to Parisian life, just now
+told me with what horror the things she sees here inspire her:--these
+vile posters, these "yellow" journals, these women with bleached hair,
+this crowd rushing to the races, to dance-halls, to roulette tables, to
+corruption--the whole flood of superficial and mundane life. She did not
+speak the word Babylon, but doubtless it was out of pity for one of the
+inhabitants of this city of perdition.
+
+"Alas, yes, madam, these things are sad, but you have not seen all."
+
+"Heaven preserve me from that!"
+
+"On the contrary, I wish you could see everything; for if the dark side
+is very ugly, there is so much to atone for it. And believe me, madam,
+you have simply to change your quarter, or observe at another hour. For
+instance, take the Paris of early morning. It will offer much to correct
+your impressions of the Paris of the night. Go see, among so many other
+working people, the street-sweepers, who come out at the hour when the
+revellers and malefactors go in. Observe beneath these rags those
+caryatid bodies, those austere faces! How serious they are at their work
+of sweeping away the refuse of the night's revelry. One might liken
+them to the prophets at Ahasuerus's gates. There are women among them,
+many old people. When the air is cold they stop to blow their fingers,
+and then go at it again. So it is every day. And they, too, are
+inhabitants of Paris.
+
+"Go next to the faubourgs, to the factories, especially the smaller
+ones, where the children or the employers labor with the men. Watch the
+army of workers marching to their tasks. How ready and willing these
+young girls seem, as they come gaily down from their distant quarters to
+the shops and stores and offices of the city. Then visit the homes from
+which they come. See the woman of the people at her work. Her husband's
+wages are modest, their dwelling is cramped, the children are many, the
+father is often harsh. Make a collection of the biographies of lowly
+people, budgets of modest family life: look at them attentively and
+long.
+
+"After that, go see the students. Those who have scandalized you in the
+streets are numerous, but those who labor hard are legion--only they
+stay at home, and are not talked about. If you knew the toil and dig of
+the Latin Quarter! You find the papers full of the rumpus made by a
+certain set of youths who call themselves students. The papers say
+enough of those who break windows; but why do they make no mention of
+those who spend their nights toiling over problems? Because it wouldn't
+interest the public. Yes, when now and then one of them, a medical
+student perhaps, dies a victim to professional duty, the matter has two
+lines in the dailies. A drunken brawl gets half a column, with every
+detail elaborated. Nothing is lacking but the portraits of the
+heroes--and not always that!
+
+"I should never end were I to try to point out to you all that you must
+go to see if you would see all: you would needs make the tour of society
+at large, rich and poor, wise and ignorant. And certainly you would not
+judge so severely then. Paris is a world, and here, as in the world in
+general, the good hides away while the evil flaunts itself. Observing
+only the surface, you sometimes ask how there can possibly be so much
+riff-raff. When, on the contrary, you look into the depths, you are
+astonished that in this troublous, obscure and sometimes frightful life
+there can be so much of virtue."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+But why linger over these things? Am I _not_ blowing trumpets for those
+who hold trumpet-blowing in horror? Do not understand me so. My aim is
+this--to make men think about unostentatious goodness; above all, to
+make them love it and practice it. The man who finds his satisfaction in
+things which glitter and hold his eyes, is lost: first, because he will
+thus see evil before all else; then, because he gets accustomed to the
+sight of only such good as seeks for notice, and therefore easily
+succumbs to the temptation to live himself for appearances. Not only
+must one be resigned to obscurity, he must love it, if he does not wish
+to slip insensibly into the ranks of figurants, who preserve their parts
+only while under the eyes of the spectators, and put off in the wings
+the restraints imposed on the stage. Here we are in the presence of one
+of the essential elements of the moral life. And this which we say is
+true not only for those who are called humble and whose lot it is to
+pass unremarked; it is just as true, and more so, for the chief actors.
+If you would not be a brilliant inutility, a man of gold lace and
+plumes, but empty inside, you must play the star role in the simple
+spirit of the most obscure of your collaborators. He who is nothing
+worth except on hours of parade, is worth less than nothing. Have we the
+perilous honor of being always in view, of marching in the front ranks?
+Let us take so much the greater care of the sanctuary of silent good
+within us. Let us give to the structure whose facade is seen of our
+fellow-men, a wide foundation of simplicity, of humble fidelity. And
+then, out of sympathy, out of gratitude, let us stay near our brothers
+who are unknown to fame. We owe everything to them--do we not? I call to
+witness everyone who has found in life this encouraging experience, that
+stones hidden in the soil hold up the whole edifice. All those who
+arrive at having a public and recognized value, owe it to some humble
+spiritual ancestors, to some forgotten inspirers. A small number of the
+good, among them simple women, peasants, vanquished heroes, parents as
+modest as they are revered, personify for us beautiful and noble living;
+their example inspires us and gives us strength. The remembrance of them
+is forever inseparable from that conscience before which we arraign
+ourselves. In our hours of trial, we think of them, courageous and
+serene, and our burdens lighten. In clouds they compass us about, these
+witnesses invisible and beloved who keep us from stumbling and our feet
+from falling in the battle; and day by day do they prove to us that the
+treasure of humanity is its hidden goodness.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF THE HOME
+
+
+In the time of the Second Empire, in one of our pleasantest
+sub-prefectures of the provinces, a little way from some baths
+frequented by the Emperor, there was a mayor, a very worthy man and
+intelligent too, whose head was suddenly turned by the thought that his
+sovereign might one day descend upon his home. Up to this time he had
+lived in the house of his fathers, a son respectful of the slightest
+family traditions. But when once the all-absorbing idea of receiving the
+Emperor had taken possession of his brain, he became another man. In
+this new light, what had before seemed sufficient for his needs, even
+enjoyable, all this simplicity that his ancestors had loved, appeared
+poor, ugly, ridiculous. Out of the question to ask an Emperor to climb
+this wooden staircase, sit in these old arm-chairs, walk over such
+superannuated carpets. So the mayor called architect and masons;
+pickaxes attacked walls and demolished partitions, and a drawing-room
+was made, out of all proportion to the rest of the house in size and
+splendor. He and his family retired into close quarters, where people
+and furniture incommoded each other generally. Then, having emptied his
+purse and upset his household by this stroke of genius, he awaited the
+royal guest. Alas, he soon saw the end of the Empire arrive, but the
+Emperor never.
+
+The folly of this poor man is not so rare. As mad as he are all those
+who sacrifice their home life to the demands of the world. And the
+danger in such a sacrifice is most menacing in times of unrest. Our
+contemporaries are constantly exposed to it, and constantly succumbing.
+How many family treasures have they literally thrown away to satisfy
+worldly ambitions and conventions; but the happiness upon which they
+thought to come through these impious immolations always eludes them.
+
+To give up the ancestral hearth, to let the family traditions fall into
+desuetude, to abandon the simple domestic customs, for whatever return,
+is to make a fool's bargain; and such is the place in society of family
+life, that if this be impoverished, the trouble is felt throughout the
+whole social organism. To enjoy a normal development, this organism has
+need of well-tried individuals, each having his own value, his own
+hall-mark. Otherwise society becomes a flock, and sometimes a flock
+without a shepherd. But whence does the individual draw his
+originality--this unique something, which, joined to the distinctive
+qualities of others, constitutes the wealth and strength of a community?
+He can draw it only from his own family. Destroy the assemblage of
+memories and practices whence emanates for each home an atmosphere in
+miniature, and you dry up the sources of character, sap the strength of
+public spirit.
+
+It concerns the country that each home be a world, profound, respected,
+communicating to its members an ineffaceable moral imprint. But before
+pursuing the subject further, let us rid ourselves of a
+misunderstanding. Family feeling, like all beautiful things, has its
+caricature, which is family egoism. Some families are like barred and
+bolted citadels, their members organized for the exploitation of the
+whole world. Everything that does not directly concern them is
+indifferent to them. They live like colonists, I had almost said
+intruders, in the society around them. Their particularism is pushed to
+such an excess that they make enemies of the whole human race. In their
+small way they resemble those powerful societies, formed from time to
+time through the ages, which possess themselves of universal rule, and
+for which no one outside their own community counts. This is the spirit
+that has sometimes made the family seem a retreat of egoism which it was
+necessary to destroy for the public safety. But as patriotism and
+jingoism are as far apart as the east from the west, so are family
+feeling and clannishness.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Here we are talking of right family feeling, and nothing else in the
+world can take its place; for in it lie in germ all those fine and
+simple virtues which assure the strength and duration of social
+institutions. And the very base of family feeling is respect for the
+past; for the best possessions of a family are its common memories. An
+intangible, indivisible and inalienable capital, these souvenirs
+constitute a sacred fund that each member of a family ought to consider
+more precious than anything else he possesses. They exist in a dual
+form: in idea and in fact. They show themselves in language, habits of
+thought, sentiments, even instincts, and one sees them materialized in
+portraits, furniture, buildings, dress, songs. To profane eyes, they are
+nothing; to the eyes of those who know how to appreciate the things of
+the family, they are relics with which one should not part at any price.
