lies in the fact that wherever life is simple and sane, true pleasure
accompanies it as fragrance does uncultivated flowers. Be this life
hard, hampered, devoid of all things ordinarily considered as the very
conditions of pleasure, the rare and delicate plant, joy, flourishes
there. It springs up between the flags of the pavement, on an arid wall,
in the fissure of a rock. We ask ourselves how it comes, and whence: but
it lives; while in the soft warmth of conservatories or in fields richly
fertilized you cultivate it at a golden cost to see it fade and die in
your hand.
Ask actors what audience is happiest at the play; they will tell you the
popular one. The reason is not hard to grasp. To these people the play
is an exception, they are not bored by it from over-indulgence. And,
too, to them it is a rest from rude toil. The pleasure they enjoy they
have honestly earned, and they know its cost as they know that of each
sou earned by the sweat of their labor. More, they have not frequented
the wings, they have no intrigues with the actresses, they do not see
the wires pulled. To them it is all real. And so they feel pleasure
unalloyed. I think I see the sated sceptic, whose monocle glistens in
that box, cast a disdainful glance over the smiling crowd.
"Poor stupid creatures, ignorant and gross!"
And yet they are the true livers, while he is an artificial product, a
mannikin, incapable of experiencing this fine and salutary intoxication
of an hour of frank pleasure.
Unhappily, ingenuousness is disappearing, even in the rural districts.
We see the people of our cities, and those of the country in their turn,
breaking with the good traditions. The mind, warped by alcohol, by the
passion for gambling, and by unhealthy literature, contracts little by
little perverted tastes. Artificial life makes irruption into
communities once simple in their pleasures, and it is like phylloxera to
the vine. The robust tree of rustic joy finds its sap drained, its
leaves turning yellow.
Compare a _fête champêtre_ of the good old style with the village
festivals, so-called, of to-day. In the one case, in the honored setting
of antique costumes, genuine countrymen sing the folk songs, dance
rustic dances, regale themselves with native drinks, and seem entirely
in their element. They take their pleasure as the blacksmith forges, as
the cascade tumbles over the rocks, as the colts frisk in the meadows.
It is contagious: it stirs your heart. In spite of yourself you are
ready to cry: "Bravo, my children. That is fine!" You want to join in.
In the other case, you see villagers disguised as city folk,
countrywomen made hideous by the modiste, and, as the chief ornament of
the festival, a lot of degenerates who bawl the songs of music halls;
and sometimes in the place of honor, a group of tenth-rate barnstormers,
imported for the occasion, to civilize these rustics and give them a
taste of refined pleasures. For drinks, liquors mixed with brandy or
absinthe: in the whole thing neither originality nor picturesqueness.
License, indeed, and clownishness, but not that _abandon_ which
ingenuous joy brings in its train.
* * * * *
This question of pleasure is capital. Staid people generally neglect it
as a frivolity; utilitarians, as a costly superfluity. Those whom we
designate as pleasure-seekers forage in this delicate domain like wild
boars in a garden. No one seems to doubt the immense human interest
attached to joy. It is a sacred flame that must be fed, and that throws
a splendid radiance over life. He who takes pains to foster it
accomplishes a work as profitable for humanity as he who builds bridges,
pierces tunnels, or cultivates the ground. So to order one's life as to
keep, amid toils and suffering, the faculty of happiness, and be able to
propagate it in a sort of salutary contagion among one's fellow-men, is
to do a work of fraternity in the noblest sense. To give a trifling
pleasure, smooth an anxious brow, bring a little light into dark
paths--what a truly divine office in the midst of this poor humanity!
But it is only in great simplicity of heart that one succeeds in
filling it.
We are not simple enough to be happy and to render others so. We lack
the singleness of heart and the self-forgetfulness. We spread joy, as we
do consolation, by such methods as to obtain negative results. To
console a person, what do we do? We set to work to dispute his
suffering, persuade him that he is mistaken in thinking himself unhappy.
