Ostentation

“ These we display with Care, if not with Ostentation; and commonly show more Ambition of excelling in them, than even in the social Virtues themselves, which are, in Reality, of such superior Excellence. ”

“ As I wish that your table, food and way of living should be suitable, use the decency, ostentation and cleanliness that is proper; but also it is well that there should be much moderation and temperance, because of the example that you have set to all, and because of the profession of arms which you have to follow, and because it is good, and it is well for you to show moderation and temperance, because your table has to settle the rule and order for the rest. ”

“ The enormous benefactions for social purposes, the construction of “model workshops” and “model villages,” though in many cases prompted by self-interest and in others by a love of ostentation, are at least sometimes due to a new sense of social responsibility. A duty to society has been apprehended, and these are its first fruits. It is a duty, true enough, which is but dimly seen and imperfectly fulfilled. ”

“ It is so hard for us, aggregated in great cities, to live our own lives, and the example of our class has such immense power over us that it is very hard to pursue the path of ‘plain living and high thinking’ in communities, all classes of which are more and more yielding to the temptation to ostentation, so-called comfort, and extravagant expenditure ”

“ For excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation. ”

“ Hence the question of food and clothing, of drainage and ventilation, of human habitations, of exercise and occupations, attain equal importance and dignity, as essential to the fulfilment of the great changeless plan of life.
Thus we are brought face to face with a great fixed fact, a fact which concerns every human being during every moment of life—viz., God’s unchanging law of human growth. This law we are called on to study, to obey, and obedience to it is placed first in the order of human duties. ”

“ What material things does a man need to live under the best conditions? A healthful diet, simple clothing, a sanitary dwelling-place, air and exercise. I am not going to enter into hygienic details, [69] compose menus, or discuss model tenements and dress reform. My aim is to point out a direction and tell what advantage would come to each of us from ordering his life in a spirit of simplicity. To know that this spirit does not rule in our society we need but watch the lives of men of all classes. Ask different people, of very unlike surroundings, this question: What do you need to live? ”

“ Now, having laid aside both the general ideal and the pocket ideal, what do we see?
As to physical health and comfort and beauty: Ask your Health Board, your sanitary engineer, how the laws of health are observed in the average home—even of the fairly well-to-do, even of the fairly educated. Learn what we may of art and science, the art of living, the science of living is not yet known to us. We build for ourselves elaborate structures in which to live, following architectural traditions, social traditions, domestic traditions, quite regardless of the laws of life for the creature concerned. ”

“ Speaking broadly, apart from certain religious movements, the enlightened modern reformer, if confronted with some ordinary complex of misery and wickedness, instinctively proposes to cure it by higher wages, better food, more comfort and leisure; to make people comfortable and trust to their becoming good. ”

“ And as I thought over the whole hapless question of sanitary reform, proved long since a moral duty to God and man, possible, easy, even pecuniarily profitable, and yet left undone, there seemed a sublime irony, most humbling to man, in some of Nature’s processes, and in the silent and unobtrusive perfection with which she has been taught to anticipate, since the foundation of the world, some of the loftiest discoveries of modern science, of which we are too apt to boast as if we had created the method by discovering its possibility. ”

“ SIMPLE NEEDS WHEN we buy a bird of the fancier, the good man tells us briefly what is necessary for our new pensioner, and the whole thing—hygiene, food, and the rest—is comprehended in a dozen words. Likewise, to sum up the necessities of most men, a few concise lines would answer. Their régime is in general of supreme simplicity, and so long as they follow it, all is well with them, as with every obedient child of Mother Nature. Let them depart from it, complications arise, health fails, gayety vanishes. Only simple and natural living can keep a body in full vigor. ”

“ The aim of reformers to-day should be to provide for every one neither ease nor comfort, nor high wages nor short hours, but the deeper necessities of a full and contented life, bodies [175] able to respond with satisfaction to the strain of hard work performed under conditions which satisfy the mind in the most fundamental way of all—the deep, sub-conscious satisfaction which is given by the sweet smell of earth, by fresh air and sunshine, and green things around one. ”

“ The rest, namely 91 per cent or so, regain their place as decent and useful members of society, a wonderful result which is brought about by the pressure of discipline, tempered with kindness, and the influence of steady and healthful work. ”

“ I desire you heartily, be not greedy in seeking after benefices. And yet if you shall be called to any cure in the country, let the honour of God, the salvation of souls, and the travail thereof, move you thereunto, and not the having of the living or the commodities thereof. And if you shall be placed in any such benefice, beware you have no young woman for your cook or servant, lest you edify and increase more your house than your soul. ”

“ What ought to be the attitude of Society towards the man, the class, that makes possible cleanliness, refinement and delicacy of life? If you had to clean out your own foul places, if you had to sweep your yards and your streets, would you be as delicate, as refined, as you are to-day? ”

“ You ought to have taught them the value of cleanliness, thriftiness, and comfort." To begin at the beginning, therefore, we must teach the people the necessity of cleanliness, its virtues and its wholesomeness; for which purpose it is requisite that they should be intelligent, capable of understanding ideas conveyed in words, able to discern, able to read, able to think. ”

“ All the departments of human knowledge have been placed under contribution to man's necessity, and longer life, better health, and more food and clothing for less work, are the blessings on his head to-day. ”

