the remembered crimes. It was impossible that he must make hay while the sun that children born under such stars, surrounded shines, because for him it generally in infancy by such an atmosphere of stimulants, shines so late; and his career is so often should not bear in every fibre traces of the divided into two equal portions- waiting strange era on which their eyes first opened. Then followed another period of excite-wearily for work, and being absorbed in ment of a different order, during which the it-groaning or sinking under its exgeneration born between 1789 and 1793 had Cess. The physician cannot in middle its adolescence and its nurture. The delirium life refuse or select among the crowding of triumph succeeded the delirium of revolu- patients whom he has looked and longed tion. Every day brought tidings of a fresh for through the years of youth, even victory; every year saw the celebration of a though his strength is consciously giving new conquest. For twenty years the whole way under the burdensome and urgent nation lived upon continuous stimulants of calls; while the statesman or the memthe most intoxicating sort. The Frenchmen ber of Parliament in office has constantly born while society was being convulsed, and bred while Europe was being subdued, be- to undergo a degree of prolonged prescame the progenitors of the Frenchmen who sure which it is astonishing that so many witnessed or caused the revolutions of 1830 can endure, and perhaps more astonishand 1848; and these in their turn gave birthing still that so many are found passionto those still punier and still more demor-ately struggling to reach. We all of us alized and distempered by the perpetual dram- remember the description given of this drinking which public life in France had career by one of its most eminent votabeen-who now stand before the judgment-ries: "There is little reason in my opinseat of Europe as the men and women of ion," said Macaulay, "to envy a pursuit 1871. For more than ninety years France has in which the most its devotees can exscarcely been sane and sober for an hour; ceaseless emotion has grown into chronic pect is that, by relinquishing liberal hysteria; and defects, vices, and propensities, studies and social comfort, by passing nights without sleep, and summers without one glimpse of the beauties of nature, they may attain that laborious, that invidious, that closely-watched slavery which is mocked with the name of pow mental and moral once, have become constitutional and physical at last. II. But our "life at high pressure" is shown even more in our style of work than in our rate of movement. Theer." world is growing more exacting in its deAnd this reminds us to say one word mands from all labourers except merely upon another feature of this high-presmanual ones; and life in one way or sure existence. It is not only that health other is becoming severer and severer to and strength often give way under the nearly all. The great prizes of social incessant strain; it is not that the overexistence success in professional, pub-tasked brain not unfrequently pays the lic, and commercial life-demand more fearful penalty which, sooner or later, nastrenuous and exhausting toil, a greater ture inexorably levies upon all habitual exstrain upon both bodily and mental pow-cess; it is that men who have thus given ers, a sterner concentration of effort and up their entire being to this professional or of aim, and a more harsh and rigid sac- business labour, so often lose all capability rifice of the relaxations and amenities of a better life, all relish for recreation or which time offers to the easy-going and contemplation, all true appreciation of unambitious, than was formerly the case. leisure when it comes at last; for the facThe eminent lawyer, the physician in ulties of enjoyment, like all others, are full practice, the minister, and the poli- apt to grow atrophied with disuse,- so tician who aspires to be a minister that we see men in most careers go toileven the literary workman, or the eager ing on long after the culminating point man of science-are one and all con- of professional success is reached,demned to an amount and continued se- when wealth has become a superfluity verity of exertion of which our grand- and there is no motive for further acfathers knew little, and which forces one cumulation,-not because their life has after another of them to break off (or to still a charm for them, but because every break down) in mid-career, shattered, other life has by long disacquaintance paralyzed, reduced to premature inaction lost its attraction. "Why," asked a or senility. In every line of life we see friend once of an eminently successful almost daily examples; for what actual advocate, "why should you go on weartoil does for the learned professions, per- ing yourself out day after day in amasspetual anxiety does for the merchant and ing gold which you can neither enjoy nor the manufacturer. The barrister tells us use? You get no good of it; you have no one to leave it to; you cannot carry | To few cases does the very harsh Scripit away with you. Why don't you retire, tural text, "To him that hath shall be and leave the stage to younger men?" given," so closely apply. Even in the Alas! the successful man too often with more distinctly intellectual careers much to retire upon, has nothing to re- except perhaps some branches of literatire to; for literature, science, domestic ture and science-physical strength is ties, public and philanthropic interests, nearly as essential as mental superiority, nature itself, with its exhaustless loveli- and mental superiority often fails for ness and its perennial refreshment, have want of it. At the bar, animal vigour, all been neglected and lost sight of dur- what may be termed loosely physical and ing the mad rush and struggle of the last cerebral toughness, is a prime requisite; thirty years and these are treasures so it is for the surgeon in good practice the key