In reality, our language translated into truthful speech would amount to
this: "You suffer, my friend? That is strange; you must be mistaken, for
I feel nothing." As the only human means of soothing grief is to share
it in the heart, how must a sufferer feel, consoled in this fashion?
To divert our neighbor, make him pass an agreeable hour, we set out in
the same way. We invite him to admire our versatility, to laugh at our
wit, to frequent our house, to sit at our table; through it all, our
desire to shine breaks forth. Sometimes, also, with a patron's
prodigality, we offer him the beneficence of a public entertainment of
our own choosing, unless we ask him to find amusement at our home, as we
sometimes do to make up a party at cards, with the _arrière-pensée_ of
exploiting him to our own profit. Do you think it the height of
pleasure for others to admire us, to admit our superiority, and to act
as our tools? Is there anything in the world so disgusting as to feel
one's self patronized, made capital of, enrolled in a claque? To give
pleasure to others and take it ourselves, we have to begin by removing
the ego, which is hateful, and then keep it in chains as long as the
diversions last. There is no worse kill-joy than the ego. We must be
good children, sweet and kind, button our coats over our medals and
titles, and with our whole heart put ourselves at the disposal of
others.
Let us sometimes live--be it only for an hour, and though we must lay
all else aside--to make others smile. The sacrifice is only in
appearance; no one finds more pleasure for himself than he who knows
how, without ostentation, to give himself that he may procure for those
around him a moment of forgetfulness and happiness.
When shall we be so simply and truly _men_ as not to obtrude our
personal business and distresses upon the people we meet socially? May
we not forget for an hour our pretensions, our strife, our distributions
into sets and cliques--in short, our "parts," and become as children
once more, to laugh again that good laugh which does so much to make the
world better?
* * * * *
Here I feel drawn to speak of something very particular, and in so doing
to offer my well-disposed readers an opportunity to go about a splendid
business. I want to call their attention to several classes of people
seldom thought of with reference to their pleasures.
It is understood that a broom serves only to sweep, a watering-pot to
water plants, a coffee-mill to grind coffee, and likewise it is supposed
that a nurse is designed only to care for the sick, a professor to
teach, a priest to preach, bury, and confess, a sentinel to mount guard;
and the conclusion is drawn that the people given up to the more serious
business of life are dedicated to labor, like the ox. Amusement is
incompatible with their activities. Pushing this view still further, we
think ourselves warranted in believing that the infirm, the afflicted,
the bankrupt, the vanquished in life's battle, and all those who carry
heavy burdens, are in the shade, like the northern slopes of mountains,
and that it is so of necessity. Whence the conclusion that serious
people have no need of pleasure, and that to offer it to them would be
unseemly; while as to the afflicted, there would be a lack of delicacy
in breaking the thread of their sad meditations. It seems therefore to
be understood that certain persons are condemned to be _always_ serious,
that we should approach them in a serious frame of mind, and talk to
them only of serious things: so, too, when we visit the sick or
unfortunate; we should leave our smiles at the door, compose our face
and manner to dolefulness, and talk of anything heartrending. Thus we
carry darkness to those in darkness, shade to those in shade. We
increase the isolation of solitary lives and the monotony of the dull
and sad. We wall up some existences as it were in dungeons; and because
the grass grows round their deserted prison-house, we speak low in
approaching it, as though it were a tomb. Who suspects the work of
infernal cruelty which is thus accomplished every day in the world! This
ought not to be.
When you find men or women whose lives are lost in hard tasks, or in the
painful office of seeking out human wretchedness and binding up wounds,
remember that they are beings made like you, that they have the same
wants, that there are hours when they need pleasure and diversion. You
will not turn them aside from their mission by making them laugh
occasionally--these people who see so many tears and griefs; on the
contrary, you will give them strength to go on the better with their
work.
