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THE SIMPLIFICATION OF LIFE

and partially mummied. Sometimes it seems to me that is the reason why, in our modern times, the curious intellect is so abnormally developed, the brain and the tongue waggle so, because these organs alone have a chance, the rest are shut out from heaven's light and air; the poor human heart grown feeble and weary in its isolation and imprisonment, the liver diseased and the lungs straitened down to mere sighs and conventional disconsolate sounds beneath their cerements.
"There are many other ways in which the details and labor of daily life may be advantageously reduced, which will occur to anyone who turns practical attention to the matter. For myself I confess to a great pleasure in witnessing the Economics of Life —and how seemingly nothing need be wasted; how the very stones that offend the spade in the garden become invaluable when foot-paths have to be laid out or drains to be made. Hats that are past wear get cut up into strips for nailing creepers on the wall; the upper leathers of old shoes are useful for the same purpose. The under garment that is too far gone for mending is used for patching another less decrepit of its kind, then it is torn up into strips for bandages or what not; and when it has served its time thus it descends to floor washing, and is scrubbed out of life —useful to the end. When my coat has worn itself into an affectionate intimacy with my body, when it has served for Sunday best, and for week days, and got weather-stained out in the fields with the sun and rain —then faithful, it does not part from me, but getting it-self cut up into shreds and patches descends to form a hearthrug for my feet. After that, when worn through, it goes into the kennel and keeps my dog warm, and so after lapse of years, retiring to the manure-heaps and passing out on to the land, returns to me in the form of potatoes for my dinner; or being pastured by my sheep, reappears upon their backs as the material of new clothing. Thus it remains a friend to all time, grateful to me for not having despised and thrown it away when it first got behind the fashions. And seeing we have been faithful to each other, my coat and I, for one round or life-period, I do not see why we should not renew our intimacy —in other metamorphoses —or why we should ever quite lose touch of each other through the aeons.
"In the above sketch my object has been not so much to put forward any theory of the conduct of daily life, or to maintain that one method of living is of itself superior to another, as to try and come at the facts connected with the subject. In the long run every household has to support itself; the benefits and accommodations it receives from society have to be covered by the labor it expends for society. This cannot be got over. The present effort of a large number of people to live on interest and dividends, and so in a variety of ways on the labor of others, is simply an effort to make water run up hill; it cannot last very long. The balance, then, between the labor that you may consume and the labor that you expend may be struck in many different ways, but it has to be struck; and I have been interested to bring together some materials for an easy solution of the problem."