to which soon grows rusty, and for the successful engineer-most of friends that, once slighted, cannot be all perhaps for the parliamentary official, whistled back at will. "Ah! mon- who has to work usually half the night, and sieur!" said Talleyrand to a young man, always more than half the day. In short, who in the bustle of business and ambi- the race of life is so rapid, the struggle tion had never learned, or had forgotten of life so stern, the work of life so hard, to keep up his whist, "Ah! monsieur, that exceptional organizations seem to be quelle triste vieillesse vous vous pre-essential everywhere to great achieveparez!" How many of us, letting slip ment or even ordinary fruits; the modthe habit of interests still more attractive, erately-endowed, the steady fair average lay the foundation of an old age sadder man, the medium in all things -in and drearier by far. Thus it is that we wealth, in brains, in health and strength sacrifice life to a living— the end to the is "nowhere" in the strife; - the slow-moving, the tardily developing, who fifty years ago might have attained a decent position and secured a decent competence, bid fair to be elbowed out of their careers; while the prospect before the dull and the dunces - who who are seldom the minority is grow means Et, propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas. People maintain that this excess of toil is unavoidable, that you must keep the pace, or fall behind and be trampled down by competitors who are more am-ing deplorable indeed. bitious, more concentrated, or less inclined to measure and appraise the objects and the worth of life; and that in a civilization like ours moderation is forbidden to those who would succeed at all, or not actually fail. It may be so, though I am not quite convinced it is so; and at least, if men must work over hard, they need not work over long; they might yield the vacant place to younger and needier aspirants. But if it be thus that it is thus is precisely my indictment against the spirit of the age. Excess is enforced; moderation that which to the wiser Greeks seemed the essence of wisdom is forbidden, or appears to be So. III. It would seem, again, that the future, in England at least, is not to be for the moderately wealthy, any more than for the moderately industrious or the moderately clever. There is danger of this in every rapidly progressive country, and the symptoms of it in England have become very manifest of late years. Several operations have_combined to produce this result. The aggregate wealth of the country has enormously increased.* The profits of enterprise, if not of ordinary plodding trade, have been almost unprecedentedly great. More vast fortunes have been heaped up, and heaped up in a shorter time, than probably at any former epoch. At the same time the wages of labour, most notably of skilled labour, have increased in many instances 15, 25, even 50 per cent.; have so increased that if the artisan and mining classes had been prudent, steady, saving, and forecasting, they might, as a rule, have been capitalists as But even this is not the extreme limit of the evil to be signalized. Another point seldom enough noticed is that this high pressure, this ceaselessness and severity of toil, leaves the work of life, and assigns its prizes, more and more to men of exceptional physique—the peculiarly healthy, the specially strong, the abnormally tough, those whose rare frames and constitutions are fitted to endure the unnatural and injurious strain Property assessed to Income Tax 327 under which the average man succumbs. (In millions) well as Increase 1853 1872 per cent. 482 Schedule D 91 203 47 112 labourers now; * might have been more at ease in their circumstances, and have had a larger margin in their expenditure, than numbers of the educated classes. There is no question as to these facts, and I need not trouble you with statistical details. At the same time, the value of fixed property, of houses and lands, has risen rapidly and largely as a consequence of the general prosperity: more persons are seeking property of this sort, and more purchasers are able and willing to pay a high price for it. In all this, you will say, there is much to rejoice at and nothing to regret. I am not about to controvert this proposition. But let us look for a moment at one or two of the secondary consequences of this state of things. style of living, as well as the cost of the necessaries and comforts of which "living "consists, has advanced in an extraordinary ratio; and however frugal, however unostentatious, however rational we may be, however resolute to live as we think we ought, and not as others do around us, it is, as we all find, simply impossible not to be influenced by their example and to fall into their ways, unless we are content either to live in remote districts or in an isolated fashion. The result is that we need many things that our fathers did not, and that for each of those many things we must pay more. Even where prices are lower, quantities are increased. Locomotion is cheaper; but every middle-class family travels far more than formerly. Wine and tea cost It is a universal complaint, the sub-less, but we, habitually consume more of stantial truth of which cannot be denied, that life to a vast proportion of the middle classes is becoming more difficult and more costly. Without entering on any controvertible points, there are certain things which we all know, and most of us feel. Increased riches among high and low has brought increased demand for most articles, and in those articles, consumption has overtaken production,† and many of these are articles of prime necessity. Some of these can be brought from abroad, and the price of them has not, therefore, risen in proportion, if at all. But meat and all farm produce has risen so as to cause serious inconvenience in most families, and actual privation in very many. House-rent, and servants' wages, and servants' maintenance, have