le self-sacrifice, if it be accompanied by a tender
love of humanity, will always be the most impressive attitude in the
world.

But if one is not capable of going to such lengths, if indeed one has
nothing that one can resign, how is it possible to practise simplicity
of life? It can be done by limiting one's needs, by avoiding luxuries,
by having nothing in one's house that one cannot use, by being detached
from pretentiousness, by being indifferent to elaborate comforts. There
are people whom I know who do this, and who, even though they live with
some degree of wealth, are yet themselves obviously independent of
comfort to an extraordinary degree. There is a Puritanical dislike of
waste which is a very different thing, because it often coexists with
an extreme attachment to the particular standard of comfort that the
man himself prefers. I know people who believe that a substantial
midday meal and a high tea are more righteous than a simple midday meal
and a substantial dinner. But the right attitude is one of unconcern
and the absence of uneasy scheming as to the details of life. There is
no reason why people should not form habits, because method is the
primary condition of work; but the moment that habit becomes tyrannous
and elaborate, then the spirit is at once in bondage to anxiety. The
real victory over these little cares is not for ever to have them on
one's mind; or one becomes like the bread-and-butter fly in Through the
Looking-Glass, whose food was weak tea with cream in it. "But supposing
it cannot find any?" said Alice. "Then it dies," says the gnat, who is
acting the part of interpreter. "But that must happen very often?" said
Alice. "It ALWAYS happens!" says the gnat with sombre emphasis.

Simplicity is, in fact, a difficult thing to lay down rules for,
because the essence of it is that it is free from rules; and those who
talk and think most about it, are often the most uneasy and complicated
natures. But it is certain that if one finds oneself growing more and
more fastidious and particular, more and more easily disconcerted and
put out and hampered by any variation from the exact scheme of life
that one prefers, even if that scheme is an apparently simple one, it
is certain that simplicity is at an end. The real simplicity is a sense
of being at home and at ease in any company and mode of living, and a
quiet equanimity of spirit which cannot be content to waste time over
the arrangements of life.