“ It penetrates and spoils every institution. It spreads from generation to generation, and at last it destroys in the masses the power of ethical judgment.
168. The standard of living. One of the purest of all the products of current mores is the standard of living. It belongs to a subgroup and is a product of the mores of a subgroup. It has been called a psychological or ethical product, which view plainly is due to an imperfect analysis or classification. The standard of living is the measure of decency and suitability in material comfort (diet, dress, dwelling, etc.) ”

“ The fittest will be those who perceive that they are acting for the good of their children, and that of society as a whole, if they do not bring into the world more offspring than they can furnish with a healthy constitution, good moral training, and a sufficient education for self-support and comfort under conditions of normal labor. ”

“ We are not demoralized or effeminated by the luxury and abundance which are ours, but elevated rather, and strengthened by the very magnificence and opulence of our circumstances, and by the perfect freedom, under healthful restraint, which we enjoy through the community's strong, vigorous, moral and intellectual tone. ”

“ Yet we, mind you, in the face of these abilities, have assumed them to be our inferiors, and have organized for them frankly a society for the improvement of their condition! That we can mitigate their sufferings and inconveniences, lessen their cold or their hunger, I willingly admit; but I am not of so bold an intellect as to believe that we can improve their condition, or that their condition, take it for all in all, can be improved upon. ”

“ And, therefore, others might say, and say truly, that a good deal that is actually superfluous is the fruit of certain social proprieties which cannot, with any consistency, be violated. Our style of living may lawfully run from the bare necessaries of existence, through the stages of comfort and convenience, even into luxury, according to our condition and means. ”

“ Q. Do you look upon opulence as a virtue?
A. No; but still less as a vice: it is the use alone of wealth that can be called virtuous or vicious, according as it is serviceable or prejudicial to man and to society. Wealth is an instrument, the use and employment alone of which determine its virtue or vice.
CHAPTER IX. ON CLEANLINESS.
Q. Why is cleanliness included among the virtues?
A. Because it is, in reality, one of the most important among them, on account of its powerful influence over the health and preservation of the body. ”

“ We need to revive some of the pagan ideals of the beauty and value of the human body and human life which consists in the care and use of this body. There is no menial work in the daily living rightly carried out; that which the last century wrongly permitted is made needless by the machinery of to-day.
The point of view is most important.
The first steps toward social betterment will come through a cooperation of three forces: (1) a recognition of the need; (2) an awakening of social conscience to the duty of supplying the need ”

“ Make sure that every human being has the necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter, proper medical care, and proper education. More, give them the luxuries, too—let no man be without anything that is poorer in quality or less in quantity than the possessions of any other. ”

“ Both systems were in their origin essentially ethical reforms born of the generous ardour, the lofty aspirations, the tender compassion of their noble Founders, two of those beautiful spirits who appear at rare intervals on earth like beings come from a better world to support and guide our weak and erring nature. ”

“ By this we do not mean that miscalled civilization which multiplies wants, and increases luxury and develops refinement in a few, at the expense of the many, but that advancement of mind and of knowledge, which is forever disclosing better methods of living and diffusing them among the whole people. ”

“ The progress of civilization, with the self-control it involves, has made it possible to accept this suggestion seriously. [22] The difference is that whereas the flowers of our gardens are bettered only by the control of an arbitrary external will and intelligence, our human flowers may be bettered by an intelligence and will, a finer sense of responsibility, developed within themselves. Thus it is that human culture renders possible Social Hygiene. ”

“ By asceticism I mean the deliberate—sometimes even ostentatious—cutting down of provision as to food, clothing, dwelling, and general comfort, to a point obviously below the standard of health and efficiency ”

“ Less conscience, less good taste, more charity (which is a much misused term in these days, signifying lack of all social and moral tradition) , in fact, a general elimination of the best qualities of her nature would constitute a humanizing process which would work decidedly to her material advantage. ”

“ Will not the future take a wider view, and form a more generous conception? For the true object of education is that each body should have its own hygiene, and each mind its own Renaissance, and each soul its own Reformation. ”

“ We must prepare the soil of a healthy physical existence before we can hope to sow the moral seed so as to bring forth fruit. Upon a sound physical foundation alone can we build a high moral and spiritual civilization. ”

“ But the one who chooses the policy of getting all the health he can and keeping all he gets, will have a very different tale to tell. Regular habits, careful living, sunny disposition, a clear head, a bright eye, a sound mind and a sound body give one a cheerful outlook on the world, enable one to use all his energies to the best advantage, guarantee that he will have real friends, assure happiness, and make of one a genuine success in life, whether with or without the prosperity that is very likely to accompany such qualities. ”

“ What may be meant by this idea of 'fitness'—which meets us in the famous phrase that the 'survival of the fittest' in the struggle for life is the goal of evolution—is a question which brings us at once to the consideration of the ethical significance of the theory. ”

“ It is my deliberate conviction that physical labor is indispensable to intellectual and moral health, that the industrial and producing interests of society are powerfully conservative of morals. Especially do I regard the tillage of the soil as conducive to life, health, morals, and manhood. I sympathize with the advance of society through practical physical labors more than I do through metaphysical speculations. I obtain clearer views of religious truth through my sympathies with men and their life than I do through books and their thoughts. ”

“ In order to place the inebriate, who honestly desires to reform and lead a better life, under conditions most favorable to this work of inner reformation and true recovery, all the external associations and comforts of a pleasant home are provided, as with the two institutions whose record of good results has just been made. ”

“ If the health and well-being of the body be expended in the path of the Kingdom, this is very acceptable and praiseworthy; and if it is expended to the benefit of the human world in general—even though it be to their material (or bodily) benefit and be a means of doing good—that is also acceptable. ”