244 The Dangers of Cutting Loose 



civilization ? Man has given up play as a 

 means of getting a living. To some extent we 

 go back to the rational life when we can. The 

 rich Wall Street gambler, the rich dealer in 

 lard or leather sometimes goes back to the 

 woods in summer or ploughs the wave in his 

 yacht. But very few of us get rich perhaps 

 one in a thousand. Is there no way of getting 

 back to a rational life without first winning a 

 fortune, something which comes to so few? 



I am aware that here many a reader pro- 

 vided I am so fortunate as to have many readers 

 will say : "Oh, we have heard all this before ; 

 it is the old story of moving to the country in 

 order to raise cabbages for a living. It is one 

 more variation upon the Ten Acres Enough 

 idea." To some extent it is a variation upon 

 that famous book, but with a difference. The 

 hundreds of writers who have taken up the 

 chief idea of Ten Acres Enough the possibility 

 of earning a livelihood by out-door work, gar- 

 dening, fishing, etc. have, without exception, 

 so far as I know, begun with the assumption 

 that when life becomes impossible in town then 

 the country should be sought. In one case it 



