much nearer the true ideal
of human life than the civilised man, for the true ideal is that every
man shall be efficient for his own needs, with as little dependence as
possible on others.

Under natural conditions there is enough faculty in a man's ten fingers
to supply his own needs, and all the avocations needful to life may
meet under one hat. The familiar illustration of the number of men
required to make a pin is typical of that contemptible futility to
which what is called civilisation reduces men by mere dispersal of
labour. Such dispersal develops single faculties, but paralyses men.
It is like developing some single part of the human organism, such as a
finger-tip, to high sensitiveness, by drawing away the sensitiveness
from all the rest. To do this reduces life to barrenness; it makes it
meagre in energy and pleasure; it makes work a disease. But in such a
life as I now lived, it was not a finger-tip that worked but the whole
man. The cabbage I cut for dinner was fashioned from my own substance,
for my sweat had nourished it. The butter I ate was part of my own
energy, spent over the churn, come back to me in the freshness and
firmness of edible gold. My bread was baked in a flame kindled at my
own heart [Transcriber's note: hearth?], and it was the sweeter for it.
When I lay down at night I was quits with Nature. I had paid so much
energy into her bank, and had a right to the dividend of rest she gave
me.

Apart from all other things, the economy of this mode of life will be
at once perceived. My expenses sank steadily month by month. I made a
good many mistakes, of course, for there is more than meets the eye in
remunerative gardening, chicken farming, and bee-keeping, as there is
in most human occupations which appear delusively simple. It took me
some time to rectify these mistakes, but before a year had passed I
found myself raising all my own garden produce, well supplied with eggs
and poultry for my own table, and able to earn a little by the sale of
my superfluous stock. Some articles, such as coal, were excessively
dear; but then, as a set-off, I could have all the wood I required for
next to nothing, and we burned more wood than coal. Groceries I
purchased in wholesale quantities from a Manchester store, so that in
spite of carriage I paid less for them than I had paid in London, and
secured the best quality. My trout rod served my breakfast table, and
my gun brought me many a dinn