THE machinery of life and life itself are continually getting mixed up, both in our theories and also in our practices, and it is frequently difficult to say of a given act whether it is a part of life itself or whether it is just a means of preparation for life. It was this fact, I suppose, that Henry Drummond had in mind when he said that, even at the worst, the struggle for life was really life itself. He applied this, to be sure, to the fierce struggles for food and other necessaries of life in which, during early stages of development, human beings engaged for the purpose of self-preservation. It is just as applicable, however, to our present struggle for life, for the care and the foresight that we must exercise in order to secure the food and the shelter and the fresh air and the sunlight which are necessary simply as preparation for what we consider our life work really involve just the thought and the exercise of reason that make life for us as distinguished from mere existence. Thus the fact that the harder we must struggle for life the greater is that mental activity which is an essential part of life itself is the first source of consolation for the fact that we have to struggle.

But there is another and a greater source of consolation. It was Drummond, I think, who originated the expression, the struggle for the life of others, making it cover all the activities to which we are prompted by love. Of these activities the most important is home-making, and it is the opportunity that home affords for merging the struggle for life into the struggle for the life of others that takes the sting from the work necessary for self-preservation. Thus, in providing a shelter to protect himself from the elements and to keep him in condition for work, man, if he be a home-maker, performs the same service for those he loves; and in providing for herself food that shall fit her to be an efficient working member of society, woman, if she be a home-maker, performs the same service for those who are bound to her by affection. Herein lies the second source of consolation for the fact that the greater part of our time and energy must be given to securing and caring for the machinery of life.

In getting ready to live, and in helping others to get ready to live—in these two ways we spend the greater part of our lives. But there are some activities in life which are simply a part of living. Of these, or of part of them, Browning makes David sing in “Saul”:

To the pleasures which are here suggested, and which are chiefly those of the senses, should be added, if we are to have anything like a complete list, those pleasures which come from going to the theater, from listening to music, and from looking at works of art, providing, of course, we do not take any of them too seriously; those pleasures which come from social intercourse with friends, and which are not dependent upon “improving conversation,” but which spring from the opportunity to be near and to talk with those we love; and those pleasures which come from meditation on life and its meaning, but which do not involve any effort to straighten out its tangles. “Improving” conversation and efforts to achieve artistic appreciation and to make the world better are parts of life, but they are also parts of its struggle, and therefore must be excluded from “the joys of mere living.”

If these pleasures that are ends and in no sense means are a legitimate part of life, they must be taken into consideration not only in adjusting the machinery of our own lives so as to have time for them, but also in adjusting the machinery of home-making so as to secure them for others. I know a woman who has four of the healthiest and happiest children in the country. She is also the fortunate possessor of horses and a carriage. If the day dawns bright and the woods seem to call for her, she has the horses harnessed, bundles the children into the carriage, puts a basket under the seat, and starts off down the street. On the way she picks up a congenial spirit or two, and stopping at the market fills her basket with bread and fruit and cooked meat or other kinds of food that can be bought ready for eating. Then, with no more ado than this, she is off for a whole day of “the joys of mere living” in the woods. This she is able to do because she has simplified the machinery of her home-making by excluding useless decorations from furnishings and clothing. Nor is it to be understood that she has thereby traded off the pleasures of beautiful home surroundings for the joys of frequent glimpses of nature. Her windows command broad views of lake and lawn, in the presence of which elaborate draperies would seem like impertinences, and her children have bright eyes and clear skins and well-developed figures, which plain clothing sets off better than ruffles and flounces.

In passing, we must not fail to note that this woman has done something more than to simplify housekeeping. She has also simplified the machinery of picnics—a great art. We have not, all of us, horses and carriages, but we can get some kind of conveyance—an electric car, if nothing better—and we can pick up on the way to the picnic food which will taste just as good in the open air as that over which we frequently wear ourselves out before starting.

It is interesting to see how things work themselves out in this world. We used to clean house in the spring. Although spring is violet time, and a season of enormous possibilities in the way of real living, yet this custom for many years worked little hardship, because most people lived reasonably near to nature all the time. Later, however, life became so artificial that we really needed occasional excursions into the country. Then, too, the kindergartens began to teach the children to see and to enjoy nature. Then, just in the nick of time, just as we had encountered the need of and the incentive to trips into the country, the necessity for “spring cleaning” was taken away. We began to have hardwood or painted floors, which made it possible to do housecleaning a little at a time all the year around. Thus there is now no great piece of work left to be done in the spring, when we really ought to be in the woods.

Perhaps the most interesting of the recent movements in the direction of simplifying housework is that in favor of sun-dried underwear, towels, bed linen, etc. This stands for another “working together for good.” When life became complex we began to begrudge the time necessary for ironing, and sometimes, if we thought we could use our time more profitably than in ironing, we used our clothes “rough-dried.” But now we no longer speak of “rough-dried” clothes, because that suggests only their negative advantage in saving work; but we say “sun-dried,” because hygienists have told us that articles that contain in their meshes fresh, sunned air are more healthful than those that contain the impure air of kitchen or laundry. They have told us, also, that because air is a poor conductor of heat, and because clothes that have not been pressed contain more air than those that have, we can get more protection from a given weight of underwear that has been sun-dried than from the same weight of that which has been ironed.

