Men and Things by Henry A. Atkinson

Author:Henry A. Atkinson [Atkinson, Henry A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781332331345
Google: bvUBAAAAYAAJ
Goodreads: 26435220
Publisher: Forgotten Books
Published: 2015-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

CHAPTER VIII

The World of the Makers of Luxuries

“I would not like to work in a candy store,” said a young lad, “because then I could not have the fun of buying candy.” A visitor to Atlantic City stepped into one of the shops to make a purchase. She said to the little girl in charge, “It must be delightful to be able to live in Atlantic City and work right here on the boardwalk.” “You may think so,” replied the girl. “But I guess if you put in all your time in this store, and had to come to work at eight in the morning and work until nine at night every day; and all the time saw these thousands of people passing along outside, going up and down, with nothing to do but just enjoy themselves, you would not think it is such a snap.” Two boys were playing the game of “wish.” When the turn of the youngest came, he said, “I wish that I worked in a chocolate factory, then I could have all the chocolate I wanted to eat.” When we become acquainted with the people who are at work producing the luxuries, we find a common and far-reaching disillusionment. The hardest work in the world is to work when other people are playing, or work hard ourselves just for the purpose of giving other people enjoyment. And yet there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who spend their lives in producing luxuries.

Oliver Wendell Holmes used to say that if he could just have the luxuries, he would not care anything about the necessities of life. This was a whimsical way of stating a fact that is common to all experience, that is, that life is enriched by the luxuries we enjoy. I asked a man of the typographical union what he considered the one thing that had done most for the advancement of printers. He replied, “Pianos in their parlors.” By this he meant that when hours were decreased and wages increased, printers began to have something to hope for; and with a margin of money they bought luxuries, and in the margin of time enjoyed them. Thus they laid the foundation for future development.

Luxuries. What constitutes a luxury? This is a difficult question to answer. Some people think that it is a luxury to take a bath. In fact, many of the monastic orders put special virtue on foregoing the use of soap and water. An old gentleman living in a little town near Chicago who owned a great deal of the property in the town, fought every effort to put in water-works and a sewer system. As the climax of an impassioned speech at a public meeting in which he had denounced the extravagances of the present time, he said: “These new notions of our young people are going to ruin us. My daughter made such a fuss that nine years ago I put a bathtub in our house, but I never use it and I guess I am about as healthy as any man in town.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.