+
+But what generally happens in our day? Worldliness wars upon the
+sentiment of family, and I know of no strife more impassioned. By great
+means and small, by all sorts of new customs, requirements and
+pretensions, the spirit of the world breaks into the domestic sanctuary.
+What are this stranger's rights? its titles? Upon what does it rest its
+peremptory claims? This is what people too often neglect to inquire.
+They make a mistake. We treat the invader as very poor and simple people
+do a pompous visitor. For this incommoding guest of a day, they pillage
+their garden, bully their children and servants, and neglect their
+work. Such conduct is not only wrong, it is impolitic. One should have
+the courage to remain what he is, in the face of all comers.
+
+The worldly spirit is full of impertinences. Here is a home which has
+formed characters of mark, and is forming them yet. The people, the
+furnishings, the customs are all in harmony. By marriage or through
+relations of business or pleasure, the worldly spirit enters. It finds
+everything out of date, awkward, too simple, lacking the modern touch.
+At first it restricts itself to criticism and light raillery. But this
+is the dangerous moment. Look out for yourself; here is the enemy! If
+you so much as listen to his reasonings, to-morrow you will sacrifice a
+piece of furniture, the next day a good old tradition, and so one by one
+the family heirlooms dear to the heart will go to the bric-a-brac
+dealer--and filial piety with them.
+
+In the midst of your new habits and in the changed atmosphere, your
+friends of other days, your old relatives, will be expatriated. Your
+next step will be to lay them aside in their turn; the worldly spirit
+leaves the old out of consideration. At last, established in an
+absolutely transformed setting, even you will view yourself with
+amazement. Nothing will be familiar, but surely it will be correct; at
+least the world will be satisfied!--Ah! that is where you are mistaken!
+After having made you cast out pure treasure as so much junk, it will
+find that your borrowed livery fits you ill, and will hasten to make you
+sensible of the ridiculousness of the situation. Much better have had
+from the beginning the courage of your convictions, and have defended
+your home.
+
+Many young people when they marry, listen to this voice of the world.
+Their parents have given them the example of a modest life; but the new
+generation thinks it affirms its rights to existence and liberty, by
+repudiating ways in its eyes too patriarchal. So these young folks make
+efforts to set themselves up lavishly in the latest fashion, and rid
+themselves of useless property at dirt-cheap prices. Instead of filling
+their houses with objects which say: Remember! they garnish them with
+quite new furnishings that as yet have no meaning. Wait, I am wrong;
+these things are often symbols, as it were, of a facile and superficial
+existence. In their midst one breathes a certain heady vapor of
+mundanity. They recall the life outside, the turmoil, the rush. And were
+one sometimes disposed to forget this life, they would call back his
+wandering thought and say: Remember!--in another sense: Do not forget
+your appointment at the club, the play, the races! The home, then,
+becomes a sort of half-way house where one comes to rest a little
+between two prolonged absences; it isn't a good place to stay. As it has
+no soul, it does not speak to yours. Time to eat and sleep, and then off
+again! Otherwise you become as dull as a hermit.
+
+We are all acquainted with people who have a rage for being abroad, who
+think the world would no longer go round if they didn't figure on all
+sides of it. To stay at home is penal; there they cease to be in view. A
+horror of home life possesses them to such a degree that they would
+rather pay to be bored outside than be amused gratuitously within.
+
+In this way society slowly gravitates toward life in herds, which must
+not be confounded with public life. The life in herds is somewhat like
+that of swarms of flies in the sun. Nothing so much resembles the
+worldly life of a man as the worldly life of another man. And this
+universal banality destroys the very essence of public spirit. One need
+not journey far to discover the ravages made in modern society by the
+spirit of worldliness; and if we have so little foundation, so little
+equilibrium, calm good sense and initiative, one of the chief reasons
+lies in the undermining of the home life. The masses have timed their
+pace by that of people of fashion. They too have become worldly. Nothing
+can be more so than to quit one's own hearth for the life of saloons.
+The squalor and misery of the homes is not enough to explain the current
+which carries each man away from his own. Why does the peasant desert
+for the inn the house that his father and grandfather found so
+comfortable? It has remained the same. There is the same fire in the
+same chimney. Whence comes it that it lights only an incomplete circle,
+when in olden times young and old sat shoulder to shoulder? Something
+has changed in the minds of men. Yielding to dangerous impulses, they
+have broken with simplicity. The fathers have quitted their post of
+honor, the wives grow dull beside the solitary hearth, and the children
+quarrel while waiting their turn to go abroad, each after his own fancy.
+
+We must learn again to live the home life, to value our domestic
+traditions. A pious care has preserved certain monuments of the past. So
+antique dress, provincial dialects, old folk songs have found
+appreciative hands to gather them up before they should disappear from
+the earth. What a good deed, to guard these crumbs of a great past,
+these vestiges of the souls of our ancestors! Let us do the same for our
+family traditions, save and guard as much as possible of the
+patriarchal, whatever its form.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+But not everyone has traditions to keep. All the more reason for
+redoubling the effort to constitute and foster a family life. And to do
+this there is need neither of numbers nor a rich establishment. To
+create a home you must have the spirit of home. Just as the smallest
+village may have its history, its moral stamp, so the smallest home may
+have its soul. Oh! the spirit of places, the atmosphere which surrounds
+us in human dwellings! What a world of mystery! Here, even on the
+threshold the cold begins to penetrate, you are ill at ease, something
+intangible repulses you. There, no sooner does the door shut you in than
+friendliness and good humor envelop you. It is said that walls have
+ears. They have also voices, a mute eloquence. Everything that a
+dwelling contains is bathed in an ether of personality. And I find proof
+of its quality even in the apartments of bachelors and solitary women.
+What an abyss between one room and another room! Here, all is dead,
+indifferent, commonplace: the device of the owner is written all over
+it, even in his fashion of arranging his photographs and books: All is
+the same to me! There, one breathes in animation, a contagious joy in
+life. The visitor hears repeated in countless fashions: "Whoever you
+are, guest of an hour, I wish you well, peace be with you!"
+
+Words can do little justice to the subject of home, tell little about
+the effect of a favorite flower in the window, or the charm of an old
+arm-chair where the grandfather used to sit, offering his wrinkled hands
+to the kisses of chubby children. Poor moderns, always moving or
+remodeling! We who from transforming our cities, our houses, our customs
+and creeds, have no longer where to lay our heads, let us not add to the
+pathos and emptiness of our changeful existence by abandoning the life
+of the home. Let us light again the flame put out on our hearths, make
+sanctuaries for ourselves, warm nests where the children may grow into
+men, where love may find privacy, old age repose, prayer an altar, and
+the fatherland a cult!
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+SIMPLE BEAUTY
+
+
+Someone may protest against the nature of the simple life in the name of
+esthetics, or oppose to ours the theory of the service of luxury--that
+providence of business, fostering mother of arts, and grace of civilized
+society. We shall try, briefly, to anticipate these objections.
+
+It will no doubt have been evident that the spirit which animates these
+pages is not utilitarian. It would be an error to suppose that the
+simplicity we seek has anything in common with that which misers impose
+upon themselves through cupidity, or narrow-minded people through false
+austerity. To the former the simple life is the one that costs least; to
+the latter it is a flat and colorless existence, whose merit lies in
+depriving one's self of everything bright, smiling, seductive.
+
+It displeases us not a whit that people of large means should put their
+fortune into circulation instead of hoarding it, so giving life to
+commerce and the fine arts. That is using one's privileges to good
+advantage. What we would combat is foolish prodigality, the selfish use
+of wealth, and above all the quest of the superfluous on the part of
+those who have the greatest need of taking thought for the necessary.
