(1) A clever writer in a recent magazine [Footnote:  Katherine Fullerton Gerould, in the Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 135.] speaks of “factitious altruism”; with this “altruism of the Procrusteans” who would reduce every one to the simple life-she has “little patience.”  “Thousands of people seem to be infected with the idea that by doing more themselves they bestow leisure on others; that by wearing shabby clothes they somehow make it possible for others to dress better-though they thus admit tacitly that leisure and elegance are not evil things.  Or perhaps-though Heaven forbid they should be right!-they merely think that by refusing nightingales’ tongues they make every one more content with porridge.  Let us be gallant about the porridge that we must eat; but let us never forget that there are better things to eat than porridge.”

This philosophy, less gracefully expressed, is not uncommon.  Luxury is, other things equal, better than simplicity.  But other things are not equal when our neighbors are cold and sick and hungry.  What self-respecting man can eat “caviar on principle” when another has not even bread?  By wearing plainer clothes we can make it possible for others to dress better, by denying ourselves nightingales’ tongues we can buy porridge for the poor.  It surely betokens a low moral stage of civilization that so many, nevertheless, choose the Paquin gowns and the six-course dinners.  Luxury is better than simplicity if it can be the luxury of all.  If not, it means selfishness, callousness, and broken bonds of brotherhood.  Moreover, it has personal dangers; it tends to breed softness and laziness, an inability to endure hardship, what Agnes Repplier calls “loss of nerve.”  It tends to choke the soul, to crush it by the weight of worldly things, as Tarpeia was crushed by the Sabine shields.  “Hardly can a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Simple living, with occasional luxuries, far more appreciated for their rarity, is healthier and safer, and in the end perhaps as happy.  Certainly the luxury of the upper classes has usually portended the downfall of nations.  “It is luxury which upholds states?” asks Laveleye; “yes, just as the executioner upholds the hanged man.”  “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay.”

(2) There is a patrician illusion prevalent among the rich, to the effect that they are more sensitive than the poor, have higher natures which demand more to satisfy them; that the lower classes do not need and would not appreciate the luxuries which are necessary to their existence.  To this the reply is, “Go and get acquainted with them; you will find that they are just the same sort of people that you and your friends are"-not so educated, very likely, nor so refined of speech and manner, but with the same longings and capacities for enjoyment.  Of course, they become used to discomfort and deprivation, seared by suffering; so would you in their place.  Human nature has a fortunate ability to adjust itself to its environment.  But even if the poor do not realize what they are missing, that is scant excuse for not bringing to them, as we can, new comforts and opportunities.