And when people whom you know are in trial, do not draw a sanitary
cordon round them--as though they had the plague--that you cross only
with precautions which recall to them their sad lot. On the contrary,
after showing all your sympathy, all your respect for their grief,
comfort them, help them to take up life again; carry them a breath from
the out-of-doors--something in short to remind them that their
misfortune does not shut them off from the world.
And so extend your sympathy to those whose work quite absorbs them, who
are, so to put it, tied down. The world is full of men and women
sacrificed to others, who never have either rest or pleasure, and to
whom the least relaxation, the slightest respite, is a priceless good.
And this minimum of comfort could be so easily found for them if only
we thought of it. But the broom, you know, is made for sweeping, and it
seems as though it could not be fatigued. Let us rid ourselves of this
criminal blindness which prevents us from seeing the exhaustion of those
who are always in the breach. Relieve the sentinels perishing at their
posts, give Sisyphus an hour to breathe; take for a moment the place of
the mother, a slave to the cares of her house and her children;
sacrifice an hour of our sleep for someone worn by long vigils with the
sick. Young girl, tired sometimes perhaps of your walk with your
governess, take the cook's apron, and give her the key to the fields.
You will at once make others happy and be happy yourself. We go
unconcernedly along beside our brothers who are bent under burdens we
might take upon ourselves for a minute. And this short respite would
suffice to soothe aches, revive the flame of joy in many a heart, and
open up a wide place for brotherliness. How much better would one
understand another if he knew how to put himself heartily in that
other's place, and how much more pleasure there would be in life!
* * * * *
I have spoken too fully elsewhere of systematizing amusements for the
young, to return to it here in detail.[B] But I wish to say in substance
what cannot be too often repeated: If you wish youth to be moral, do not
neglect its pleasures, or leave to chance the task of providing them.
You will perhaps say that young people do not like to have their
amusements submitted to regulations, and that besides, in our day, they
are already over-spoiled and divert themselves only too much. I shall
reply, first, that one may suggest ideas, indicate directions, offer
opportunities for amusement, without making any regulations whatever. In
the second place, I shall make you see that you deceive yourselves in
thinking youth has too much diversion. Aside from amusements that are
artificial, enervating and immoral, that blight life instead of making
it bloom in splendor, there are very few left to-day. Abuse, that enemy
of legitimate use, has so befouled the world, that it is becoming
difficult to touch anything but what is unclean: whence watchfulness,
warnings and endless prohibitions. One can hardly stir without
encountering something that resembles unhealthy pleasure. Among young
people of to-day, particularly the self-respecting, the dearth of
amusements causes real suffering. One is not weaned from this generous
wine without discomfort. Impossible to prolong this state of affairs
without deepening the shadow round the heads of the younger generations.
We must come to their aid. Our children are heirs of a joyless world. We
bequeath them cares, hard questions, a life heavy with shackles and
complexities. Let us at least make an effort to brighten the morning of
their days. Let us interest ourselves in their sports, find them
pleasure-grounds, open to them our hearts and our homes. Let us bring
the family into our amusements. Let gayety cease to be a commodity of
export. Let us call in our sons, whom our gloomy interiors send out into
the street, and our daughters, moping in dismal solitude. Let us
multiply anniversaries, family parties, and excursions. Let us raise
good humor in our homes to the height of an institution. Let the
schools, too, do their part. Let masters and students--school-boys and
college-boys--meet together oftener for amusement. It will be so much
the better for serious work. There is no such aid to understanding one's
professor as to have laughed in his company; and conversely, to be well
understood a pupil must be met elsewhere than in class or examination.
And who will furnish the money? What a question! That is exactly the
error. Pleasure and money: people take them for the two wings of the
same bird! A gross illusion! Pleasure, like all other truly precious
things in this world, cannot be bought or sold. If you wish to be
amused, you must do your part toward it; that is the essential. There is
no prohibition against opening your purse, if you can do it, and find it
desirable. But I assure you it is not indispensable. Pleasure and
simplicity are two old acquaintances. Entertain simply, meet your
friends simply. If you come from work well done, are as amiable and
genuine as possible toward your companions, and speak no evil of the
absent, your success is sure.
