The Simple Life

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,

basic principle, we fall int

ome 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.

fe, 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 un

s, that of bare rocks and glaciers. Above a certain zone wheat is no longer found, but the vine still prospers. The oak ceases in th

y 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

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

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

ate 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.

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

hen 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 leg

. 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 t

hildren 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

ociety 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

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 ad

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