+The lavishness of a Maecenas could not have the same effect in a society
+as that of a common spendthrift who astonishes his contemporaries by the
+magnificence of his life and the folly of his waste. In these two cases
+the same term means very different things--to scatter money broadcast
+does not say it all; there are ways of doing it which ennoble men, and
+others which degrade them. Besides, to scatter money supposes that one
+is well provided with it. When the love of sumptuous living takes
+possession of those whose means are limited, the matter becomes
+strangely altered. And a very striking characteristic of our time is
+the rage for scattering broadcast which the very people have who ought
+to husband their resources. Munificence is a benefit to society, that we
+grant willingly. Let us even allow that the prodigality of certain rich
+men is a safety-valve for the escape of the superabundant: we shall not
+attempt to gainsay it. Our contention is that too many people meddle
+with the safety-valve when to practice economy is the part of both their
+interest and their duty: their extravagance is a private misfortune and
+a public danger.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+So much for the utility of luxury.
+
+We now wish to explain ourselves upon the question of esthetics--oh!
+very modestly, and without trespassing on the ground of the specialists.
+Through a too common illusion, simplicity and beauty are considered as
+rivals. But simple is not synonymous with ugly, any more than sumptuous,
+stylish and costly are synonymous with beautiful. Our eyes are wounded
+by the crying spectacle of gaudy ornament, venal art and senseless and
+graceless luxury. Wealth coupled with bad taste sometimes makes us
+regret that so much money is in circulation to provoke the creation of
+such a prodigality of horrors. Our contemporary art suffers as much from
+the want of simplicity as does our literature--too much in it that is
+irrelevant, over-wrought, falsely imagined. Rarely is it given us to
+contemplate in line, form, or color, that simplicity allied to
+perfection which commands the eyes as evidence does the mind. We need to
+be rebaptized in the ideal purity of immortal beauty which puts its seal
+on the masterpieces; one shaft of its radiance is worth more than all
+our pompous exhibitions.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet what we now have most at heart is to speak of the ordinary esthetics
+of life, of the care one should bestow upon the adornment of his
+dwelling and his person, giving to existence that luster without which
+it lacks charm. For it is not a matter of indifference whether man pays
+attention to these superfluous necessities or whether he does not: it is
+by them that we know whether he puts soul into his work. Far from
+considering it as wasteful to give time and thought to the perfecting,
+beautifying and poetizing of forms, I think we should spend as much as
+we can upon it. Nature gives us her example, and the man who should
+affect contempt for the ephemeral splendor of beauty with which we
+garnish our brief days, would lose sight of the intentions of Him who
+has put the same care and love into the painting of the lily of an hour
+and the eternal hills.
+
+But we must not fall into the gross error of confounding true beauty
+with that which has only the name. The beauty and poetry of existence
+lie in the understanding we have of it. Our home, our table, our dress
+should be the interpreters of intentions. That these intentions be so
+expressed, it is first necessary to have them, and he who possesses them
+makes them evident through the simplest means. One need not be rich to
+give grace and charm to his habit and his habitation: it suffices to
+have good taste and good-will. We come here to a point very important to
+everybody, but perhaps of more interest to women than to men.
+
+Those who would have women conceal themselves in coarse garments of the
+shapeless uniformity of bags, violate nature in her very heart, and
+misunderstand completely the spirit of things. If dress were only a
+precaution to shelter us from cold or rain, a piece of sacking or the
+skin of a beast would answer. But it is vastly more than this. Man puts
+himself entire into all that he does; he transforms into types the
+things that serve him. The dress is not simply a covering, it is a
+symbol. I call to witness the rich flowering of national and provincial
+costumes, and those worn by our early corporations. A woman's toilette,
+too, has something to say to us. The more meaning there is in it, the
+greater its worth. To be truly beautiful, it must tell us of beautiful
+things, things personal and veritable. Spend all the money you possess
+upon it, if its form is determined by chance or custom, if it has no
+relation to her who wears it, it is only toggery, a domino.
+Ultra-fashionable dress, which completely masks feminine personality
+under designs of pure convention, despoils it of its principal
+attraction. From this abuse it comes about that many things which women
+admire do as much wrong to their beauty as to the purses of their
+husbands and fathers. What would you say of a young girl who expressed
+her thoughts in terms very choice, indeed, but taken word for word from
+a phrase-book? What charm could you find in this borrowed language? The
+effect of toilettes well-designed in themselves but seen again and
+again on all women indiscriminately, is precisely the same.
+
+I can not resist citing here a passage from Camille Lemonnier, that
+harmonizes with my idea.
+
+"Nature has given to the fingers of woman a charming art, which she
+knows by instinct, and which is peculiarly her own--as silk to the worm,
+and lace-work to the swift and subtle spider. She is the poet, the
+interpreter of her own grace and ingenuousness, the spinner of the
+mystery in which her wish to please arrays itself. All the talent she
+expends in her effort to equal man in the other arts, is never worth the
+spirit and conception wrought out through a bit of stuff in her skillful
+hands.
+
+"Well, I wish that this art were more honored than it is. As education
+should consist in thinking with one's mind, feeling with one's heart,
+expressing the little personalities of the inmost, invisible _I_,--which
+on the contrary are repressed, leveled down by conformity,--I would that
+the young girl in her novitiate of womanhood, the future mother, might
+early become the little exponent of this art of the toilet, her own
+dressmaker in short--she who one day shall make the dresses of her
+children. But with the taste and the gift to improvise, to express
+herself in that masterpiece of feminine personality and skill--_a gown_,
+without which a woman is no more than a bundle of rags."
+
+The dress you have made for yourself is almost always the most becoming,
+and, however that may be, it is the one that pleases you most. Women of
+leisure too often forget this; working women, also, in city and country
+alike. Since these last are costumed by dressmakers and milliners, in
+very doubtful imitation of the modish world, grace has almost
+disappeared from their dress. And has anything more surely the gift to
+please than the fresh apparition of a young working girl or a daughter
+of the fields, wearing the costume of her country, and beautiful from
+her simplicity alone?
+
+These same reflections might be applied to the fashion of decorating and
+arranging our houses. If there are toilettes which reveal an entire
+conception of life, hats that are poems, knots of ribbon that are
+veritable works of art, so there are interiors which after their manner
+speak to the mind. Why, under pretext of decorating our homes, do we
+destroy that personal character which always has such value? Why have
+our sleeping-rooms conform to those of hotels, our reception-rooms to
+waiting-rooms, by making predominant a uniform type of official beauty?
+
+What a pity to go through the houses of a city, the cities of a country,
+the countries of a vast continent, and encounter everywhere certain
+forms, identical, inevitable, exasperating by their repetition! How
+esthetics would gain by more simplicity! Instead of this luxury in job
+lots, all these decorations, pretentious but vapid from iteration, we
+should have an infinite variety; happy improvisations would strike our
+eyes, the unexpected in a thousand forms would rejoice our hearts, and
+we should rediscover the secret of impressing on a drapery or a piece of
+furniture that stamp of human personality which makes certain antiques
+priceless.
+
+Let us pass at last to things simpler still; I mean the little details
+of housekeeping which many young people of our day find so unpoetical.
+Their contempt for material things, for the humble cares a house
+demands, arises from a confusion very common but none the less
+unfortunate, which comes from the belief that beauty and poetry are
+within some things, while others lack them; that some occupations are
+distinguished and agreeable, such as cultivating letters, playing the
+harp; and that others are menial and disagreeable, like blacking shoes,
+sweeping, and watching the pot boil. Childish error! Neither harp nor
+broom has anything to do with it; all depends on the hand in which they
+rest and the spirit that moves it. Poetry is not in things, it is in us.
+It must be impressed on objects from without, as the sculptor impresses
+his dream on the marble. If our life and our occupations remain too
+often without charm, in spite of any outward distinction they may have,
+it is because we have not known how to put anything into them. The
+height of art is to make the inert live, and to tame the savage. I would
+have our young girls apply themselves to the development of the truly
+feminine art of giving a soul to things which have none. The triumph of
+woman's charm is in that work. Only a woman knows how to put into a home
+that indefinable something whose virtue has made the poet say, "The
+housetop rejoices and is glad." They say there are no such things as
+fairies, or that there are fairies no longer, but they know not what
+they say. The original of the fairies sung by poets was found, and is
+still, among those amiable mortals who knead bread with energy, mend
+rents with cheerfulness, nurse the sick with smiles, put witchery into
+a ribbon and genius into a stew.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+It is indisputable that the culture of the fine arts has something
+refining about it, and that our thoughts and acts are in the end
+impregnated with that which strikes our eyes. But the exercise of the
+arts and the contemplation of their products is a restricted privilege.
