SOMEONE may protest against the nature of the simple life in the name of esthetics, or oppose to ours the theory of the service of luxury—that providence of business, fostering mother of arts, and grace of civilized society. We shall try, briefly, to anticipate these objections.

It will no doubt have been evident that the spirit which animates these pages is not utilitarian. It would be an error to suppose that the simplicity we seek has anything in common with that which misers impose upon themselves through cupidity, or narrow-minded people through false austerity. To the former the simple life is the one that costs least; to the latter it is a flat and colorless existence, whose merit lies in depriving one\'s self of everything bright, smiling, seductive.

It displeases us not a whit that people of large means should put their fortune into circulation instead of hoarding it, so giving life to commerce and [140]the fine arts. That is using one\'s privileges to good advantage. What we would combat is foolish prodigality, the selfish use of wealth, and above all the quest of the superfluous on the part of those who have the greatest need of taking thought for the necessary. The lavishness of a M?cenas could not have the same effect in a society as that of a common spendthrift who astonishes his contemporaries by the magnificence of his life and the folly of his waste. In these two cases the same term means very different things—to scatter money broadcast does not say it all; there are ways of doing it which ennoble men, and others which degrade them. Besides, to scatter money supposes that one is well provided with it. When the love of sumptuous living takes possession of those whose means are limited, the matter becomes strangely altered. And a very striking characteristic of our time is the rage for scattering broadcast which the very people have who ought to husband their resources. Munificence is a benefit to society, that we grant willingly. Let us even allow that the prodigality of certain rich men is a [141]safety-valve for the escape of the superabundant: we shall not attempt to gainsay it. Our contention is that too many people meddle with the safety-valve when to practice economy is the part of both their interest and their duty: their extravagance is a private misfortune and a public danger.

SO much for the utility of luxury.

We now wish to explain ourselves upon the question of esthetics—oh! very modestly, and without trespassing on the ground of the specialists. Through a too common illusion, simplicity and beauty are considered as rivals. But simple is not synonymous with ugly, any more than sumptuous, stylish and costly are synonymous with beautiful. Our eyes are wounded by the crying spectacle of gaudy ornament, venal art and senseless and graceless luxury. Wealth coupled with bad taste sometimes makes us regret that so much money is in circulation to provoke the creation of such a prodigality of horrors. Our contemporary art suffers as much from the want of simplicity as does our literature—too much in it that is irrelevant, over-wrought, falsely imagined. Rarely is it given us to contemplate in line, form, or color, that simplicity allied to perfection which commands the eyes as evidence does the mind. We need to be rebaptized in the ideal purity of immortal beauty which puts its [142]seal on the masterpieces; one shaft of its radiance is worth more than all our pompous exhibitions.

YET what we now have most at heart is to speak of the ordinary esthetics of life, of the care one should bestow upon the adornment of his dwelling and his person, giving to existence that luster without which it lacks charm. For it is not a matter of indifference whether man pays attention to these superfluous necessities or whether he does not: it is by them that we know whether he puts soul into his work. Far from considering it as wasteful to give time and thought to the perfecting, beautifying and poetizing of forms, I think we should spend as much as we can upon it. Nature gives us her example, and the man who should affect contempt for the ephemeral splendor of beauty with which we garnish our brief days, would lose sight of the intentions of Him who has put the same care and love into the painting of the lily of an hour and the eternal hills.

But we must not fall into the gross error of confounding true beauty with that which has only the name. The beauty and poetry of existence lie in the understanding we have of it. Our home, our [143]table, our dress should be the interpreters of intentions. That these intentions be so expressed, it is first necessary to have them, and he who possesses them makes them evident through the simplest means. One need not be rich to give grace and charm to his habit and his habitation: it suffices to have good taste and good-will. We come here to a point very important to everybody, but perhaps of more interest to women than to men.

Those who would have women conceal themselves in coarse garments of the shapeless uniformity of bags, violate nature in her very heart, and misunderstand completely the spirit of things. If dress were only a precaution to shelter us from cold or rain, a piece of sacking or the skin of a beast would answer. But it is vastly more than this. Man puts himself entire into all that he does; he transforms into types the things that serve him. The dress is not simply a covering, it is a symbol. I call to witness the rich flowering of national and provincial costumes, and those worn by our early corporations. A woman\'s toilette, too, has something to say to us. The more meaning there is in it, the greater its worth. To be truly beautiful, it must tell us of beautiful things, things personal and veritable. [144]Spend all the money you possess upon it, if its form is determined by chance or custom, if it has no relation to her who wears it, it is only toggery, a domino. Ultra-fashionable dress, which completely masks feminine personality under designs of pure convention, despoils it of its principal attraction. From this abuse it comes about that many things which women admire do as much wrong to their beauty as to the purses of their husbands and fathers. What would you say of a young girl who expressed her thoughts in terms very choice, indeed, but taken word for word from a phrase-book? What charm could you find in this borrowed language? The effect of toilettes well-designed in themselves but seen again and again on all women indiscriminately, is precisely the same.

I can not resist citing here a passage from Camille Lemonnier, that harmonizes with my idea.

"Nature has given to the fingers of woman a charming art, which she knows by ............