anybody who really wishes to talk simple truth about money at the present time is confronted by a very serious practical difficulty. he must put himself in opposition to the overwhelming body of public opinion, and resign himself to being regarded either as a poseur, a crank, or a fool. the public is in search of happiness now, as it was a million years ago. money is not the principal factor in happiness. it may be argued whether, as a factor in happiness, money is of twentieth-rate importance or fiftieth-rate importance. but it cannot be argued whether money, in point of fact, does or does not of itself bring happiness. there can be no doubt whatever that money does not bring happiness. yet, in face of this incontrovertible and universal truth, the whole public behaves exactly as if money were the sole or the principal preliminary to happiness. the public does not reason, and it will not listen to reason; its blood is up in the money-hunt, and the philosopher might as well expostulate with an earthquake as try to take that public by the button-hole and explain. if a man sacrifices his interest under the will of some dead social tyrant in order to marry whom he wishes, if an english minister of religion declines twenty-five thousand dollars a year to go into exile and preach to new york millionaires, the phenomenon is genuinely held to be so astounding that it at once flies right round the world in the form of exclamatory newspaper articles! in an age when such an attitude towards money is sincere, it is positively dangerous—i doubt if it may not be harmful—to persist with loud obstinacy that money, instead of being the greatest, is the least thing in the world. in times of high military excitement a man may be ostracised if not lynched for uttering opinions which everybody will accept as truisms a couple of years later, and thus the wise philosopher holds his tongue—lest it should be cut out. so at the zenith of a period when the possession of money in absurd masses is an infallible means to the general respect, i have no intention either of preaching or of practising quite all that i privately in the matter of riches.
it was not always thus. though there have been previous ages as lustful for wealth and ostentation as our own, there have also been ages when money-getting and millionaire-envying were not the sole preoccupations of the average man. and such an age will undoubtedly succeed to ours. few things would surprise me less, in social life, than the upspringing of some anti-luxury movement, the formation of some league or guild among the middling classes (where alone intellect is to be found in quantity), the members of which would bind themselves to stand aloof from all the great, silly, banal, ugly, and tedious luxe-activities of the time and not to spend more than a certain sum per annum on eating, drinking, covering their bodies, and being moved about like parcels from one spot of the earth's surface to another. such a movement would, and will, help towards the formation of an opinion which would condemn lavish expenditure on personal satisfactions as bad form. however, the shareholders of grand hotels, restaurants, and race-courses of all sorts, together with popular singers and barristers, etc., need feel no immediate alarm. the movement is not yet.
as touching the effect of money on the efficient ordering of the human machine, there is happily no necessity to inform those who have begun to interest themselves in the conduct of their own brains that money counts for very little in that paramount affair. nothing that really helps towards perfection costs more than is within the means of every person who reads these pages. the expenses connected with daily meditation, with the building-up of mental habits, with the practice of self-control and of cheerfulness, with the enthronement of reason over the rabble of primeval instincts—these expenses are really, you know, trifling. and whether you get that well-deserved rise of a pound a week or whether you don't, you may anyhow go ahead with the machine; it isn't a motor-car, though i started by comparing it to one. and even when, having to a certain extent mastered, through sensible management of the machine, the art of achieving a daily content and dignity, you come to the embroidery of life—even the best embroidery of life is not absolutely ruinous. meat may go up in price—it has done—but books won't. admission to picture galleries and concerts and so forth will remain quite low. the views from richmond hill or hindhead, or along pall mall at sunset, the smell of the earth, the taste of fruit and of kisses—these things are unaffected by the machinations of trusts and the hysteria of stock exchanges. travel, which after books is the finest of all embroideries (and which is not to be valued by the mile but by the quality), is decidedly cheaper than ever it was. all that is required is ingenuity in one's expenditure. and much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity.
and all the while as you read this you are saying, with your impatient sneer: 'it's all very well; it's all very fine talking, but ...' in brief, you are not convinced. you cannot deracinate that wide-rooted dogma within your soul that more money means more joy. i regret it. but let me put one question, and let me ask you to answer it honestly. your financial means are greater now than they used to be. are you happier or less discontented than you used to be? taking your existence day by day, hour by hour, judging it by the mysterious feel (in the chest) of responsibilities, worries, positive joys and satisfactions, are you genuinely happier than you used to be?
i do not wish to be misunderstood. the financial question cannot be ignored. if it is true that money does not bring happiness, it is no less true that the lack of money induces a state of affairs in which efficient living becomes doubly difficult. these two propositions, superficially perhaps self-contradictory, are not really so. a modest income suffices for the fullest realisation of the ego in terms of content and dignity; but you must live within it. you cannot righteously ignore money. a man, for instance, who cultivates himself and instructs a family of daughters in everything except the ability to earn their own livelihood, and then has the impudence to die suddenly without leaving a penny—that man is a scoundrel. ninety—or should i say ninety-nine?—per cent. of all those anxieties which render proper living almost impossible are caused by the habit of walking on the edge of one's income as one might walk on the edge of a precipice. the majority of englishmen have some financial worry or other continually, everlastingly at the back of their minds. the sacrifice necessary to abolish this condition of things is more apparent than real. all spending is a matter of habit.
speaking generally, a man can contrive, out of an extremely modest income, to have all that he needs—unless he needs the esteem of snobs. habit may, and habit usually does, make it just as difficult to keep a family on two thousand a year as on two hundred. i suppose that for the majority of men the suspension of income for a single month would mean either bankruptcy, the usurer, or acute inconvenience. impossible, under such circumstances, to be in full and independent possession of one's immortal soul! hence i should be inclined to say that the first preliminary to a proper control of the machine is the habit of spending decidedly less than one earns or receives. the veriest automaton of a clerk ought to have the wherewithal of a whole year as a shield against the caprices of his employer. it would be as reasonable to expect the inhabitants of an unfortified city in the midst of a plain occupied by a hostile army to apply themselves successfully to the study of logarithms or metaphysics, as to expect a man without a year's income in his safe to apply himself successfully to the true art of living.
and the whole secret of relative freedom from financial anxiety lies not in income, but in expenditure. i am ashamed to utter this antique platitude. but, like most aphorisms of unassailable wisdom, it is completely ignored. you say, of course, that it is not easy to leave a margin between your expenditure and your present income. i know it. i fraternally shake your hand. still it is, in most cases, far easier to lessen one's expenditure than to increase one's income without increasing one's expenditure. the alternative is before you. however you decide, be assured that the foundation of philosophy is a margin, and that the margin can always be had.