+It is not given to everyone to possess, to comprehend or to create fine
+things. Yet there is a kind of ministering beauty which may make its way
+everywhere--the beauty which springs from the hands of our wives and
+daughters. Without it, what is the most richly decorated house? A dead
+dwelling-place. With it the barest home has life and brightness. Among
+the forces capable of transforming the will and increasing happiness,
+there is perhaps none in more universal use than this beauty. It knows
+how to shape itself by means of the crudest tools, in the midst of the
+greatest difficulties. When the dwelling is cramped, the purse limited,
+the table modest, a woman who has the gift, finds a way to make order,
+fitness and convenience reign in her house. She puts care and art into
+everything she undertakes. To do well what one has to do is not in her
+eyes the privilege of the rich, but the right of all. That is her aim,
+and she knows how to give her home a dignity and an attractiveness that
+the dwellings of princes, if everything is left to mercenaries, cannot
+possess.
+
+Thus understood, life quickly shows itself rich in hidden beauties, in
+attractions and satisfactions close at hand. To be one's self, to
+realize in one's natural place the kind of beauty which is fitting
+there--this is the ideal. How the mission of woman broadens and deepens
+in significance when it is summed up in this: to put a soul into the
+inanimate, and to give to this gracious spirit of things those subtle
+and winsome outward manifestations to which the most brutish of human
+beings is sensible. Is not this better than to covet what one has not,
+and to give one's self up to longings for a poor imitation of others'
+finery?
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+PRIDE AND SIMPLICITY IN THE INTERCOURSE OF MEN
+
+
+It would perhaps be difficult to find a more convincing example than
+pride to show that the obstacles to a better, stronger, serener life are
+rather in us than in circumstances. The diversity, and more than that,
+the contrasts in social conditions give rise inevitably to all sorts of
+conflicts. Yet in spite of this how greatly would social relations be
+simplified, if we put another spirit into mapping out our plan of
+outward necessities! Be well persuaded that it is not primarily
+differences of class and occupation, differences in the outward
+manifestations of their destinies, which embroil men. If such were the
+case, we should find an idyllic peace reigning among colleagues, and all
+those whose interests and lot are virtually equivalent. On the contrary,
+as everyone knows, the most violent shocks come when equal meets equal,
+and there is no war worse than civil war. But that which above all
+things else hinders men from good understanding, is pride. It makes a
+man a hedgehog, wounding everyone he touches. Let us speak first of the
+pride of the great.
+
+What offends me in this rich man passing in his carriage, is not his
+equipage, his dress, or the number and splendor of his retinue: it is
+his contempt. That he possesses a great fortune does not disturb me,
+unless I am badly disposed: but that he splashes me with mud, drives
+over my body, shows by his whole attitude that I count for nothing in
+his eyes because I am not rich like himself--this is what disturbs me,
+and righteously. He heaps suffering upon me needlessly. He humiliates
+and insults me gratuitously. It is not what is vulgar within me, but
+what is noblest that asserts itself in the face of this offensive pride.
+Do not accuse me of envy; I feel none; it is my manhood that is wounded.
+We need not search far to illustrate these ideas. Every man of any
+acquaintance with life has had numerous experiences which will justify
+our dictum in his eyes. In certain communities devoted to material
+interests, the pride of wealth dominates to such a degree that men are
+quoted like values in the stock market. The esteem in which a man is
+held is proportionate to the contents of his strong box. Here "Society"
+is made up of big fortunes, the middle class of medium fortunes. Then
+come people who have little, then those who have nothing. All
+intercourse is regulated by this principle. And the relatively rich man
+who has shown his disdain for those less opulent, is crushed in turn by
+the contempt of his superiors in fortune. So the madness of comparison
+rages from the summit to the base. Such an atmosphere is ready to
+perfection for the nurture of the worst feeling; yet it is not wealth,
+but the spirit of the wealthy that must be arraigned.
+
+Many rich men are free from this gross conception--especially is this
+true of those who from father to son are accustomed to ease--yet they
+sometimes forget that there is a certain delicacy in not making
+contrasts too marked. Suppose there is no wrong in enjoying a large
+superfluity: is it indispensable to display it, to wound the eyes of
+those who lack necessities, to flaunt one's magnificence at the doors of
+poverty? Good taste and a sort of modesty always hinder a well man from
+talking of his fine appetite, his sound sleep, his exuberance of
+spirits, in the presence of one dying of consumption. Many of the rich
+do not exercise this tact, and so are greatly wanting in pity and
+discretion. Are they not unreasonable to complain of envy, after having
+done everything to provoke it?
+
+But the greatest lack is that want of discernment which leads men to
+ground their pride in their fortune. To begin with, it is a childish
+confusion of thought to consider wealth as a personal quality; it would
+be hard to find a more ingenuous fashion of deceiving one's self as to
+the relative value of the container and the thing contained. I have no
+wish to dwell on this question: it is too painful. And yet one cannot
+resist saying to those concerned: "Take care, do not confound what you
+possess with what you are. Go learn to know the under side of worldly
+splendor, that you may feel its moral misery and its puerility." The
+traps pride sets for us are too ridiculous. We should distrust
+association with a thing that make us hateful to our neighbors and robs
+us of clearness of vision.
+
+He who yields to the pride of riches, forgets this other point, the most
+important of all--that possession is a public trust. Without doubt,
+individual wealth is as legitimate as individual existence and liberty.
+These things are inseparable, and it is a dream pregnant with dangers
+that offers battle to such fundamentals of life. But the individual
+touches society at every point, and all he does should be done with the
+whole in view. Possession, then, is less a privilege of which to be
+proud than a charge whose gravity should be felt. As there is an
+apprenticeship, often very difficult to serve, for the exercise of every
+social office, so this profession we call wealth demands an
+apprenticeship. To know how to be rich is an art, and one of the least
+easy of arts to master. Most people, rich and poor alike, imagine that
+in opulence one has nothing to do but to take life easy. That is why so
+few men know how to be rich. In the hands of too many, wealth, according
+to the genial and redoubtable comparison of Luther, is like a harp in
+the hoofs of an ass. They have no idea of the manner of its use.
+
+So when we encounter a man at once rich and simple, that is to say, who
+considers his wealth as a means of fulfilling his mission in the world,
+we should offer him our homage, for he is surely mark-worthy. He has
+surmounted obstacles, borne trials, and triumphed in temptations both
+gross and subtle. He does not fail to discriminate between the contents
+of his pocketbook and the contents of his head or heart, and he does
+not estimate his fellow-men in figures. His exceptional position, instead
+of exalting him, makes him humble, for he is very sensible of how far he
+falls short of reaching the level of his duty. He has remained a
+man--that says it all. He is accessible, helpful, and far from making of
+his wealth a barrier to separate him from other men, he makes it a means
+for coming nearer and nearer to them. Although the profession of riches
+has been so dishonored by the selfish and the proud, such a man as this
+always makes his worth felt by everyone not devoid of a sense of
+justice. Each of us who comes in contact with him and sees him live, is
+forced to look within and ask himself the question, "What would become
+of me in such a situation? Should I keep this modesty, this naturalness,
+this uprightness which uses its own as though it belonged to others?" So
+long as there is a human society in the world, so long as there are
+bitterly conflicting interests, so long as envy and egoism exist on the
+earth, nothing will be worthier of honor than wealth permeated by the
+spirit of simplicity. And it will do more than make itself forgiven; it
+will make itself beloved.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+More dangerous than pride inspired by wealth is that inspired by power,
+and I mean by the word every prerogative that one man has over another,
+be it unlimited or restricted. I see no means of preventing the
+existence in the world of men of unequal authority. Every organism
+supposes a hierarchy of powers--we shall never escape from that law. But
+I fear that if the love of power is so wide-spread, the spirit of power
+is almost impossible to find. From wrong understanding and misuse of it,
+those who keep even a fraction of authority almost everywhere succeed in
+compromising it.
