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 betrothed1, they no longer have a life or a fixed2 abode3. 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 vaguely4 at busy clerks engulfed5 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, harassed6 and weary, to find the latest accumulation of parcels, and a deluge7 of letters—[2]congratulations, felicitations, acceptances and regrets from bridesmaids and ushers8, excuses of tardy9 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 forth10, 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 verging11 on eighty. Through many toils12 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 meditative13 hours. So the flood of affairs surging through the house, ebbs14 at her door. At the threshold of this retreat, voices are hushed and footfalls softened15; 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. [3]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 bent16 upon drawing their minds away from the one thing essential, to harry17 them with a host of trivialities; and heartily18 do they approve the opinion of Grandmamma when she says, between a smile and a caress19:
"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 maze20 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 [4]artificial life, will be grateful if we try to give expression to their discontent, and to justify21 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 complexity22 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 linen23, inhabiting wholesome24 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 parasites25, live at our expense: numerous and imperious, they engross26 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 [5]would be attained27. 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 contented28 than their forefathers29, 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 beset30 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 errs31 greatly who thinks that the query32, "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 anguish33 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 luxurious34 [6]development, observe people of small fortune, and, above all, the rich. It is not the woman with one dress who asks most insistently35 how she shall be clothed, nor is it those reduced to the strictly36 necessary who make most question of what they shall eat to-morrow. As an inevitable37 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 refinement38.
From all this, there has arisen throughout the different social orders, modified by conditions and varying in intensity39, a common agitation—a very complex mental state, best compared to the petulance40 of a spoiled child, at once satisfied and discontented.
IF [7]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 brutal41, 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, inclination42, luxury. Never has hunger driven man to such baseness as have envy, avarice43, 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 virtue44 lie in man's capacity to care for something outside himself? And what place remains45 for one's neighbor in a life given over to material cares, to artificial [8]needs, to the satisfaction of ambitions, grudges46, and whims47? The man who gives himself up entirely48 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 incapable49 of discerning and practicing the good. He has surrendered himself to the inner anarchy50 of desire, which in the end gives birth to outer anarchy. In the moral life we govern ourselves. In the immoral51 life we are governed by our needs and passions. Thus little by little, the bases of the moral life shift, and the law of judgment52 deviates53.
For the man enslaved to numerous and exacting54 needs, possession is the supreme55 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 drawn56 from them. What brings nothing is worth nothing: [9]he who has nothing, is nothing. Honest poverty risks passing for shame, and lucre57, however filthy58, is not greatly put to it to be accounted for merit.
Some one objects: "Then you make wholesale59 condemnation60 of progress, and would lead us back to the good old times—to asceticism61 perhaps."
Not at all. The desire to resuscitate62 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-being63. Nothing is falser than this pretended social axiom; on the contrary, that material prosperity without an offset64, 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 embroils65 social problems.
THIS [10]principle may be verified in other domains66 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 overthrow67 of tyranny, ignorance, and want—those three dread68 powers so long in league. To-day, other preachers proclaim the same gospel. We have seen that the unquestionable diminution69 of want has made man neither better nor happier. Has this desirable result been more nearly attained through the great care bestowed70 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 prerogative71 of criminals or heedless blunderers? Liberty is an atmosphere of the higher life, and it is only by a slow and patient inward [11]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 reverence73 and voluntary submission74 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 slain75. The man who guides his life by inner law, can no more live servile to outward authority than can the full-grown bird live imprisoned76 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 demonstrations77 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 [12]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 obedience78 to the inner law; and this law is neither the good pleasure of the mighty79, nor the caprice of the crowd, but the high and impersonal80 rule before which those who govern are the first to bow the head. Shall liberty, then, be proscribed81? No; but men must be made capable and worthy82 of it, otherwise public life becomes impossible, and the nation, undisciplined and unrestrained, goes on through license83 into the inextricable tangles84 of demagoguery.
WHEN one passes in review the individual causes that disturb and complicate85 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 monk86 or the uniform the soldier. Here the picture is man, and man with his most intimate possessions—namely, his conscience, his character [13]and his will. And while we have been elaborating and garnishing87 the frame, we have forgotten, neglected, disfigured the picture. Thus are we loaded with external good, and miserable88 in spiritual life; we have in abundance that which, if must be, we can go without, and are infinitely89 poor in the one thing needful. And when the depth of our being is stirred, with its need of loving, aspiring90, fulfilling its destiny, it feels the anguish of one buried alive—is smothered91 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 wrought92, 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 procure93 for ourselves, not through our intellectual and artistic94 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 epoch95 have the exterior96 conditions which man has made for himself by his industry or his knowledge, been able to exempt97 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 perilous98. 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 hamper99 his movements with useless burdens. Let him heed72 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.
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1
betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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ushers
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| n.引座员( usher的名词复数 )；招待员；门房；助理教员v.引，领，陪同( usher的第三人称单数 ) | |
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tardy
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| adj.缓慢的，迟缓的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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verging
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| 接近，逼近（verge的现在分词形式） | |
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toils
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| 网 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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ebbs
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| 退潮( ebb的名词复数 )； 落潮； 衰退 | |
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softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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engross
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| v.使全神贯注 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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forefathers
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| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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errs
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| 犯错误，做错事( err的第三人称单数 ) | |
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query
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| n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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insistently
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| ad.坚持地 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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petulance
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| n.发脾气，生气，易怒，暴躁，性急 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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42
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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43
avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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45
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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46
grudges
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| 不满，怨恨，妒忌( grudge的名词复数 ) | |
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WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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48
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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49
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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50
anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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51
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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52
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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53
deviates
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| v.偏离，越轨( deviate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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54
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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55
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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56
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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lucre
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| n.金钱，财富 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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59
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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asceticism
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| n.禁欲主义 | |
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resuscitate
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| v.使复活，使苏醒 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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offset
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| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
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embroils
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| v.使（自己或他人）卷入纠纷( embroil的第三人称单数 ) | |
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domains
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| n.范围( domain的名词复数 )；领域；版图；地产 | |
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67
overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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70
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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prerogative
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| n.特权 | |
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72
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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73
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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proscribed
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| v.正式宣布（某事物）有危险或被禁止( proscribe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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tangles
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| （使）缠结， （使）乱作一团( tangle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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85
complicate
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| vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂 | |
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monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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87
garnishing
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的现在分词 ) | |
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88
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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hamper
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| vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子 | |
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