But no one is going to make effort to get time for “the joys of mere living” until he sees a prospect of getting them. For a long time we have recognized the possibility of getting these pleasures in large quantities in the summer time, during our vacations, but we have not recognized half the chances that lie about us all the year. Of all seasons the winter seems most unpromising, and yet I have experienced more joy from simply being alive in the winter than at any other time. On the greater part of the west shore of Lake Michigan there is a bluff. This serves to protect the shore from the west winds which prevail in that part of the world, and it also receives and reflects the morning sun. In cold weather the sand is hard and as easy to walk upon as a cement walk. On winter mornings, even when the thermometer is below zero, one can walk along the shore in perfect comfort in clothing that is light enough to make walking pleasurable. It is possible, also, with perfect comfort, to stop and build a fire, make coffee, and eat a lunch. And the lake and the sky present constant but ever changing beauties, and the sun sparkles on the ice that is heaped up near the shore. It is indeed good to be alive on the west shore of Lake Michigan of a bright winter’s morning, and yet, although I have spent hours walking on the shore on Saturday mornings, I have never seen a person besides those who were with me. Where are the mothers? Why don’t they bring their children down there? Don’t they know the fun of tramping up the shore and building fires and having little camp lunches, and of watching the winter landscape? This is but one instance of joys that are within the reach of all, and yet are undiscovered. Doubtless each one of us knows of some others such as these, and wonders why others do not avail themselves of them. If so, let’s tell each other about them.

But we lose joys in life not only by failing to find them and by complicating the machinery of life, but also by making machinery of those things which are really ends in themselves. There is bathing, for example. We take baths so many times a day or week in order to keep clean and healthy. We might, if we arranged things properly, forget about the necessity for health and cleanliness, and jump into the bath just for the sake of “the cool, silver shock of the plunge.” We perfunctorily “change the air” in our homes so many times each day, but it is possible to get so enamored of living out of doors as to find even the stillness of the air in the house unbearable. When one has reached that point an open window is no longer a means to health, but a part of the joy of living, because it brings the sensation of moving air.

What a difference, too, between a walk and a “constitutional”! I shall never forget a woman whom I saw one summer at a resort in one of the most beautiful parts of the Adirondacks. She used to come forth of a morning after breakfast and, with a set, determined look upon her face, walk so many times around the veranda, and then retire to the parlor for the rest of the day. Poor lady! I suppose she never saw that woodsy path that led up the hill behind the house, nor knew the joys of “leaping from rock up to rock” in order to get to the top of the hill, nor dreamed of the beauties of the moss-covered rock at the top, with the red-berried bush hanging over it. She never knew the pleasures of getting lost in the cranberry bog and having to wade the stream to get out. Poor, poor lady!

As for the joys of social intercourse with those we love, we lose them partly by letting them get mixed up with the machinery of education. Study clubs are all very well in their way and in their place, but there is such a thing as having too many of them. It is possible to get more profit as well as more pleasure from reading a masterpiece of literature for half an hour, and then talking with a friend for an hour and a half, than from listening to a rehash of the masterpiece for an hour and then talking with a lot of people we only half like for another hour. It is possible, also, to lose the pleasures of the expression of friendship by sacrificing them to formalities. If we give dinners and receptions simply for the sake of discharging social obligations, we are bound to throw away time which for the sake of the joy of living ought to be given to those we love.

But it is possible, also, to lose the pleasures of friendship by allowing them to interfere with the machinery of daily life, and to come to a time when we have to sacrifice either social intercourse or business. Perhaps there is no means of entertaining which yields so much satisfaction with so little interference with that regularity in the daily program that is necessary for health and work as the afternoon tea. By this I mean, not the large reception which sometimes goes by the name of “tea,” but the little, informal tea drinking. The food that is served at such a time is not a means of life, but simply an addition to the dietary made for the sake of refreshment and pleasure. It is not, therefore, necessary to serve enough to sustain life from one meal to another. Moreover, it is possible to buy ready prepared all the materials—the biscuits, the wafers, and the candies—and to have them always on hand. If busy people have it understood that they drink tea at a certain hour when at home, and that their friends are always welcome to drink with them, they are likely to get visits with real friends which they could never get in any other way.

But there is another occupation which may be an end in life without at the same time being a means. That is meditation on life and its meaning. To stand off from life and to view its follies, its foibles, and its inconsistencies, its pathos, its humor, to see all sides of it—this is one of the joys of mere living. Perhaps the best time for this is during a walk in town, and it is the chance to see life that can change a constitutional upon city pavements from a means to life to a part of life itself. He who is too busy with the machinery of life to get a chance to look upon life itself, as upon a drama, loses half the joy of living.

To stretch the muscles, to breathe deeply, to feel the blood circulate rapidly, to feel the wind blowing in one’s face, to love and to express love, to stand off and see life from afar—these are joys for which it is worth while to simplify the machinery of life.