The deceptive process of the growth of riches—The relaxation of effort—The love of ease—The power of convention—The disadvantages of abundance—Surfeit—Difficulties in a rich man’s life—Waste of talent and capacity—England as a nation deeply infected with the belief in money.

There is no more misleading and deceptive process than the gradual growth of riches. As a man’s income increases, fresh obligations arise which have all the appearance of necessities, and in satisfying these a still further crop springs up, demands his attention, and occupies more of his time. Little by little his standard changes; stage by stage, almost imperceptibly, what he once regarded as a pure luxury becomes to him an imperative necessity, and all unconscious, he spends his energy in the struggle to keep himself on a level with those among whom he desires to be classed.

This is all very well with people whose means range above the limit, but when we reach those who are on the border line, when we come to the ranks of those whose existence is overshadowed by the constant and wearing anxiety as to whether their small incomes will go far enough, there is an element of profound tragedy in their efforts to keep up appearances and to maintain an outward show of having money while necessities, unseen but very pressing, are sacrificed—the service of doctors and nurses in illness very likely denied, and all the small accessories that go to make life in the home pleasanter cut off. We are not aware of the large number of people thus situated, because their brave attempts to delude us are often successful. Those we know of have perhaps seen better days, being through no fault of their own thrown into penury, and they may be making pathetic and painful endeavours to keep up a show not, indeed, of affluence, but, anyhow, of respectability. As a writer15 recently said with great truth: “There is little sympathy felt in the world of rhetoric for the silent sufferings of the genteel poor, yet there is no class that deserves a more charitable commiseration.” Their incomes may not be in themselves excessively small, but the expense of conforming to the various little conventions to which they have been accustomed and the strain of trying to keep up to a level slightly above their natural standard eat away too much of their meagre store. Their gentility has softened them, or their middle-class respectability prevents them from openly ranking themselves among the poor. They know, too, that a change in circumstances may deprive them of their former “friends.”

The miseries of debt and bankruptcy may often be the outcome of an extravagant or profligate disposition, and need not be directly connected with an excess or deficiency of means. But this solicitude to obey the rigid, conventional, and universally accepted measure for classing the community according to their incomes, this horror of dropping in the scale, is responsible for much suffering and secret despair, especially among women who have not been trained to work and find themselves turned adrift on the world with a bare pittance.

Higher in the scale, where there is an ample competence, the amount spent on appearances is frequently unreasonably excessive. The craving to associate with people who are richer and the fear of being thought badly off, knowing that that is the equivalent of becoming socially a pariah, produces a serious deficiency in the more important needs of life, bitterness at the hardness of fate, stinting, useless saving, and sometimes eventual impoverishment and ruin.

But without having actually to face catastrophe, these people, simply by the injudicious and ill-managed administration of what they have got, cannot live the full and decent lives their circumstances allow them. This is true of a very large well-to-do class who cry out for more money while they are spending too large a portion of what they have in things which, for them, are unnecessary extravagances, but which they cling to as indispensable.

They are probably slackening their exertions in directions where they would be all the better for a little extra stimulant in the shape of trouble and effort. The constant easy satisfaction of their small requirements has an enervating and weakening effect on their character, and there is neither charm nor adventure in their lives, for there is a point when satisfaction almost suffocates. Human nature is so constituted that energy increases in proportion as it is used. The more a man has to do, the more he wants to do, the more he can do. All kinds of insignificant little daily efforts keep the machine perpetually in motion and in order, ready and alert for more work, and the spirit of disinclination is shut out. Relax those efforts, augment sensuous comforts, and the machine will require starting and restarting, with a continual extra spurt and additional exertion. The spirit of disinclination insinuates itself, and indolence and apathy creep in. It has been shown in the animal world that the spoilt and carefully combed and washed pet is far less intelligent than the animal who has to look after himself, scratch his own fleas, and lick the dirt off his paws. We are under the impression that if we can get rid of the various irritations of daily life, which are our fleas, the time spent in scratching will be devoted to work of a higher order more in conformity with our powers. But, given the time, somehow we do not manage to do the extra work. The ambition of every man who acquires more money is not to increase the field of personal activity, but, on the contrary, to restrict it. The natural tendency is towards ease rather than action. But as soon as men find out that ease begets indifference and indolence amounting to atrophy, and leading at last to a cessation of the ordinary powers of enjoyment, and that action is a spur to the faculties, making them more alive, more sensitive, and more susceptible to enthusiasm and appreciation, they will be on their guard against the snares and wiles that beset the path of everyone who makes a special business of smoothing away all the roughness in his domestic and social surroundings.