+
+Power exercises a great influence over him who holds it. A head must be
+very well balanced not to be disturbed by it. The sort of dementia which
+took possession of the Roman emperors in the time of their world-wide
+rule, is a universal malady whose symptoms belong to all times. In every
+man there sleeps a tyrant, awaiting only a favorable occasion for
+waking. Now the tyrant is the worst enemy of authority, because he
+furnishes us its intolerable caricature, whence come a multitude of
+social complications, collisions and hatreds. Every man who says to
+those dependent on him: "Do this because it is my will and pleasure,"
+does ill. There is within each one of us something that invites us to
+resist personal power, and this something is very respectable. For at
+bottom we are equal, and there is no one who has the right to exact
+obedience from me because he is he and I am I: if he does so, his
+command degrades me, and I have no right to suffer myself to be
+degraded.
+
+One must have lived in schools, in work-shops, in the army, in
+Government offices, he must have closely followed the relations between
+masters and servants, have observed a little everywhere where the
+supremacy of man exercises itself over man, to form any idea of the
+injury done by those who use power arrogantly. Of every free soul they
+make a slave soul, which is to say the soul of a rebel. And it appears
+that this result, with its social disaster, is most certain when he who
+commands is least removed from the station of him who obeys. The most
+implacable tyrant is the tyrant himself under authority. Foremen and
+overseers put more violence into their dealings than superintendents and
+employers. The corporal is generally harsher than the colonel. In
+certain families where madam has not much more education than her maid,
+the relations between them are those of the convict and his warder. And
+woe everywhere to him who falls into the hands of a subaltern drunk with
+his authority!
+
+We forget that the first duty of him who exercises power is humility.
+Haughtiness is not authority. It is not we who are the law; the law is
+over our heads. We only interpret it, but to make it valid in the eyes
+of others, we must first be subject to it ourselves. To command and to
+obey in the society of men, are after all but two forms of the same
+virtue--voluntary servitude. If you are not obeyed, it is generally
+because you have not yourself obeyed first.
+
+The secret of moral ascendancy rests with those who rule with
+simplicity. They soften by the spirit the harshness of the fact. Their
+authority is not in shoulder-straps, titles or disciplinary measures.
+They make use of neither ferule nor threats, yet they achieve
+everything. Why? Because we feel that they are themselves ready for
+everything. That which confers upon a man the right to demand of another
+the sacrifice of his time, his money, his passions, even his life, is
+not only that he is resolved upon all these sacrifices himself, but that
+he has made them in advance. In the command of a man animated by this
+spirit of renunciation, there is a mysterious force which communicates
+itself to him who is to obey, and helps him do his duty.
+
+In all the provinces of human activity there are chiefs who inspire,
+strengthen, magnetize their soldiers: under their direction the troops
+do prodigies. With them one feels himself capable of any effort, ready
+to go through fire, as the saying has it; and if he goes, it is with
+enthusiasm.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+But the pride of the exalted is not the only pride; there is also the
+pride of the humble--this arrogance of underlings, fit pendant to that
+of the great. The root of these two prides is the same. It is not alone
+that lofty and imperious being, the man who says, "I am the law," that
+provokes insurrection by his very attitude; it is also that pig-headed
+subaltern who will not admit that there is anything beyond his
+knowledge.
+
+There are really many people who find all superiority irritating. For
+them, every piece of advice is an offense, every criticism an
+imposition, every order an outrage on their liberty. They would not
+know how to submit to rule. To respect anything or anybody would seem to
+them a mental aberration. They say to people after their fashion:
+"Beyond us there is nothing."
+
+To the family of the proud belong also those difficult and
+supersensitive people who in humble life find that their superiors never
+do them fitting honor, whom the best and most kindly do not succeed in
+satisfying, and who go about their duties with the air of a martyr. At
+bottom these disaffected minds have too much misplaced self-respect.
+They do not know how to fill their place simply, but complicate their
+life and that of others by unreasonable demands and morbid suspicions.
+
+When one takes the trouble to study men at short range, he is surprised
+to find that pride has so many lurking-places among those who are by
+common consent called the humble. So powerful is this vice, that it
+arrives at forming round those who live in the most modest circumstances
+a wall which isolates them from their neighbors. There they are,
+intrenched, barricaded with their ambitions and their contempts, as
+inaccessible as the powerful of earth behind their aristocratic
+prejudices. Obscure or illustrious, pride wraps itself in its dark
+royalty of enmity to the human race. It is the same in misery and in
+high places--solitary and impotent, on guard against everybody,
+embroiling everything. And the last word about it is always this: If
+there is so much hostility and hatred between different classes of men,
+it is due less to exterior conditions than to an interior fatality.
+Conflicting interests and differences of situation dig ditches between
+us, it is true, but pride transforms the ditches into gulfs, and in
+reality it is pride alone which cries from brink to brink: "There is
+nothing in common between you and us."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+We have not finished with pride, but it is impossible to picture it
+under all its forms. I feel most resentful against it when it meddles
+with knowledge and appropriates that. We owe our knowledge to our
+fellows, as we do our riches and power. It is a social force which ought
+to be of service to everybody, and it can only be so when those who know
+remain sympathetically near to those who know not. When knowledge is
+turned into a tool for ambition, it destroys itself.
+
+And what shall we say of the pride of good men? for it exists, and makes
+even virtue hateful. The just who repent them of the evil others do,
+remain in brotherhood and social rectitude. But the just who despise
+others for their faults and misdeeds, cut themselves off from humanity,
+and their goodness, descended to the rank of an ornament for their
+vanity, becomes like those riches which kindness does not inform, like
+authority untempered by the spirit of obedience. Like proud wealth and
+arrogant power, supercilious virtue also is detestable. It fosters in
+man traits and an attitude provocative of I know not what. The sight of
+it repels instead of attracting, and those whom it deigns to distinguish
+with its benefits feel as though they had been slapped in the face.
+
+To resume and conclude, it is an error to think that our advantages,
+whatever they are, should be put to the service of our vanity. Each of
+them constitutes for him who enjoys it an obligation and not a reason
+for vainglory. Material wealth, power, knowledge, gifts of the heart and
+mind, become so much cause for discord when they serve to nourish
+pride. They remain beneficent only so long as they are the source of
+modesty in those who possess them.
+
+Let us be humble if we have great possessions, for that proves that we
+are great debtors: all that a man has he owes to someone, and are we
+sure of being able to pay our debts?
+
+Let us be humble if we sit in high places and hold the fate of others in
+our hands; for no clear-sighted man can fail to be sensible of unfitness
+for so grave a role.
+
+Let us be humble if we have much knowledge, for it only serves to better
+show the vastness of the unknown, and to compare the little we have
+discovered for ourselves with the amplitude of that which we owe to the
+pains of others.
+
+And, above all, let us be humble if we are virtuous, since no one should
+be more sensible of his defects than he whose conscience is illumined,
+and since he more than anyone else should feel the need of charity
+toward evil-doers, even of suffering in their stead.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+"And what about the necessary distinctions in life?" someone may ask.
+"As a result of your simplifications, are you not going to destroy that
+sense of the difference between men which must be maintained if society
+exists at all?"
+
+I have no mind to suppress distinctions and differences. But I think
+that what distinguishes a man is not found in his social rank, his
+occupation, his dress or his fortune, but solely in himself. More than
+any other our own age has pricked the vain bubble of purely outward
+greatness. To be somebody at present, it does not suffice to wear the
+mantle of an emperor or a royal crown: what honor is there in wielding
+power through gold lace, a coat of arms or a ribbon? Not that visible
+signs are to be despised; they have their meaning and use, but on
+condition that they cover something and not a vacuum. The moment they
+cease to stand for realities, they become useless and dangerous. The
+only true distinction is superior worth. If you would have social rank
+duly respected, you must begin by being worthy of the rank that is your
+own; otherwise you help to bring it into hatred and contempt. It is
+unhappily too true that respect is diminishing among us, and it
+certainly is not from a lack of lines drawn round those who wish to be
+respected. The root of the evil is in the mistaken idea that high
+station exempts him who holds it from observing the common obligations
+of life. As we rise, we believe that we free ourselves from the law,
+forgetting that the spirit of obedience and humility should grow with
+our possessions and power. So it comes about that those who demand the
+most homage make the least effort to merit the homage they demand. This
+is why respect is diminishing.
+
+The sole distinction necessary is the wish to become better. The man who
+strives to be better becomes more humble, more approachable, more
+friendly even with those who owe him allegiance. But as he gains by
+being better known, he loses nothing in distinction, and he reaps the
+more respect in that he has sown the less pride.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE EDUCATION FOR SIMPLICITY
+
+
+The simple life being above all else the product of a direction of mind,
+it is natural that education should have much to do with it.
