| OCR Text |
Show I How Social Reformers Get Themselves Disliked ey g k cw,. A 1 f HE rumors of discontent, or even mutiny, in certain model villages or other Ideal- lstic social experiments, permit the mind to pause once more upon the real human difficulties of what Is called the Simple Life. These difficulties are In no case, I think, In the mere physical restrictions themselves. It Is In the atmosphere of the idea; it is not In the thing defended, but in the defense. People dislike the theory of teetotal ism much more than the practise of It And very natur-ally: natur-ally: for by the practise there is more beer for every one else; but by the theory there Is no oeer for any one. Nobody dislikes vegetables. Nobody (in charity and a state of grace) even dislikes vegetarians. But people do dislike vegetarianism; and they do' well. For what la Hj wrong is the reason and not tho act What is resented Is the religious atmosphere that goes with tectotallsra. What is resented is the ethl-cal ethl-cal atmosphere that goes with vegetarianism. Ihero are millions of people on the planet who are teetotal or vegetarian for all sorts of various vari-ous and accidental reasons; of which the most Intimate and delicate, and yet the most ubiquitous, ubiqui-tous, probably consists of not having enough money for meat or wine. But these people can be pardoned for their temperance; because it is never tainted with Idealism. Fabian philosophers put up with a vegetablo diet; half of the Scotch or French peasants do the same. But none of the peasants asks other people to put up with lectures on tho iS0"6?! Yelh The average Congregational minister abstains from wine; so does the average aver-age Turk. But the average Congregational minister does not wear crooked swords and knives, or fight with Methodists until the suburbs sub-urbs stream with blood. At least, I believe not-there not-there may be exceptions. Tho Turk does; thnt Z7hLl ' ens,fi; 10 forffIVe h,m' even those Wv (J?fe myeip would first forgive and then abolish him. Wha,t men resist, In short, In all these cases, Is not the moral conduct, but the morality. And I repeat that they are perfectly right. Conduct may be really, as tho dear old decadents would say, un-mornl because it may arise from circumstances, secondary needs, colorless col-orless questions of expediency. Nothing can be immoral except a morality. The chief exponents of the Simple Life show this sharp difference in mere morals in a curious curi-ous way. They show It in what must be the most firm and instinctive expression of morals honor They show it in what must be the moat obvious expression of honor hospitality. A near friend of mine was asked to lecture in the North of England on Socialism, and received a cordial invitation to dine and sleep at the house of some local Socialist The Socialists first offered of-fered him a drink. It is on record that they really called it a drink. And so it certainly was; for stale soda enn be drunk unlike the poor fellows that drink it. My friend, however, submitted to this, for h was hungry; and he was one of those (to steal a phrase, not my own, that I heard in some tavern nrgument) who like to eat with their meals. Time passed, and dinner appeared or rather did not appear. "Fragments of green vegetation appeared, such as would not have satisfied a cow, even If she had been an ascetic cow or some athletic cow training to jump over' the moon. My friend endured all this admirably; drinking what was not a drink; eating what wns not eatable. Let me explain, in pasiiw? that my friend really means my friend; it dow not mean myself, who have mostly been my o?ew n t?6? describe the details of what followed, but I know it ended in the S f th to might smoke, and celving a stern reply In the negative, my friend HfZlESS P SaV lmmedately lit his pipe and vanished In smoke, 1 Now, tho ethics of Instances like this are often disputed; each things have to be disputed in 4, -"Oil- order to be derided. But I think the principle f c is perfectly sound so far as such facts can go. v Eo Suppose a friend of mine, a humane and en : e 1 lightened thinker, wires to me: "Do sleep the ... Sh night at our place." Aud suppose I find, when & si I am just ready to go to bed, that It is usual In ; at that place for people to sleep on all fours in the J ; jj front garden. I do not complain of the humane V, l and enlightened thinker because he does such r Pe things; let him do what he likes. I do not care I ?&er In what attitude a humane and enlightened .' a thinker goes to sleep so long as ho doosn't ; ijj wake up. But I do complain of his using a perfectly public and finally fixed phrase like I "sleeping the night" with anybody in a sense fj fe3pit it could not possibly convey. Sleoping means I 'go sleeping in a bed; in some sort of a bed; for j L even beds can vary. Tho humane and enllgb 11 cued thinker ought to have wired to me: D 5 I sleep the night on all fours at our place," as4 then honor would have been eatiaficd. t fi V: i. i |
