What material things does a man need to live under the best conditions? A healthful diet, simple clothing, a sanitary8 dwelling9-place, air and exercise. I am not going to enter into hygienic details, [69]compose menus, or discuss model tenements10 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 aboriginals11 of the Parisian asphalt, there is no life possible outside a region bounded by certain boulevards. There one finds the respirable air, the illuminating12 light, normal heat, classic cookery, and, in moderation, so many other things without which it would not be worth the while to promenade13 this round ball.
On the various rungs of the bourgeois14 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 precisely15 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 [70]means had fallen under a certain minimum. They preferred to disappear rather than retrench16. Observe that this minimum, the cause of their despair, would have been sufficient for others of less exacting17 needs, and enviable to men whose tastes are modest.
On lofty mountains vegetation changes with the altitude. There is the region of ordinary flora18, that of the forests, that of pastures, that of bare rocks and glaciers19. Above a certain zone wheat is no longer found, but the vine still prospers20. The oak ceases in the low regions, the pine flourishes at considerable heights. Human life, with its needs, reminds one of these phenomena21 of vegetation.
At a certain altitude of fortune the financier thrives, the club-man, the society woman, all those in short for whom the strictly22 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 exigencies23. Then come the people—artisans, day-laborers, peasants, in short, the masses, who live dense25 and serried26 like the thick, sturdy growths on [71]the summits of the mountains, where the larger vegetation can no longer find nourishment27. 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 prodigious28 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 elasticity29 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 misery30 [72]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 refinement31, all along the ascending32 scale, even to opulence33 and the summits of social place? They talk of the contented34 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 appeased36 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 [73]that happiness is not allied37 to the number of our needs and the zeal38 we put into their cultivation39. 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 declivity40 of desire.
He who lives to eat, drink, sleep, dress, take his walk,—in short, pamper41 himself all that he can—be it the courtier basking42 in the sun, the drunken laborer24, the commoner serving his belly43, the woman absorbed in her toilettes, the profligate44 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 covet45; then we will halt." But the velocity46 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 condemned47 their will to the service of their appetites, they [74]suffer the penalty. They are delivered up to violent passions which devour48 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 resound49 in every square.
Has drunkenness, inventive as it is of new drinks, found the means of quenching50 thirst? Not at all. It might rather be called the art of making thirst inextinguishable. Frank libertinage51, does it deaden the sting of the senses? No; it envenoms it, converts natural desire into a morbid52 obsession53 and makes it the dominant54 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 Dana?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 [75]fatal this tendency is. There are too many humble55 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 procuring56 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 tyrants57 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 likeness59 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 rant58 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 [76]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 coveted60. 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 perfectly61 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 stipend62. In other cases the r?les are reversed, and the wife and children are sacrificed to the ravenous63 needs of the head of the family, whom an irregular life, play, and countless64 other costly65 follies66 have robbed of all dignity. Between his appetites and his r?le of father he has decided67 for the former, [77]and he slowly drifts toward the most abject68 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 expenditure69 for alcohol, everybody knows the proportions that has reached in the last twenty years. The sums swallowed up in this gulf70 are fabulous—twice the indemnity71 of the war of 1870. How many legitimate72 needs could have been satisfied with that which has been thrown away on these artificial ones! The reign73 of wants is by no means the reign of brotherhood74. 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 [78]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 disturbance75 of the public welfare. When society has too great needs, it is absorbed with the present, sacrifices to it the conquests of the past, immolates76 to it the future. After us the deluge77! To raze78 the forests in order to get gold; to squander79 your patrimony80 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 expedients81 and sow for the morrow trouble, sickness, ruin, envy and hate—the enumeration82 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 guardians83 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 poise84. Whether it be a question of food, dress, or dwelling, simplicity of taste is also a [79]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 accustom35 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 chattels85, or your money. In adversity you will not act like a nursling deprived of its bottle and rattle86. 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 jealousy87, his base desires or his censure88, by your luxury, your prodigality89, 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.
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1
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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pensioner
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| n.领养老金的人 | |
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concise
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| adj.简洁的，简明的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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aberrations
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| n.偏差( aberration的名词复数 )；差错；脱离常规；心理失常 | |
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sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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aboriginals
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| （某国的）公民( aboriginal的名词复数 )； 土著人特征； 土生动物（或植物） | |
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illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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retrench
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| v.节省，削减 | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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glaciers
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| 冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 ) | |
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prospers
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| v.成功，兴旺( prosper的第三人称单数 ) | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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exigencies
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| n.急切需要 | |
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laborer
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| n.劳动者，劳工 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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serried
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| adj.拥挤的；密集的 | |
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nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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opulence
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| n.财富，富裕 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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accustom
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| vt.使适应，使习惯 | |
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appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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declivity
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| n.下坡，倾斜面 | |
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pamper
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| v.纵容，过分关怀 | |
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basking
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| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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covet
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| vt.垂涎；贪图(尤指属于他人的东西) | |
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velocity
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| n.速度，速率 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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resound
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| v.回响 | |
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quenching
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| 淬火，熄 | |
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libertinage
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| n.放荡，自由观点 | |
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52
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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procuring
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的现在分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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tyrants
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| 专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物 | |
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rant
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| v.咆哮；怒吼；n.大话；粗野的话 | |
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59
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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61
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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stipend
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| n.薪贴；奖学金；养老金 | |
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ravenous
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| adj.极饿的，贪婪的 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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71
indemnity
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| n.赔偿，赔款，补偿金 | |
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72
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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immolates
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| vt.宰杀…作祭品（immolate的第三人称单数形式） | |
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deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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raze
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| vt.铲平，把(城市、房屋等)夷为平地，拆毁 | |
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squander
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| v.浪费，挥霍 | |
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patrimony
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| n.世袭财产，继承物 | |
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81
expedients
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| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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82
enumeration
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| n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查 | |
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guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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84
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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85
chattels
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| n.动产，奴隶( chattel的名词复数 ) | |
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86
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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87
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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88
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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89
prodigality
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| n.浪费，挥霍 | |
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