nst the
modern upholders of the simple life--the simple life in all its varied
forms, from vegetarianism to the honourable consistency of the
Doukhobors. This complaint against them stands, that they would make us
simple in the unimportant things, but complex in the important things.
They would make us simple in the things that do not matter--that is, in
diet, in costume, in etiquette, in economic system. But they would make
us complex in the things that do matter--in philosophy, in loyalty, in
spiritual acceptance, and spiritual rejection. It does not so very much
matter whether a man eats a grilled tomato or a plain tomato; it does
very much matter whether he eats a plain tomato with a grilled mind.
The only kind of simplicity worth preserving is the simplicity of the
heart, the simplicity which accepts and enjoys. There may be a
reasonable doubt as to what system preserves this; there can surely be
no doubt that a system of simplicity destroys it. There is more
simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who
eats grape-nuts on principle. The chief error of these people is to be
found in the very phrase to which they are most attached--"plain living
and high thinking." These people do not stand in need of, will not be
improved by, plain living and high thinking. They stand in need of the
contrary. They would be improved by high living and plain thinking. A
little high living (I say, having a full sense of responsibility, a
little high living) would teach them the force and meaning of the human
festivities, of the banquet that has gone on from the beginning of the
world. It would teach them the historic fact that the artificial is,
if anything, older than the natural. It would teach them that the
loving-cup is as old as any hunger. It would teach them that ritualism
is older than any religion. And a little plain thinking would teach
them how harsh and fanciful are the mass of their own ethics, how very
civilized and very complicated must be the brain of the Tolstoyan who
really believes it to be evil to love one's country and wicked to
strike a blow.

A man approaches, wearing sandals and simple raiment, a raw tomato held
firmly in his right hand, and says, "The affections of family and
country alike are hindrances to the fuller development of human love;"
but the plain thinker will only answer him, with a wonder not untinged
with admiration, "What a great deal of trouble you must have taken in