[B] See "Youth," the chapter on "Joy."
VIII
THE MERCENARY SPIRIT AND SIMPLICITY
We have in passing touched upon a certain wide-spread prejudice which
attributes to money a magic power. Having come so near enchanted ground
we will not retire in awe, but plant a firm foot here, persuaded of many
truths that should be spoken. They are not new, but how they are
forgotten!
I see no possible way of doing without money. The only thing that
theorists or legislators who accuse it of all our ills have hitherto
achieved, has been to change its name or form. But they have never been
able to dispense with a symbol representative of the commercial value of
things. One might as well wish to do away with written language as to do
away with money. Nevertheless, this question of a circulating medium is
very troublesome. It forms one of the chief elements of complication in
our life. The economic difficulties amid which we still flounder, social
conventionalities, and the entire organization of modern life, have
carried gold to a rank so eminent that it is not astonishing to find the
imagination of man attributing to it a sort of royalty. And it is on
this side that we shall attack the problem.
The term money has for appendage that of merchandise. If there were no
merchandise there would be no money; but as long as there is merchandise
there will be money, little matter under what form. The source of all
the abuses which centre around money lies in a lack of discrimination.
People have confused under the term and idea of merchandise, things
which have no relation with one another. They have attempted to give a
venal value to things which neither could have it nor ought to. The idea
of purchase and sale has invaded ground where it may justly be
considered an enemy and a usurper. It is reasonable that wheat,
potatoes, wine, fabrics, should be bought and sold, and it is perfectly
natural that a man's labor procure him rights to life, and that there be
put into his hands something whose value represents them; but here
already the analogy ceases to be complete. A man's labor is not
merchandise in the same sense as a sack of flour or a ton of coal. Into
this labor enter elements which cannot be valued in money. In short,
there are things which can in no wise be bought: sleep, for instance,
knowledge of the future, talent. He who offers them for sale must be
considered a fool or an impostor. And yet there are gentlemen who coin
money by such traffic. They sell what does not belong to them, and
their dupes pay fictitious values in veritable coin. So, too, there are
dealers in pleasure, dealers in love, dealers in miracles, dealers in
patriotism, and the title of merchant, so honorable when it represents a
man selling that which is in truth a commodity of trade, becomes the
worst of stigmas when there is question of the heart, of religion, of
country.
Almost all men are agreed that to barter with one's sentiments, his
honor, his cloth, his pen, or his note, is infamous. Unfortunately this
idea, which suffers no contradiction as a theory, and which thus stated
seems rather a commonplace than a high moral truth, has infinite trouble
to make its way in practice. Traffic has invaded the world. The
money-changers are established even in the sanctuary, and by sanctuary I
do not mean religious things alone, but whatever mankind holds sacred
and inviolable. It is not gold that complicates, corrupts, and debases
life; it is our mercenary spirit.
The mercenary spirit resolves everything into a single question: _How
much is that going to bring me?_ and sums up everything in a single
axiom: _With money you can procure anything._ Following these two
principles of conduct, a society may descend to a degree of infamy
impossible to describe or to imagine.