also risen most materially. With the general advance in the wages of labour in all trades, on which we have been congratulating the country, the cost of most articles into which labour enters largely as an element has been materially enhanced; and we have to pay more than we used to do for every job we want done. Probably, on the whole, we are within the mark if we say that, among average middle-class families, the actual cost of living is twenty-five per cent. higher than it was twenty-five years ago. But this is only half the story. Owing to the increasing wealth of the wealthy, and the increasing numbers who every year step into the wealthier class, the † Live Stock, i.e., cattle, } 1867 1872 each. Most articles of clothing may be purchased at reduced prices, but more are wanted and of a costlier quality. But when we come to the item of education, so vital a one in every family, while it is becoming better as well as cheaper for the poor and the lower middle ranks, the cost of it is almost scandalous among the rich, and a grievous and anxious burden to households of respectable position, but of limited or scanty means. On the whole, less than a generation ago, thousands of families could live in comfort, in competence, and at their ease, with all the essential elegancies of existence, on £500 or £600, who strive in vain to do so now. Plodding clerks, government officials, retired officers, clergymen, and scientific or literary students men of moderate fixed incomes in short- all find their position changed sadly for the worse. England is a paradise for the great proprietor, the successful merchant or engineer, the popular author, and sometimes for the skilful and energetic journalist; it may be made so for the skilled labourer in every branch, if he be sober and sagacious as well as energetic: - scarcely so for the quiet, unaspiring, unpushing, who would fain run a peaceful and contented course; for the men of £5,000 a year and upwards: scarcely for the men of £500 a year and under. England is a country in which it is easier to make much than to live upon little; and in which, therefore, the moderate, contented, unstriving natures - those who desire to pass their life neither in making money nor in spending it, who wish to use existence wisely and enjoy it worthily are sheep, and pigs, in the 46,770,500 46,721, 100 in danger of being crushed out of being between the upper and the nether mill United Kingdom stones of a prosperous and well-paid labouring class and the lavish expenditure of the noble or ignoble opulent. Now, I am not given to preaching; I never knew much good come of sermons, and certainly I am not going so far to abuse your patience as to turn this desk into a pulpit. But we may philosophize for a moment, and yet steer clear of moralizing. I never had the faintest respect for asceticism, which, indeed, in every shape, I have always regarded as a mistake, arising out of utter misconceptions, both intellectual and moral. I have not even a word to say (now, at least,) in favour of self-denial; that noble virtue has its time and place, but it is out of our province here, where we are dealing with what is rational, not with what is right not with what duty would ordain, but with what sagacity and enlightened Now, I confess this does seem to me a matter for regret, inasmuch as these people are, or, at least, used to be, a valuable and estimable element in the national life. I should grieve to see England consist only of the toiling, grinding labourer, however highly paid-of the striving, pushing, racing man of enterprise, however successful-and of the plutocrat or aristocrat, however magnificent or stately in his affluence. It may be useless to repine at the menaced operation, and I see but one mode by which it can be effectually counteracted. As wealth increases, and as fortunes grow more and more colossal, as year by year selfishness suggest. We need not ask successful enterprise places riches within the affluent and the high in rank to forethe reach of many, and as the disposition go any one of the advantages or enjoyof every class to imitate and emulate the ments which their vast possessions place style of living of the classes above it in within their reach; all that is required the social scale remains about the most is, that they make the most of those adinveterate of our national characteristics, vantages, and make those possessions there would seem to be small hope of at- yield them the maximum of real pleasure. taining a standard of life truly dignified That this is rarely done we all know; and worthy, except through such a re- the complaints we hear in every circle generation in the tastes and sentiments testify only too loudly to the truth. Peoof the opulent and noble - the leaders of ple, with all the resources of society at fashion, the acknowledged chiefs and their command, constantly avow, that if stars of society-as should cause sim-society is not actually more of a burthen plicity to become "good style," and and a fatigue than of a pleasure, it yet luxury beyond a certain point, and osten- has grown so irrationally unwieldly and tation at any point, to be voted vulgar. laborious as to give them little of the The seeds of this moral revulsion from true enjoyment which ought to be got our actual excesses are already in exist-out of it; for, surely, of all the privileges ence, and a few bright and resolute ex- and luxuries of civilized existence, interamples among the well-placed, the emi-course with our fellows-selected internent, and the universally admired, might, course especially-should be the most I am convinced, make them germinate repaying; yet is not this very faculty of with a rapidity that would amaze us; for selection one of those most commonly there are thousands among our upper foregone? Might not our entire system ranks to whom all the indulgences and of social intercourse be so remodelled as splendour round them bring no true en- to be at once