Spending money to save oneself trouble often produces trouble and worry of a different and very likely more vexatious kind, and at the same time reduces by that much the good effects on the character produced by a certain amount of bracing discipline and general tightening of the reins of conduct. Precisely in the same way as reducing hygienic or physical exercise diminishes muscular efficiency. The recurring sense of accomplishment, however trivial and apparently insignificant that accomplishment may be, is invigorating to the nature and of enduring value. As Carlyle says in one of his letters to his future wife: “Let us not despond in the life of honourable toil which lies before us. Do you not think that when you on one side of our household shall have faithfully gone through your housewife’s duties, and I on the other shall have written my allotted pages, we shall meet over our frugal meal with far happier and prouder hearts than thousands that are not blessed with any duty and whose agony is the bitterest of all, ‘the agony of a too easy bed’?”

It is too much to ask that everyone should at once recognise what sort of expenditure will really be repaying and fill their lives with genuine happiness and what is only empty, disappointing, and superfluous. But they are wrong when they suppose, as they so often do, that they are suffering from want of money; and they are wrong in believing that more money will cure their discontent. The problem for them is more than half solved once they come to realise that they are showing themselves to be incapable of the responsibility they already possess, and that more money would only mean an increase of responsibilities without any fresh acquisition of knowledge as to how to discharge them. All around them they observe an implicit obedience in small matters as well as great to what we may call the law of gain. They join in obeying this law, which is nothing more than an artificial convention of an ill-organised society.

The word convention has frequently been used, for it best describes the fixed authority for conduct and ethics which has been set up by the tacit consensus of public opinion, and which people accept and obey without inquiry. This force—for it amounts to a force—drives the great body of uneducated, under-educated, and ill-educated people, who never stop to inquire or investigate. If a stick is put across a gap in a hedge and a flock of sheep is driven through, the first few sheep will jump the stick, and then, even after the stick has been removed, the rest of the flock will all jump when they come to the gap, and not one will stop to see if there is any reason or necessity for the jump. So it is with human beings, who find it easier to do as others do rather than take the trouble to exercise any separate powers of discrimination which might convince them of the necessity of striking out a different line of their own. One line of conduct may suit a large number of individuals, but it is inconceivable that it should suit all, and there is a great revivification of the faculties in a man when he first realises that what may be right for others need not be right for him.

A lady once remarked, with a sigh, while arranging her drawing-room, “One must have a silver table,” meaning that a small table on which could be displayed various gimcracks of silver was a necessity of fashion in the disposition of drawing-room furniture. If she had said, “I won’t have a silver table,” or, “I’m going to have twenty silver tables,” she would have been an exceptional and original being exercising an independent judgment at the risk of being thought eccentric. But her only desire, and the only desire of the majority of her fellows, is to conform.

Another cause of mischief is that most people have their eyes turned towards those who are better off than they are themselves, and they continually and instinctively make mental comparisons which serve only to increase their longing. Seldom do they turn their eyes to the millions who are less fortunate in the way of wealth and make comparisons in that direction, else they might come to the unpleasant conclusion that they have themselves already more than enough, and perhaps too much. To live simply they foolishly suspect means something disagreeable, unattractive, tedious, and arduous; whereas if they only gave it a trial, they might find that the very simplification of their manner of living would set free their energies and attract them to new and absorbing interests, and a kind of happiness might become theirs which far surpasses in intensity the greatest pleasures wealth ever bought, and which, instead of being transitory and ephemeral, is lasting.

“The superior worth of simplicity of life,” says J.S. Mill, “the enervating and demoralising effect of the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas which have never been entirely absent from cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote; and they will in time produce their effect, though at present needing to be asserted as much as ever, and to be asserted by deeds, for words on this subject have nearly exhausted their power.”