_How much is it going to bring me?_ This question, so legitimate while
it concerns those precautions which each ought to take to assure his
subsistence by his labor, becomes pernicious as soon as it passes its
limits and dominates the whole life. This is so true that it vitiates
even the toil which gains our daily bread. I furnish paid labor; nothing
could be better: but if to inspire me in this labor I have only the
desire to get the pay, nothing could be worse. A man whose only motive
for action is his wages, does a bad piece of work: what interests him is
not the doing, it's the gold. If he can retrench in pains without
lessening his gains, be assured that he will do it. Plowman, mason,
factory laborer, he who loves not his work puts into it neither interest
nor dignity--is, in short, a bad workman. It is not well to confide
one's life to a doctor who is wholly engrossed in his fees, for the
spring of his action is the desire to garnish his purse with the
contents of yours. If it is for his interest that you should suffer
longer, he is capable of fostering your malady instead of fortifying
your strength. The instructor of children who cares for his work only so
far as it brings him profit, is a sad teacher; for his pay is
indifferent, and his teaching more indifferent still. Of what value is
the mercenary journalist? The day you write for the dollar, your prose
is not worth the dollar you write for. The more elevated in kind is the
object of human labor, the more the mercenary spirit, if it be present,
makes this labor void and corrupts it. There are a thousand reasons to
say that all toil merits its wage, that every man who devotes his
energies to providing for his life should have his place in the sun, and
that he who does nothing useful, does not gain his livelihood, in short,
is only a parasite. But there is no greater social error than to make
gain the sole motive of action. The best we put into our work--be that
work done by strength of muscle, warmth of heart, or concentration of
mind--is precisely that for which no one can pay us. Nothing better
proves that man is not a machine than this fact: two men at work with
the same forces and the same movements, produce totally different
results. Where lies the cause of this phenomenon? In the divergence of
their intentions. One has the mercenary spirit, the other has singleness
of purpose. Both receive their pay, but the labor of the one is barren;
the other has put his soul into his work. The work of the first is like
a grain of sand, out of which nothing comes through all eternity; the
other's work is like the living seed thrown into the ground; it
germinates and brings forth harvests. This is the secret which explains
why so many people have failed while employing the very processes by
which others succeed. Automatons do not reproduce their kind, and
mercenary labor yields no fruit.
* * * * *
Unquestionably we must bow before economic facts, and recognize the
difficulties of living: from day to day it becomes more imperative to
combine well one's forces in order to succeed in feeding, clothing,
housing, and bringing up a family. He who does not rightly take account
of these crying necessities, who makes no calculation, no provision for
the future, is but a visionary or an incompetent, and runs the risk of
sooner or later asking alms from those at whose parsimony he has
sneered. And yet, what would become of us if these cares absorbed us
entirely? if, mere accountants, we should wish to measure our effort by
the money it brings, do nothing that does not end in a receipt, and
consider as things worthless or pains lost whatever cannot be drawn up
in figures on the pages of a ledger? Did our mothers look for pay in
loving us and caring for us? What would become of filial piety if we
asked it for loving and caring for our aged parents?
What does it cost you to speak the truth? Misunderstandings, sometimes
sufferings and persecutions. To defend your country? Weariness, wounds
and often death. To do good? Annoyance, ingratitude, even resentment.
Self-sacrifice enters into all the essential actions of humanity. I defy
the closest calculators to maintain their position in the world without
ever appealing to aught but their calculations. True, those who know how
to make their "pile" are rated as men of ability. But look a little
closer. How much of it do they owe to the unselfishness of the
simple-hearted? Would they have succeeded had they met only shrewd men
of their own sort, having for device: "No money, no service?" Let us be
outspoken; it is due to certain people who do not count too rigorously,
that the world gets on. The most beautiful acts of service and the
hardest tasks have generally little remuneration or none. Fortunately
there are always men ready for unselfish deeds; and even for those paid
only in suffering, though they cost gold, peace, and even life. The part
these men play is often painful and discouraging. Who of us has not
heard recitals of experiences wherein the narrator regretted some past
kindness he had done, some trouble he had taken, to have nothing but
vexation in return? These confidences generally end thus: "It was folly
to do the thing!" Sometimes it is right so to judge; for it is always a
mistake to cast pearls before swine; but how many lives there are whose
sole acts of real beauty are these very ones of which the doers repent
because of men's ingratitude! Our wish for humanity is that the number
of these foolish deeds may go on increasing.
* * * * *