the
beginning. Simplicity is not ugliness, nor poverty, nor barrenness, nor
necessarily plainness. What is simplicity for another may not be for you,
for your condition, your tastes, especially for your wants. It is a
personal question. You go beyond simplicity when you attempt to
appropriate more than your wants, your aspirations, whatever they are,
demand--that is, to appropriate for show, for ostentation, more than your
life can assimilate, can make thoroughly yours. There is no limit to what
you may have, if it is necessary for you, if it is not a superfluity to
you. What would be simplicity to you may be superfluity to another. The
rich robes that Nausicaa wore she wore like a goddess. The moment your
dress, your house, your house-grounds, your furniture, your scale of
living, are beyond the rational satisfaction of your own desires--that
is, are for ostentation, for imposition upon the public--they are
superfluous, the line of simplicity is passed. Every human being has a
right to whatever can best feed his life, satisfy his legitimate desires,
contribute to the growth of his soul. It is not for me to judge whether
this is luxury or want. There is no merit in riches nor in poverty. There
is merit in that simplicity of life which seeks to grasp no more than is
necessary for the development and enjoyment of the individual. Most of
us, in all conditions; are weighted down with superfluities or worried to
acquire them. Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just
baggage enough.

The needs of every person differ from the needs of every other; we can
make no standard for wants or possessions. But the world would be greatly
transformed and much more easy to live in if everybody limited his
acquisitions to his ability to assimilate them to his life. The
destruction of simplicity is a craving for things, not because we need
them, but because others have them. Because one man who lives in a plain
little house, in all the restrictions of mean surroundings, would be
happier in a mansion suited to his taste and his wants, is no argument
that another man, living in a palace, in useless ostentation, would not
be better off in a dwelling which conforms to his cultivation and habits.
It is so hard to learn the lesson that there is no satisfaction in
gaining more than we personally want.

The matter of simplicity, then, comes into literary style, into building,
into dress, into life, individualized always by one's per