The Art of Living. Grant Robert
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dollars a year, and is an honest man withal, he has to live on it, even though he dines when others take luncheon, and is forced to avoid the dentist and the plumber. But a much more serious problem confronts the man who earns four times as much as Rogers, more serious because it involves an alternative. Rogers could not very well live on less if he tried, without feeling the stress of poverty. He has lived at hard pan, so to speak. But I could. Could if I would, as my wife has demonstrated. I am perfectly right, as she would agree, in being unwilling to try the experiment; and yet the consciousness that we spend a very large sum of money every year, as compared with Rogers and others like him, remains with us even after the bills are paid and we have exchanged remorse for contemplation.
The moralist, who properly is always with us, would here insinuate, perhaps, that Rogers is happier than I. But I take issue with him promptly and deny the impeachment. Rogers may be happier than his employer Patterson, because Patterson, though the possessor of a steam-yacht, has a son who has just been through the Keeley cure and a daughter who is living apart from her husband. But there are no such flies in my pot of ointment. I deny the superior happiness of Rogers in entire consciousness of the moral beauty of his home. I recognize him to be an industrious, self-sacrificing, kind-hearted, sagacious husband and father, and I admit that the pen-picture which the moralist could draw of him sitting by the evening lamp in his well-worn dressing gown, with his well-darned feet adorned by carpet-slippers of filial manufacture supported by the table or a chair, would be justly entitled to kindle emotions of respect and admiration. But why, after all, should Rogers, ensconced in the family sitting-room with the cat on the hearth, a canary twittering in a cage and scattering seed in one corner, a sewing-machine in the other, and surrounded by all the comforts of home, consisting prominently of a peach-blow vase, a Japanese sun umbrella and engravings of George Washington and Horace Greeley, be regarded as happier than I in my modern drawing-room in evening dress? What is there moral in the simplicity of his frayed and somewhat ugly establishment except the spirit of contentment and the gentle feelings which sanctify it? Assuming that these are not lacking in my home, and I believe they are not, I see no reason for accepting the conclusion of the moralist. There is a beauty of living which the man with a small income is not apt to compass under present social conditions, the Declaration of Independence to the contrary notwithstanding. The doctrine so widely and vehemently promulgated in America that a Spartan inelegance of life is the duty of a leading citizen, seems to be dying from inanition; and the descendants of favorite sons who once triumphed by preaching and practising it are now outvying those whom they were taught to stigmatize as the effete civilizations of Europe, in their devotion to creature comforts.
It seems to me true that in our day and generation the desire to live wisely here has eclipsed the desire to live safely hereafter. Moreover, to enjoy the earth and the fulness thereof, if it be legitimately within one’s reach, has come to be recognized all the world over, with a special point of view for each nationality, as a cardinal principle of living wisely. We have been the last to recognize it here for the reason that a contrary theory of life was for several generations regarded as one of the bulwarks of our Constitution. Never was the sympathy for the poor man greater than it is at present. Never was there warmer interest in his condition. The social atmosphere is rife with theories and schemes for his emancipation, and the best brains of civilization are at work in his behalf. But no one wishes to be like him. Canting churchmen still gain some credence by the assertion that indigence here will prove a saving grace in the world to come; but the American people, quick, when it recognizes that it has been fooled, to discard even a once sacred conviction, smiles to-day at the assumption that the owner of a log cabin is more inherently virtuous than the owner of a steam-yacht. Indeed the present signal vice of democracy seems to be the fury to grow rich, in the mad struggle to accomplish which character and happiness are too often sacrificed. But it may be safely said that, granting an equal amount of virtue to Rogers and to me, and that each pays his bills promptly, I am a more enviable individual in the public eye.
In fact the pressing problem which confronts the civilized world to-day is the choice of what to have, for so many things have become necessaries of existence which were either done without or undiscovered in the days of our grandmothers, that only the really opulent can have everything. We sometimes hear it said that this or that person has too much for his own good. The saying is familiar, and doubtless it is true that luxury unappreciated and abused will cause degeneration; but the complaint seems to me to be a Sunday-school consoler for those who have too little rather than a sound argument against great possessions. Granting that this or that person referred to had the moral fibre of Rogers or of me, and were altogether an unexceptionable character, how could he have too much for his own good? Is the best any too good for any one of us?
The sad part of it is, however, that even those of us who have four times, or thereabouts, the income of Rogers, are obliged to pick and choose and cannot have everything. Then is the opportunity for wisdom to step in and make her abode with us, if she only will. The perplexity, the distress, and too often the downfall of those who would fain live wisely, are largely the direct results of foolish or unintelligent selection on their part. And conversely, is not the secret of happy modern living, the art of knowing what to have when one cannot have everything there is?
I coupled just now, in allusion to Rogers and myself, virtue and punctuality in the payment of bills, as though they were not altogether homogeneous. I did so designedly, not because I question that prompt payment is in the abstract a leading virtue, nor because I doubt that it has been absolutely imperative for Rogers, and one of the secrets of his happiness; but because I am not entirely sure whether, after ten years of prompt payment on the first of every month on my part, I have not been made the sorry victim of my own righteousness, self-righteousness I might say, for I have plumed myself on it when comparing myself with the ungodly. Although virtuous action looks for no reward, the man who pays his bills as soon as they are presented has the right to expect that he will not be obliged to pay anything extra for his honesty. He may not hope for a discount, but he does hope and believe – at least for a time – that beefsteak paid for within thirty days of purchase will not be taxed with the delinquencies of those who pay tardily or not at all. Slowly but sadly I and my wife have come to the conclusion that the butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers of this great Republic who provide for the tolerably well-to-do make up their losses by assessing virtue. It is a melancholy conclusion for one who has been taught to believe that punctual payment is the first great cardinal principle of wise living, and it leaves one in rather a wobbly state of mind, not as regards the rank of the virtue in question, but as regards the desirability of strictly living up to it in practice. I have heard stated with authority that the leading butchers, grocers, stable-keepers, drygoods dealers, dress-makers, florists, and plumbers of our great cities divide the customers on their books into sheep and goats, so to speak; and the more prompt and willing a sheep, the deeper do they plunge the knife. Let one establish a reputation for prompt payment and make a purchase on the twenty-fifth of the month, he will receive on the first of the following a bill, on the twentieth, if this be not paid, a bill for “account rendered,” on the first of the next month a bill for “account rendered, please remit,” and on the tenth a visit from a collector. On the other hand I have known people who seem to live on the fat of the land, and to keep the tradesfolk in obsequious awe of them by force of letting their bills run indefinitely.
Abroad, as many of us know, the status of the matter is very different. There interest is figured in advance, and those who pay promptly get a handsome discount on the face of their bills. While this custom may seem to encourage debt, it is at least a mutual arrangement, and seems to have proved satisfactory, to judge from the fact that the fashionable tailors and dress-makers of London and Paris are apt to demur or shrug their shoulders at immediate payment, and to be rather embarrassingly grateful if their accounts are settled by the end of a year. No one would wish to change the national inclination of upright people on this side of the water to pay on the spot, but the master and mistress of an establishment may well consider whether the fashionable tradesmen ought to oblige them to bear the entire penalty of being sheep instead of goats. With this qualification, which is set forth rather as a caveat than a doctrine, the prompt payment of one’s bills seems to be strictly co-ordinate with virtue, and may be properly described as the corner-stone of wise modern living.
There are so many things which one has to have nowadays in order to be comfortable that it seems almost improvident