ECONOMY, 
17 
ous, and more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter 
are wholly or half unnecessary. At the present day, 
and in this country, as I find by my own experience, a 
few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, a wheelbar¬ 
row, &c., and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and 
access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can 
all be obtained at a trifling cost. Yet some, not wise, 
go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and un¬ 
healthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten 
or twenty years, in order that they may live, — that is, 
keep comfortably warm, — and die in New England at 
last. The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfort¬ 
ably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, 
they are cooked, of course a la mode . 
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called com¬ 
forts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive 
hinderances to the elevation of mankind. With respect 
to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a 
more simple and meagre life than the poor. The 
ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and 
Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer 
in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know 
not much about them. It is remarkable that we know 
so much of them as we do. The same is true of the 
more modem reformers and benefactors of their race. 
None can be an impartial or wise observer of human 
life but from the vantage ground of what we should call 
voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is 
luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or litera¬ 
ture, or art. There are nowadays professors of philos¬ 
ophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to 
profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a 
philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor 
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