In our complicated civilisation it is far more difficult to say what simplicity of life is.  It is certainly not that expensive and dramatic simplicity which is sometimes contrived by people of wealth as a pleasant contrast to elaborate living.  I remember the son of a very wealthy man, who had a great mansion in the country and a large house in London, telling me that his family circle were never so entirely happy as when they were living at close quarters in a small Scotch shooting-lodge, where their life was comparatively rough, and luxuries unattainable.  But I gathered that the main delight of such a period was the sense of laying up a stock of health and freshness for the more luxurious life which intervened.  The Anglo-Saxon naturally loves a kind of feudal dignity; he likes a great house, a crowd of servants and dependants, the impression of power and influence which it all gives; and the delights of ostentation, of having handsome things which one does not use and indeed hardly ever sees, of knowing that others are eating and drinking at one’s expense, which is a thing far removed from hospitality, are dear to the temperament of our race.  We may say at once that this is fatal to any simplicity of life; it may be that we cannot expect anyone who is born to such splendours deliberately to forego them; but I am sure of this, that a rich man, now and here, who spontaneously parted with his wealth, and lived sparely in a small house, would make perhaps as powerful an appeal to the imagination of the English world as could well be made.  If a man had a message to deliver, there could be no better way of emphasizing it.  It must not be a mere flight from the anxiety of worldly life into a more congenial seclusion.  It should be done as Francis of Assisi did it, by continuing to live the life of the world without any of its normal conveniences.  Patent and visible self-sacrifice, if it be accompanied by a tender love of humanity, will always be the most impressive attitude in the world.

But if one is not capable of going to such lengths, if indeed one has nothing that one can resign, how is it possible to practise simplicity of life?  It can be done by limiting one’s needs, by avoiding luxuries, by having nothing in one’s house that one cannot use, by being detached from pretentiousness, by being indifferent to elaborate comforts.  There are people whom I know who do this, and who, even though they live with some degree of wealth, are yet themselves obviously independent of comfort to an extraordinary degree.  There is a Puritanical dislike of waste which is a very different thing, because it often coexists with an extreme attachment to the particular standard of comfort that the man himself prefers.  I know people who believe that a substantial midday meal and a high tea are more righteous than a simple midday meal and a substantial dinner.  But the right attitude is one of unconcern and the absence of uneasy scheming as to the details of life.