the happier of the two.

The more intimately one lives among the poor, the more one admires
their amazing talent for happiness in spite of privation, and their
magnificent courage in the face of uncertainty; and the more also one
sees that these qualities have been called into being, or kept alive,
by uncertainty and thriftlessness. Thrift, indeed, may easily be an
evil rather than good. From a middle-class standpoint, it is an
admirable virtue to recommend to the poor. It helps to keep them off
the rates. But for its proper exercise, thrift requires a special
training and tradition. And from the standpoint of the essential, as
opposed to the material, welfare of the poor, it can easily be
over-valued. Extreme thrift, like extreme cleanliness, has often a
singularly dehumanising effect. It hardens the nature of its votaries,
just as gaining what they have not earned most frequently makes men
flabby. Thrift, as highly recommended, leads the poor man into the
spiritual squalor of the lower middle-class. It is all right as a means
of living, but lamentable as an end of life. If a penny saved is a
penny earned, then a penny earned by work is worth twopence.

_The Courage to Live_ is the blossom of the _Will to Live_--a flower
far less readily grown than withered. It might be argued that since
apprehensiveness implies foresight, the poor man's _Courage to Live_
is simply his lack of forethought. In part, no doubt, it is that. But
he does think, slowly and tenaciously, as a cuttlefish grips. He
foresees pretty plainly the workhouse; and he has the courage to face
its probability, and to go ahead nevertheless. His reading of life is
in some ways very broad, his foothold very firm; for it is founded
closely on actual experience of the primary realities. He looks
backwards as well as forwards; his fondness and memory for anecdote is
evidence of how he dwells on the past; instead of comparing an
occurrence with something in a book, he recalls a similar thing that
happened to So-and-so, so many years ago, you mind.... He knows vaguely
(and it is our vaguer knowledge which shapes our lives) that only by a
succession of miracles a long series of hair's-breadth escapes and
lucky chances, does he stand at any moment where he is; and he doesn't
see why miracles should suddenly come to an end. Hence his active
fatalism, as opposed to the passive Eastern variety. In Tony's opinion,
"'Tis better to be lucky than rich." I have never hear