Money has little to do with this problem of satisfactory living; I think that this was the first discovery I made in the direction of a better mode of life.  My French workman earned perhaps two pounds a week:  I earned four or five; but he bought happiness with his work, whereas I bought discontent and weariness.  Money may be bought at too dear a rate.  The average citizen, if he did but know it, is always buying money too dear.  He earns, let us say, four hundred pounds a year; but the larger proportion of this sum goes in what is called ‘keeping up appearances.’  He must live in a house at a certain rental; by the time that his rates and taxes are paid he finds one-eighth of his income at least has gone to provide a shelter for his head.  A cottage, at ten pounds a year, would have served him better, and would have been equally commodious.  He must needs send his children to some private ‘academy’ for education, getting only bad education and high charges for his pains; a village board-school at twopence a week would have offered undeniable advantages.  He must wear the black coat and top-hat sacred to the clerking tribe; a tweed suit and cap are more comfortable, and half the price.  At all points he is the slave of convention, and he pays a price for his convention out of all proportion to its value.  At a moderate estimate half the daily expenditure of London is a sacrifice to the convention or imposture of respectability.

Unless a man have, however, a large endowment of that liberal discontent which makes him perpetually examine and reexamine the conditions of his life, he will be a long time before he even suspects that he is the victim of artificial needs.  When once the yoke of habit is imposed, the shoulder soon accustoms itself to the bondage, and the aches and bruises of initiation are forgotten.  There are spasms of disgust, moments of wise suspicion; but they are transient, and men soon come to regard a city as the prison from whence there is no escape.  But is no escape possible?  That was the question which pressed more and more upon me as the years went on.  I saw that the crux of the whole problem was economic, I knew that I was not the gainer by a larger income, if I could buy a more real satisfaction on less income.  I saw that it was the artificial needs of life that made me a slave; the real needs of life were few.  A cottage and a hundred pounds a year in a village meant happiness and independence; but dared I sacrifice twice or thrice the income to secure it?  The debate went on for years, and it was ended only when I applied to it one fixed and reasoned principle.  That principle was that my first business as a rational creature was not to get a living but to live; and that I was a fool to sacrifice the power of living in securing the means of life.

CHAPTER IV

EARTH-HUNGER