+
+In general but two methods of rearing children are practiced: the first
+is to bring them up for ourselves; the second, to bring them up for
+themselves.
+
+In the first case the child is looked upon as a complement of the
+parents: he is part of their property, occupies a place among their
+possessions. Sometimes this place is the highest, especially when the
+parents value the life of the affections. Again, where material
+interests rule, the child holds second, third, or even the last place.
+In any case he is a nobody. While he is young, he gravitates round his
+parents, not only by obedience, which is right, but by the subordination
+of all his originality, all his being. As he grows older, this
+subordination becomes a veritable confiscation, extending to his ideas,
+his feelings, everything. His minority becomes perpetual. Instead of
+slowly evolving into independence, the man advances into slavery. He is
+what he is permitted to be, what his father's business, religious
+beliefs, political opinions or esthetic tastes require him to be. He
+will think, speak, act, and marry according to the understanding and
+limits of the paternal absolutism. This family tyranny may be exercised
+by people with no strength of character. It is only necessary for them
+to be convinced that good order requires the child to be the property of
+the parents. In default of mental force, they possess themselves of him
+by other means--by sighs, supplications, or base seductions. If they
+cannot fetter him, they snare his feet in traps. But that he should live
+in them, through them, for them, is the only thing admissible.
+
+Education of this sort is not the practice of families only, but also of
+great social organizations whose chief educational function consists in
+putting a strong hand on every new-comer, in order to fit him, in the
+most iron-bound fashion, into existing forms. It is the attenuation,
+pulverization and assimilation of the individual in a social body, be it
+theocratic, communistic, or simply bureaucratic and routinary. Looked at
+from without, a like system seems the ideal of simplicity in education.
+Its processes, in fact, are absolutely simplistic, and if a man were not
+somebody, if he were only a sample of the race, this would be the
+perfect education. As all wild beasts, all fish and insects of the same
+genus and species have the same markings, so we should all be identical,
+having the same tastes, the same language, the same beliefs, the same
+tendencies. But man is not simply a specimen of the race, and for that
+reason this sort of education is far from being simple in its results.
+Men so vary from one another, that numberless methods have to be
+invented to repress, stupefy, and extinguish individual thought. And one
+never arrives at it then but in part, a fact which is continually
+deranging everything. At each moment, by some fissure, some interior
+force of initiative is making a violent way to the light, producing
+explosions, upheavals, all sorts of grave disorders. And where there are
+no outward manifestations, the evil lies dormant; beneath apparent order
+are hidden dumb revolt, flaws made by an abnormal existence, apathy,
+death.
+
+The system is evil which produces such fruit, and however simple it may
+appear, in reality it brings forth all possible complications.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+The other system is the extreme opposite, that of bringing up children
+for themselves. The roles are reversed: the parents are there for the
+child. No sooner is he born than he becomes the center. White-headed
+grandfather and stalwart father bow before these curls. His lisping is
+their law. A sign from him suffices. If he cries in the night, no
+fatigue is of account, the whole household must be roused. The new-comer
+is not long in discovering his omnipotence, and before he can walk he is
+drunken with it. As he grows older all this deepens and broadens.
+Parents, grandparents, servants, teachers, everybody is at his command.
+He accepts the homage and even the immolation of his neighbor: he treats
+like a rebellious subject anyone who does not step out of his path.
+There is only himself. He is the unique, the perfect, the infallible.
+Too late it is perceived that all this has been evolving a master; and
+what a master! forgetful of sacrifices, without respect, even pity. He
+no longer has any regard for those to whom he owes everything, and he
+goes through life without law or check.
+
+This education, too, has its social counterpart. It flourishes wherever
+the past does not count, where history begins with the living, where
+there is no tradition, no discipline, no reverence; where those who know
+the least make the most noise; where those who stand for public order
+are alarmed by every chance comer whose power lies in his making a great
+outcry and respecting nothing. It insures the reign of transitory
+passion, the triumph of the inferior will. I compare these two
+educations--one, the exaltation of the environment, the other of the
+individual; one the absolutism of tradition, the other the tyranny of
+the new--and I find them equally baneful. But the most disastrous of all
+is the combination of the two, which produces human beings
+half-automatons, half-despots, forever vacillating between the spirit
+of a sheep and the spirit of revolt or domination.
+
+Children should be educated neither for themselves nor for their
+parents: for man is no more designed to be a personage than a specimen.
+They should be educated for life. The aim of their education is to aid
+them to become active members of humanity, brotherly forces, free
+servants of the civil organization. To follow a method of education
+inspired by any other principle, is to complicate life, deform it, sow
+the seeds of all disorders.
+
+When we would sum up in a phrase the destiny of the child, the word
+future springs to our lips. The child is the future. This word says
+all--the sufferings of the past, the stress of to-day, hope. But when
+the education of the child begins, he is incapable of estimating the
+reach of this word; for he is held by impressions of the present. Who
+then shall give him the first enlightenment and put him in the way he
+should go? The parents, the teachers. And with very little reflection
+they perceive that their work does not interest simply themselves and
+the child, but that they represent and administer impersonal powers and
+interests. The child should continually appear to them as a future
+citizen. With this ruling idea, they will take thought for two things
+that complement each other--for the initial and personal force which is
+germinating in the child, and for the social destination of this force.
+At no moment of their direction over him can they forget that this
+little being confided to their care must become _himself_ and a
+_brother_. These two conditions, far from excluding each other, never
+exist apart. It is impossible to be brotherly, to love, to give one's
+self, unless one is master of himself; and reciprocally, none can
+possess himself, comprehend his own individual being, until he has first
+made his way through the outward accidents of his existence, down to the
+profound springs of life where man feels himself one with other men in
+all that is most intimately his own.
+
+To aid a child to become himself and a brother it is necessary to
+protect him against the violent and destructive action of the forces of
+disorder. These forces are exterior and interior. Every child is menaced
+from without not only by material dangers but by the meddlesomeness of
+alien wills; and from within, by an exaggerated idea of his own
+personality and all the fancies it breeds. There is a great outward
+danger which may come from the abuse of power in educators. The right of
+might finds itself a place in education with extreme facility. To
+educate another, one must have renounced this right, that is to say,
+made abnegation of the inferior sentiment of personal importance, which
+transforms us into the enemies of others, even of our own children. Our
+authority is beneficent only when it is inspired by one higher than our
+own. In this case it is not only salutary, but also indispensable, and
+becomes in its turn the best guarantee against the greater peril which
+threatens the child from within--that of exaggerating his own
+importance. At the beginning of life the vividness of personal
+impressions is so great, that to establish an equilibrium, they must be
+submitted to the gentle influence of a calm and superior will. The true
+quality of the office of educator is to represent this will to the
+child, in a manner as continuous and as disinterested as possible.
+Educators, then, stand for all that is to be respected in the world.
+They give to the child impressions of that which precedes it, outruns
+it, envelops it: but they do not crush it; on the contrary, their will
+and all the influence they transmit, become elements nutritive of its
+native energy. Such use of authority as this, cultivates that fruitful
+obedience out of which free souls are born. The purely personal
+authority of parents, masters and institutions is to the child like the
+brushwood beneath which the young plant withers and dies. Impersonal
+authority, the authority of a man who has first submitted himself to the
+time-honored realities before which he wishes the individual fancy of
+the child to bend, resembles pure and luminous air. True it has an
+activity, and influences us in its manner, but it nourishes our
+individuality and gives it firmness and stability. Without this
+authority there is no education. To watch, to guide, to keep a firm
+hand--such is the function of the educator. He should appear to the
+child not like a barrier of whims, which, if need be, one may clear,
+provided the leap be proportioned to the height of the obstacle; but
+like a transparent wall through which may be seen unchanging realities,
+laws, limits, and truths against which no action is possible. Thus
+arises respect, which is the faculty of conceiving something greater
+than ourselves--respect, which broadens us and frees us by making us
+more modest. This is the law of education for simplicity. It may be
+summed up in these words: to make _free_ and _reverential_ men, who
+shall be _individual_ and _fraternal_.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us draw from this principle some practical applications.