twice as remunerative and joyment, but rather the intense sadness only half as costly? And, again, does of satiety, and not a little self-reproach, not the magnificent scale on which the and some dim and fruitless yearning establishments of "our governing famiafter a course of days that shall be more lies" are kept up admittedly involve a really happy while it lasts, and shall leave trouble as well as an expenditure which more rewarding memories behind it. is an enormous drawback from the comThere are more "Lady Claras" among forts and luxuries they yield? How much those who are supposed to have drawn rather, how little of their outlay the prizes of life than is generally fancied. I know you, Clara Vere de Vere! You pine amid your lordly towers, In glowing health, with boundless wealth, really contributes to oil the wheels and smooth away the cares of life for them! What proportion of their income is spent as they themselves would wish, and what proportion in obedience to some fancied necessities of their position, bringing them no appreciable return whatever? If all the spending classes kept only as many servants and horses as would suf fice really to serve and carry them as that they will be armoured for the occaperfectly as they could wish, what thou-sion when the day of self-sacrifice arrives. sands of both would be thrown upon the But that it should be considered incummarket to the great relief of more limited bent upon any one, or a proceeding deincomes. The resigned superfluities of serving of applause, to abstain from one class would furnish forth the real whatever innocent pleasure of the flesh, wants of others, and the equilibrium be- or the eye, or the intellect, or the fancy, tween supply and demand be once again circumstance (or providence, if we prefer restored. And if the more influential the phrase) may have placed within our familiesi.e., the most admired and im-reach-so long as our indulgence entails itated were thus to reduce their expen- no burden or privation upon others diture (still not depriving themselves of this is a doctrine which, to my mind, one needed or conscious luxury) how seems equally devoid of piety and sense. suddenly would the example spread I believe the good things of this life are downward and around, till extravagant given in order that life may be as bright and ostentatious expenditure would be so and happy as a terminable thing can be, notoriously mauvais ton as to be left to and that to enjoy them with thorough men whose riches were their sole dis- relish and with wise moderation is our tinction. fittest acknowledgment and the most But to arrive at this end, when sim-becoming gratitude. The world is haplicity of living, rather than princely ex-bitually full enough of pain and trouble, penditure, shall be the stamp and insignia without its being needful to go out of our of rank and taste, not only must the way to seek this wholesome discipline. example be set by those whose character Few pathways are so exclusively strewn and position mark them out for social with roses that we are forced to find influence, but must be set with a sober artificial thorns to mingle with them; sagacity and correct tact which will be in and to well-trained spirits the sweets and themselves attractive. The spasmodic the resting-places of our course are but and injudicious attempts of eccentric the moments which refresh and fortify individuals, neither sound-judging enough us for its harder passages. Those selfto retrench well and gracefully, nor emi-denials by which others profit, and of nent enough to entitle them largely to influence others, provoke rather ridicule than imitation, and have more than once done injustice to the cause. More which others are the object, are surely more genuine than those self-regarding ones which are merely the athletic exercises of the soul in its own gymnasium; Perhaps the expressions I have used the career of effort or of duty has somein depreciation of asceticism ought not thing about it far otherwise healthy and to be left without some further explana- admirable than its treadwheel. tion. By asceticism I understand gratu-over, I am not sure that asceticism is not itous self-denial or self-infliction the the form which religion is apt to take in voluntary renunciation of enjoyment or sensual minds; the nature that over-esendurance of pain where no duty com-timates the indulgences is the most prone mands either one or the other, and where to over-estimate, also, the mortifications no fellow-being is to be benefited thereby. of the flesh. That we should be ever ready to forego pleasure, or encounter suffering, at the summons of a clear principle, or for the furtherance of a good cause; that we should be able and willing, not only always to share our blessings with the less fortunate, and to take upon ourselves a portion of their burdens, but also not rarely, and in no stinted measure, to suffer and to want, in order that others may enjoy and possess these are truisms too familiar to all disciplined natures to need a word of exposition. It may even be desirable that the young and untried, and those, too, who are placed in circumstances of unusual ease, should, from time to time, practise endurance and privation, in order to be certain The philosophical misconception that lies at the root of the ascetic doctrine no doubt was originally something of this sort: The wants, the weaknesses, the claims of the body are, as all thinkers well know, grievous drags and obstacles to the mind in its most strenuous efforts and its highest flights. Ample exercise is needed to keep the body in full health, yet exercise does not predispose the mind to effort. Ample and nourishing food is demanded by the body for its own best condition, yet such food is not most conducive to intellectual achievement. The body needs a sufficiency of sleep, and the brain at least as imperiously as any portion of the body, yet that continuity and intensity of mental action which is |