Bill Barlow's Budget

Nobody ever found it—nobody ever did—there ain't no such thing. Why try to picture it when the world's wisest sages and philosophers have sought from the first and found it not, when every candle burned before eternity's shrine—every revolution of earth as Time's hourglass changes only voices the verdict that the simple life is a pastel myth? Adam would appear to have abandoned it when he is said to have walked the earth alone with the Omnipotent; but there is Eve of Paradise, whose testimony on this point would certainly be relevant, if she ever lived. And anyway a hundred years or so after Adam's creation, as I read Genesis, Deity woke him to give him a wife—and we all know what happened to the simple man then, and what really tends more than anything else to make of it an iridescent dream now. The cave dweller doubtless thought he had it down fine as he cruised some princessly sovereignty over the head with his club and tossed a mammoth home to his harem; but in truth men were strenuous times. And so on down the prehistoric and present-day pike of sixty-odd centuries, everybody has had to hustle. There have been dreamers and philosophers always, and intervals when men have lived without stunt and within themselves; but it may be said that of all generations multitude who have tried and failed since Adam, none lived the simple life long. Vagabonds, Thoreau and others of their calling and fair rugged kindred tried to teach it, though none of them ever learned their own lesson. Emerson was a good deal longer about it, but he came to see that people get only through the medium of money in harmony and a trusty pen. Thoreau said the rule of life is to live alone; and in a cave with whom to associate is a problem, reason confined to the society of bats and owls. The other day a gentle German put the theme into a beautiful book which everybody was reading how to wake long enough to seize chance and Fortune, the boon of dreams or of the unowned life of our own country. I know was a soul content to dwell in simplicity; made no noise beneath yon lid of fitness to the station and turmoil of the assembly. Rather pain living and be thinking but land mind boy sent I use beyond sight the air where those the book could not say to take a day of it. He came over with some of kindly comment good comment doing if the realm had come, and so Solomon set down world's peace in row. Conclusions and does so damages some lie delete mark as proved that me I the rest whose promoted one repeal be wed knew how to practice another. He who returned bog and resumed a gene quiet bow-omo-you-are-with a fine country van on which the pedant be kindly bad tone to dry, a routine of Cervantes and a coach -ond: focus. Whole his proved preachments, like all the rest of that sort of American rot, is destined to find a way into a forgotten, or at best a dim-distant, tradition. Man might make a life of it on breakfast food alone or spend his days in a sanitarium; but you gay be gem. be won't. With him the simple life is always a theory and never a condition. Just ask the czar of all the Russias about it; Tom Lawson, the Widow, Duke Sammy Hyde, Johann Hoch who married some even lady before the polls closed, Reed Smoot, or Josie L., Grover Cleveland, the woman who gave Carnegie away. It is a delusion= a twin to the gunsmith and does a blue. That sort of folderol is only fit for the fool who accepts the biblical version of - the maternity of Moses. People discuss the simple life as they do race suicide without thought of according the one or preventing the other. It is the alone at tressed toomey rot and these ain't no oomph.-(the wind pudding.of which you have read. If you are inclined to believe in it, go talk with the husband who came too doom one boss the blind bird's hand; whose coat loose will shed red bed, or whose sudden case could rush up keep 'em fused jigs on return home from a business tour. Then hunt up the old man with the young wife or bottles still, both wives twins. You might interview dear door mother-in-law or the fellow whose best girl ran away in a dream ring he never saw break. Summon the joys of the simple way to find leisure we to women alive some of the central and to we mean the sun ham June brought the: moons. From mean: known mind you needn't come home " It may sound that some of us have. and quietly not we wind coming to we in moments and from of a former dream a juicy agent moment rib where had sat up all night to keep it red-hot. - And if not entirely by penitent kiss and ready to accept the philosophy of work" so she neat day ago to it is you read you me - like not him out to o ask the me. Pastor wrote to John de, and with pay pen racism. idealism of practice He said swift to same result. Its most craze. and so how. ever, have been those who had run the gamut of the other life to the limit. You have noticed, probably, that after a man has rotted down to the cherry in every cup of pleasure on life's back-bar, he is usually deucedly intolerant of those who are just taking the dollar of their first flag- of beer. Our associations, hopes and aspirations; every-day duties, business cares, civic and social contentions, disappointment and defeat and those second-ooe:gtaxiedays make the simple life impossible -s and yet it is good medicine--for the other fellow--after he's as good as dead. It is impossible to formulate a rule by which all may live. We are creatures of complex ideas and interests, and must adapt ourselves to diverse environment. Some of us insist on lobster and champagne when common sense prescribes a diet of mush and milk, and otherwise drive negligently in our car and don't give a damn. Many wear themselves out with needless worry, and everybody carries some sort of a cross. Thoreau was a claim. People who form clubs for the exploitation of the idealistic simple life are beatific roilers. Life is individual. Know yourself, be at peace with yourself, be honest with yourself, cut out the artificial and false and just live--as happily, honestly and decently as you can--not the life of an anchorite, dear, but the only simple life possible here below--which while embodying the tenets of hope and happiness never loses sight of the fact that we are all poor, weak sinners.