+
+From the very fact that the child is the future, he must be linked to
+the past by piety. We owe it to him to clothe tradition in the forms
+most practical and most fit to create a deep impression: whence the
+exceptional place that should be given in education to the ancients, to
+the cult of remembrance of the past, and by extension, to the history of
+the domestic rooftree. Above all do we fulfil a duty toward our children
+when we give the place of honor to the grandparents. Nothing speaks to a
+child with so much force, or so well develops his modesty, as to see his
+father and mother, on all occasions, preserve toward an old grandfather,
+often infirm, an attitude of respect. It is a perpetual object lesson
+that is irresistible. That it may have its full force, it is necessary
+for a tacit understanding to obtain among all the grown-up members of
+the family. To the child's eyes they must all be in league, held to
+mutual respect and understanding, under penalty of compromising their
+educational authority. And in their number must be counted the servants.
+Servants are big people, and the same sentiment of respect is injured in
+the child's disregard of them as in his disregard of his father or
+grandfather. The moment he addresses an impolite or arrogant word to a
+person older than himself, he strays from the path that a child ought
+never to quit; and if only occasionally the parents neglect to point
+this out, they will soon perceive by his conduct toward themselves, that
+the enemy has found entrance to his heart.
+
+We mistake if we think that a child is naturally alien to respect,
+basing this opinion on the very numerous examples of irreverence which
+he offers us. Respect is for the child a fundamental need. His moral
+being feeds on it. The child aspires confusedly to revere and admire
+something. But when advantage is not taken of this aspiration, it gets
+corrupted or lost. By our lack of cohesion and mutual deference, we, the
+grown-ups, discredit daily in the child's eyes our own cause and that of
+everything worthy of respect. We inoculate in him a bad spirit whose
+effects then turn against us.
+
+This pitiful truth nowhere appears with more force than in the relations
+between masters and servants, as we have made them. Our social errors,
+our want of simplicity and kindness, all fall back upon the heads of our
+children. There are certainly few people of the middle classes who
+understand that it is better to part with many thousands of dollars than
+to lead their children to lose respect for servants, who represent in
+our households the humble. Yet nothing is truer. Maintain as strictly as
+you will conventions and distances,--that demarkation of social
+frontiers which permits each one to remain in his place and to observe
+the law of differences. That is a good thing, I am persuaded, but on
+condition of never forgetting that those who serve us are men and women
+like ourselves. You require of your domestics certain formulas of speech
+and certain attitudes, outward evidence of the respect they owe you. Do
+you also teach your children and use yourselves manners toward your
+servants which show them that you respect their dignity as individuals,
+as you desire them to respect yours? Here we have continually in our
+homes an excellent ground for experiment in the practice of that mutual
+respect which is one of the essential conditions of social sanity. I
+fear we profit by it too little. We do not fail to exact respect, but
+we fail to give it. So it is most frequently the case that we get only
+hypocrisy and this supplementary result, all unexpected,--the
+cultivation of pride in our children. These two factors combined heap up
+great difficulties for that future which we ought to be safeguarding. I
+am right then in saying that the day when by your own practices you have
+brought about the lessening of respect in your children, you have
+suffered a sensible loss.
+
+Why should I not say it? It seems to me that the greater part of us
+labor for this loss. On all sides, in almost every social rank, I notice
+that a pretty bad spirit is fostered in children, a spirit of reciprocal
+contempt. Here, those who have calloused hands and working-clothes are
+disdained; there, it is all who do not wear blue jeans. Children
+educated in this spirit make sad fellow-citizens. There is in all this
+the want of that simplicity which makes it possible for men of good
+intentions, of however diverse social standing, to collaborate without
+any friction arising from the conventional distance that separates them.
+
+If the spirit of caste causes the loss of respect, partisanship, of
+whatever sort, is quite as productive of it. In certain quarters
+children are brought up in such fashion that they respect but one
+country--their own; one system of government--that of their parents and
+masters; one religion--that which they have been taught. Does anyone
+suppose that in this way men can be shaped who shall respect country,
+religion and law? Is this a proper respect--this respect which does not
+extend beyond what touches and belongs to ourselves? Strange blindness
+of cliques and coteries, which arrogate to themselves with so much
+ingenuous complacence the title of schools of respect, and which,
+outside themselves, respect nothing. In reality they teach: "Country,
+religion, law--we are all these!" Such teaching fosters fanaticism, and
+if fanaticism is not the sole anti-social ferment, it is surely one of
+the worst and most energetic.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+If simplicity of heart is an essential condition of respect, simplicity
+of life is its best school. Whatever be the state of your fortune, avoid
+everything which could make your children think themselves more or
+better than others. Though your wealth would permit you to dress them
+richly, remember the evil you might do in exciting their vanity.
+Preserve them from the evil of believing that to be elegantly dressed
+suffices for distinction, and above all do not carelessly increase by
+their clothes and their habits of life, the distance which already
+separates them from other children: dress them simply. And if, on the
+contrary, it would be necessary for you to economize to give your
+children the pleasure of fine clothes, I would that I might dispose you
+to reserve your spirit of sacrifice for a better cause. You risk seeing
+it illy recompensed. You dissipate your money when it would much better
+avail to save it for serious needs, and you prepare for yourself, later
+on, a harvest of ingratitude. How dangerous it is to accustom your sons
+and daughters to a style of living beyond your means and theirs! In the
+first place, it is very bad for your purse; in the second place it
+develops a contemptuous spirit in the very bosom of the family. If you
+dress your children like little lords, and give them to understand that
+they are superior to you, is it astonishing if they end by disdaining
+you? You will have nourished at your table the declassed--a product
+which costs dear and is worthless.
+
+Any fashion of instructing children whose most evident result is to
+lead them to despise their parents and the customs and activities among
+which they have grown up, is a calamity. It is effective for nothing but
+to produce a legion of malcontents, with hearts totally estranged from
+their origin, their race, their natural interests--everything, in short,
+that makes the fundamental fabric of a man. Once detached from the
+vigorous stock which produced them, the wind of their restless ambition
+drives them over the earth, like dead leaves that will in the end be
+heaped up to ferment and rot together.
+
+Nature does not proceed by leaps and bounds, but by an evolution slow
+and certain. In preparing a career for our children, let us imitate her.
+Let us not confound progress and advancement with those violent
+exercises called somersaults. Let us not so bring up our children that
+they will come to despise work and the aspirations and simple spirit of
+their fathers: let us not expose them to the temptation of being ashamed
+of our poverty if they themselves come to fortune. A society is indeed
+diseased when the sons of peasants begin to feel disgust for the fields,
+when the sons of sailors desert the sea, when the daughters of
+working-men, in the hope of being taken for heiresses, prefer to walk
+the streets alone rather than beside their honest parents. A society is
+healthy, on the contrary, when each of its members applies himself to
+doing very nearly what his parents have done before him, but doing it
+better, and, looking to future elevation, is content first to fulfill
+conscientiously more modest duties.[C]
+
+[C] This would be the place to speak of work in general, and of its
+tonic effect upon education. But I have discussed the subject in my
+books _Justice_, _Jeunesse_, and _Vaillanos_. I must limit myself to
+referring the reader to them.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Education should make independent men. If you wish to train your
+children for liberty, bring them up simply, and do not for a moment fear
+that in so doing you are putting obstacles in the way of their
+happiness. It will be quite the contrary. The more costly toys a child
+has, the more feasts and curious entertainments, the less is he amused.
+
+
+In this there is a sure sign. Let us be temperate in our methods of
+entertaining youth, and especially let us not thoughtlessly create for
+them artificial needs. Food, dress, nursery, amusements--let all these
+be as natural and simple as possible. With the idea of making life
+pleasant for their children, some parents bring them up in habits of
+gormandizing and idleness, accustom them to sensations not meant for
+their age, multiply their parties and entertainments. Sorry gifts these!
+In place of a free man, you are making a slave. Gorged with luxury, he
+tires of it in time; and yet when for one reason or another his
+pleasures fail him, he will be miserable, and you with him: and what is
+worse, perhaps in some capital encounter of life, you will be ready--you
+and he together--to sacrifice manly dignity, truth, and duty, from sheer
+sloth.
+
+Let us bring up our children simply, I had almost said rudely. Let us
+entice them to exercise that gives them endurance--even to privations.
+Let them belong to those who are better trained to fatigue and the earth
+for a bed than to the comforts of the table and couches of luxury. So we
+shall make men of them, independent and staunch, who may be counted on,
+who will not sell themselves for pottage, and who will have withal the
+faculty of being happy.
+
+A too easy life brings with it a sort of lassitude in vital energy. One
+becomes blase, disillusioned, an old young man, past being diverted. How
+many young people are in this state! Upon them have been deposited, like
+a sort of mold, the traces of our decrepitude, our skepticism, our
+vices, and the bad habits they have contracted in our company. What
+reflections upon ourselves these youths weary of life force us to make!