Asceticism, pedantry, intentional unconventionality, and the affected “simple life” have all served to damage the force of the arguments in favour of plain living; and it is often supposed that it is jealousy of the rich that causes the occasional outbursts against luxury. But anyone who can watch for a moment and analyse social phenomena will very soon come to the conclusion that there is nothing in the lives of the rich of which anyone need be envious. Millionaires themselves are the first to admit that their money brings them no happiness. The confession has been made by one of them that the very fact of being able without the least difficulty to satisfy his smallest or his largest fancies was in itself the very antithesis of pleasure. He had learnt that the continuous craving to satisfy human wants, far from being a misfortune, constituted an intrinsic element in the production of happiness. The hope perhaps long deferred, that some particular want might eventually be satisfied was a treasure he had for ever lost the power to appreciate. It is delay, and not immediate satisfaction, that enhances the value of acquisition. “Millionaires who laugh are rare,” says Andrew Carnegie.

Superabundance, surfeit, the cloying sweetness of excess, the consequent lack of restraint and reserve must encourage the development of moral sickness, nausea, and intellectual inertia. In all professions, arts, trades, and crafts the fixing of a limit within which to operate is the secret of the attainment of a high quality of work because it is the recognition of human limitations. The same principle holds good for every human being in the administration of his worldly possessions and the management of his own life. Economy should be the key-note rather than profusion, strength lies in reserve rather than in excess.

We are only saying to a man who is sitting before a table laden with a vast quantity of different dishes heaped with all kinds of appetising foods: “Being an ordinary mortal your digestion will not stand more than a limited quantity of that food. If you continually eat more than what is good for you, you will be ill. A certain amount of food will nourish you, a larger amount will simply make you sick. We do not say your food is too good, nastier food would be better for you, nor do we say that you must never have a feast: but we assure you that if you habitually gorge the surfeit will injure your digestive powers, will destroy your own enjoyment of the meal, and at the same time, by this thoughtless waste, you are depriving many who have an insufficient quantity of what is rightfully theirs. In any case, you can never manage to eat all these dishes by yourself. What good are they to you? To propose that you should be relieved of some of your superfluity is the suggestion of a friend and not of an enemy. Just reflect as you see this huge meal spread before you that the great majority of your fellow-men have not more than one meagre and inadequate dish.” He would probably reply: “I am the best judge of what is good for me. The food is mine. If I do not eat it I am not going to allow anyone to deprive me of it, but I can always give part of it away if and when I feel inclined”—and he will continue with a dull gaze of satiated weariness to regard the piles of food before him.

This is a fair metaphor, because we have all been forced to learn the precise nature of our limitations with regard to the consumption of food. Is it unreasonable to hope that in time we may become as conscious of our limitations in the consumption of other materials no less important?

If the rich protest that they have a perfect right to amass what fortune they like, and that it is tyranny and an infringement of their liberty to deny them this right, they can be told plainly that their liberty will only be respected if they in their turn will respect the liberty of others, which cannot be effectually secured except by restraining license. As it is, they are manifestly depriving others of their liberty and elementary rights by the outrageous license they now allow themselves. No one cries out louder than a rich man if by any chance he loses part of his fortune. The reduction of his income from fifty to thirty, or from twenty to ten thousand a year is a catastrophe for which he unceasingly asks the sympathy and commiseration of his friends. The dismissal of the second footman is a hardship which requires courage to face, the sale of a corner of the estate is the sign of ruin! He stands in striking contrast to those who, having to face genuine poverty, often show fortitude and pluck in the face of bitter misfortunes.

But as an excuse for the rich man it ought frankly to be acknowledged that his life is made extremely complex and difficult. If this much alone were apparent to him he might pause in his eager chase. A man with work, with a profession or trade, a woman with a profession or with house and parental duties, not only have their time occupied, but have their thoughts filled and have fewer alternatives of conduct, while at the same time they are not freed from the conflicting obligations which make every life a serious problem. But the rich man has before him unlimited alternatives without any constraint. He has to invent and conceive for himself his sphere of usefulness and select the particular form of occupation he thinks will suit him. He suffers from misgivings in embarking on one form of activity, that he might have done better to choose another. If he is not careful, idle business, the inevitable outcome of his estates, his establishments, his social duties, and other appurtenances of his elaborate entourage will take up the greater part of his time and absorb all his thoughts. However conscientiously he may desire to encourage works of utility and throw himself into profitable pursuits, he must find himself embarrassed not only with his load of wealth, but with the limitless horizon before him, the entire absence of any disciplinary compulsion, and the withdrawal of the restraints which shield the course of a simpler life. Not only is the volume of water larger, but there is no river bed. The shifting action of the stream, therefore, is far more likely to be devastating than fertilising.

