trifling. And whether you get that well-deserved rise of a pound a week
or whether you don't, you may anyhow go ahead with the machine; it isn't
a motor-car, though I started by comparing it to one. And even when,
having to a certain extent mastered, through sensible management of the
machine, the art of achieving a daily content and dignity, you come to
the embroidery of life--even the best embroidery of life is not
absolutely ruinous. Meat may go up in price--it has done--but books
won't. Admission to picture galleries and concerts and so forth will
remain quite low. The views from Richmond Hill or Hindhead, or along
Pall Mall at sunset, the smell of the earth, the taste of fruit and of
kisses--these things are unaffected by the machinations of trusts and
the hysteria of stock exchanges. Travel, which after books is the finest
of all embroideries (and which is not to be valued by the mile but by
the quality), is decidedly cheaper than ever it was. All that is
required is ingenuity in one's expenditure. And much ingenuity with a
little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money
without ingenuity.

And all the while as you read this you are saying, with your impatient
sneer: 'It's all very well; it's all very fine talking, _but_ ...' In
brief, you are not convinced. You cannot deracinate that wide-rooted
dogma within your soul that more money means more joy. I regret it. But
let me put one question, and let me ask you to answer it honestly. Your
financial means are greater now than they used to be. Are you happier or
less discontented than you used to be? Taking your existence day by day,
hour by hour, judging it by the mysterious _feel_ (in the chest) of
responsibilities, worries, positive joys and satisfactions, are you
genuinely happier than you used to be?

I do not wish to be misunderstood. The financial question cannot be