+What announcements are graven on their brows!
+
+These shadows say to us by contrast that happiness lies in a life true,
+active, spontaneous, ungalled by the yoke of the passions, of unnatural
+needs, of unhealthy stimulus; keeping intact the physical faculty of
+enjoying the light of day and the air we breathe, and in the heart, the
+capacity to thrill with the love of all that is generous, simple and
+fine.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+The artificial life engenders artificial thought, and a speech little
+sure of itself. Normal habits, deep impressions, the ordinary contact
+with reality, bring frankness with them. Falsehood is the vice of a
+slave, the refuge of the cowardly and weak. He who is free and strong is
+unflinching in speech. We should encourage in our children the hardihood
+to speak frankly. What do we ordinarily do? We trample on natural
+disposition, level it down to the uniformity which for the crowd is
+synonymous with good form. To think with one's own mind, feel with one's
+own heart, express one's own personality--how unconventional, how
+rustic!--Oh! the atrocity of an education which consists in the
+perpetual muzzling of the only thing that gives any of us his reason for
+being! Of how many soul-murders do we become guilty! Some are struck
+down with bludgeons, others gently smothered with pillows! Everything
+conspires against independence of character. When we are little, people
+wish us to be dolls or graven images; when we grow up, they approve of
+us on condition that we are like all the rest of the world--automatons:
+when you have seen one of them you've seen them all. So the lack of
+originality and initiative is upon us, and platitude and monotony are
+the distinctions of to-day. Truth can free us from this bondage: let
+our children be taught to be themselves, to ring clear, without crack or
+muffle. Make loyalty a need to them, and in their gravest failures, if
+only they acknowledge them, account it for merit that they have not
+covered their sin.
+
+To frankness let us add ingenuousness, in our solicitude as educators.
+Let us have for this comrade of childhood--a trifle uncivilized, it is
+true, but so gracious and friendly!--all possible regard. We must not
+frighten it away: when it has once fled, it so rarely comes back!
+Ingenuousness is not simply the sister of truth, the guardian of the
+individual qualities of each of us; it is besides a great informing and
+educating force. I see among us too many practical people, so called,
+who go about armed with terrifying spectacles and huge shears to ferret
+out naive things and clip their wings. They uproot ingenuousness from
+life, from thought, from education, and pursue it even to the region of
+dreams. Under pretext of making men of their children, they prevent
+their being children at all;--as if before the ripe fruit of autumn,
+flowers did not have to be, and perfumes, and songs of birds, and all
+the fairy springtime.
+
+I ask indulgence for everything naive and simple, not alone for the
+innocent conceits that flutter round the curly heads of children, but
+also for the legend, the folk song, the tales of the world of marvel and
+mystery. The sense of the marvellous is in the child the first form of
+that sense of the infinite without which a man is like a bird deprived
+of wings. Let us not wean the child from it, but let us guard in him the
+faculty of rising above what is earthy, so that he may appreciate later
+on those pure and moving symbols of vanished ages wherein human truth
+has found forms of expression that our arid logic will never replace.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+I think I have said enough of the spirit and manifestations of the
+simple life, to make it evident that there is here a whole forgotten
+world of strength and beauty. He can make conquest of it who has
+sufficient energy to detach himself from the fatal rubbish that trammels
+our days. It will not take him long to perceive that in renouncing some
+surface satisfactions and childish ambitions, he increases his faculty
+of happiness and his possibilities of right judgment.
+
+These results concern as much the private as the public life. It is
+incontestable that in striving against the feverish will to shine, in
+ceasing to make the satisfaction of our desires the end of our activity,
+in returning to modest tastes, to the true life, we shall labor for the
+unity of the family. Another spirit will breath in our homes, creating
+new customs and an atmosphere more favorable to the education of
+children. Little by little our boys and girls will feel the enticement
+of ideals at once higher and more realizable. And transformation of the
+home will in time exercise its influence on public spirit. As the
+solidity of a wall depends upon the grain of the stones and the
+consistence of the cement which binds them together, so also the energy
+of public life depends upon the individual value of men and their power
+of cohesion. The great desideratum of our time is the culture of the
+component parts of society, of the individual man. Everything in the
+present social organism leads us back to this element. In neglecting it
+we expose ourselves to the loss of the benefits of progress, even to
+making our most persistent efforts turn to our own hurt. If in the midst
+of means continually more and more perfected, the workman diminishes in
+value, of what use are these fine tools at his disposal? By their very
+excellence to make more evident the faults of him who uses them without
+discernment or without conscience. The wheelwork of the great modern
+machine is infinitely delicate. Carelessness, incompetence or corruption
+may produce here disturbances of far greater gravity than would have
+threatened the more or less rudimentary organism of the society of the
+past. There is need then of looking to the quality of the individual
+called upon to contribute in any measure to the workings of this
+mechanism. This individual should be at once solid and pliable, inspired
+with the central law of life--to be one's self and fraternal. Everything
+within us and without us becomes simplified and unified under the
+influence of this law, which is the same for everybody and by which each
+one should guide his actions; for our essential interests are not
+opposing, they are identical. In cultivating the spirit of simplicity,
+we should arrive, then, at giving to public life a stronger cohesion.
+
+The phenomena of decomposition and destruction that we see there may all
+be attributed to the same cause,--lack of solidity and cohesion. It will
+never be possible to say how contrary to social good are the trifling
+interests of caste, of coterie, of church, the bitter strife for
+personal welfare, and, by a fatal consequence, how destructive these
+things are of individual happiness. A society in which each member is
+preoccupied with his own well-being, is organized disorder. This is all
+that we learn from the irreconcilable conflicts of our uncompromising
+egoism.
+
+We too much resemble those people who claim the rights of family only to
+gain advantage from them, not to do honor to the connection. On all
+rounds of the social ladder we are forever putting forth claims. We all
+take the ground that we are creditors: no one recognizes the fact that
+he is a debtor, and our dealings with our fellows consist in inviting
+them, in tones sometimes amiable, sometimes arrogant, to discharge their
+indebtedness to us. No good thing is attained in this spirit. For in
+fact it is the spirit of privilege, that eternal enemy of universal law,
+that obstacle to brotherly understanding which is ever presenting itself
+anew.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+In a lecture delivered in 1882, M. Renan said that a nation is "a
+spiritual family," and he added: "The essential of a nation is that all
+the individuals should have many things in common, and also that all
+should have forgotten much." It is important to know what to forget and
+what to remember, not only in the past, but also in our daily life. Our
+memories are lumbered with the things that divide us; the things which
+unite us slip away. Each of us keeps at the most luminous point of his
+souvenirs, a lively sense of his secondary quality, his part of
+agriculturist, day laborer, man of letters, public officer, proletary,
+bourgeois, or political or religious sectarian; but his essential
+quality, which is to be a son of his country and a man, is relegated to
+the shade. Scarcely does he keep even a theoretic notion of it. So that
+what occupies us and determines our actions, is precisely the thing that
+separates us from others, and there is hardly place for that spirit of
+unity which is as the soul of a people.
+
+So too do we foster bad feeling in our brothers. Men animated by a
+spirit of particularism, exclusiveness, and pride, are continually
+clashing. They cannot meet without rousing afresh the sentiment of
+division and rivalry. And so there slowly heaps up in their remembrance
+a stock of reciprocal ill-will, of mistrust, of rancor. All this is bad
+feeling with its consequences.
+
+It must be rooted out of our midst. Remember, forget! This we should say
+to ourselves every morning, in all our relations and affairs. Remember
+the essential, forget the accessory! How much better should we discharge
+our duties as citizens, if high and low were nourished from this spirit!
+How easy to cultivate pleasant remembrances in the mind of one's
+neighbor, by sowing it with kind deeds and refraining from procedures of
+which in spite of himself he is forced to say, with hatred in his heart:
+"Never in the world will I forget!"
+
+The spirit of simplicity is a great magician. It softens asperities,
+bridges chasms, draws together hands and hearts. The forms which it
+takes in the world are infinite in number; but never does it seem to us
+more admirable than when it shows itself across the fatal barriers of
+position, interest, or prejudice, overcoming the greatest obstacles,
+permitting those whom everything seems to separate to understand one
+another, esteem one another, love one another. This is the true social
+cement, that goes into the building of a people.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Simple Life, by Charles Wagner
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