Waste and loss will everywhere be found in money’s trail. Talents which under free, unhampered conditions might have grown and blossomed have been withered under this golden blight. Many men and women might have done valuable work and even attained great achievements had they been compelled to work for a living, to toil, to labour, and to strive instead of being choked with the glut of riches. With a very few exceptions, men in the creative arts and in science have not been men who by any standard could be described as rich. The greatest treasures the world possesses in painting, music, literature, poetry, and architecture are gifts from men who were never burdened with great possessions. No genius, no creative spirit, no hungry inquirer, no philosopher can exist in the hot-house atmosphere and cramping conditions which surround riches.

On the other hand, extreme poverty has very much the same effect, killing the too sensitive and fragile spirit in its exertions to be free, wasting what might be a useful and perhaps remarkable life, and forcing men of high powers to stoop to the prostitution of their talents in order to gain enough for their very subsistence. But in the latter case, anyhow, the fight is a great and vigorous combat for existence which a man must take up or perish, and which, if he succeeds, equips him with strengthened faculties and a richer experience for the further stages on his life’s journey. Poverty is merciless and cruel, but it cannot be denied that it is a far better teacher than riches. The contest with money has no stimulating effects, it weakens and paralyses a man’s moral and intellectual fibre, stunts and smothers his finer ambitions, and if he has the unusual strength of character to free himself, it can only be done by casting from him deliberately and finally his self-imposed burden.

Art, literature, and music are all suffering severely from the financial taint known as commercialism, which tends to popularise second-rate work, degrade the public taste, and steepen the already stiff path chosen by those who are aiming at a high standard of workmanship rather than popular recognition. “Will it pay?” is a colloquialism as general in use as remarks about the weather.

When compared with other nations, it would seem that we in England are more deeply infected with this belief in money than they are elsewhere. Our very prosperity, generally described in figures of material expansion, may account for this. The more money there is in circulation, the more chance there is for larger quantities of it to get lodged in a single pocket, the keener becomes the competition to acquire it, the stronger is the power, the influence, and the example of rich men.

America cannot be very far behind, where comment is now being made on cases of insanity and the suicidal mania among the children and descendants of very rich people, brought about by the mental and nervous strain and exhaustion to which multi-millionaires are subjected in their mad race for wealth. It produces in the children what they call over there “the money twist” in the brain. Nevertheless, in his survey of English life the American writer already quoted says, “The struggle to get it (money) is unparalleled anywhere else in the world.”16 And this was also the verdict of one who wrote a few years ago with an intimate knowledge of Continental life:

“There is no nation in the world that has so acute a sense of the value, almost the necessity of wealth for human intercourse as the English nation.... In England they silently accept the maxim, ‘a large income is a necessary of life,’ and they class each other according to the scale of their establishments, looking up with unfeigned reverence to those who have many servants, many horses, and gigantic houses, where great hospitality is dispensed.”17

In the economic structure, just as in an architectural structure, what should be aimed at is a proper relation between weights and supports. One section of our social building is too heavily weighted and there is an unnecessary waste of material in supplying the adequate supports and buttresses to meet the stress, which is all on the one side. It is this want of balance and disproportionate pressure which tends very materially to imperil the whole edifice.

Does it amount to a national danger? and if so, how can it be warded off? are questions that may well be asked. But this would carry us too far and involve a discussion as to the extent to which legislation or taxation or an improved system of education might shield us from any risks. It lies outside the scope of our present argument, which must be confined to demonstrating the existence and universal nature of the passion, its unjustifiable claims and evil consequences.

How to put a stop to the waste caused by an unproductive surplus getting piled up in the hands of the rich is nevertheless admitted by modern economists to be a matter that urgently needs solution. “The principal problem of modern industrial civilisation,” says Mr. J.A. Hobson, “consists in devising measures to secure that the whole of the industrial surplus shall be economically applied to the purposes of industrial and social progress instead of passing in the shape of unearned increment to the owners of the factors of production whose activities are depressed, not stimulated by such payments.”18