Hubert St. Leonard, of Windrush Bottom Farm, I found to be a worried-looking gentleman. He taps his weather-glass, and hopes and fears, not knowing as yet that all things have been ordered for his ill. It will be years before his spirit is attuned to that attitude of tranquil despair essential to the farmer: one feels it. He is tall and thin, with a sensitive, mobile face, and a curious trick of taking his head every now and again between his hands, as if to be sure it is still there. When I met him he was on the point of starting for his round, so I walked with him. He told me that he had not always been a farmer. Till a few years ago he had been a stockbroker. But he had always hated his office; and having saved a little, had determined when he came to forty to enjoy the rare luxury of living his own life. I asked him if he found that farming paid.
He said:
"As in everything else, it depends upon the price you put upon yourself. Now, as a casual observer, what wage per annum would you say I was worth?"
It was an awkward question.
"You are afraid that if you spoke candidly you would offend me," he suggested. "Very well. For the purpose of explaining my theory let us take, instead, your own case. I have read all your books, and I like them. Speaking as an admirer, I should estimate you at five hundred a year. You, perhaps, make two thousand, and consider yourself worth five."
The whimsical smile with which he accompanied the speech disarmed me.
"What we most of us do," he continued, "is to over-capitalise ourselves. John Smith, honestly worth a hundred a year, claims to be worth two. Result: difficulty of earning dividend, over-work, over-worry, constant fear of being wound up. Now, there is that about your work that suggests to me you would be happier earning five hundred a year than you ever will be earning two thousand. To pay your dividend--to earn your two thousand--you have to do work that brings you no pleasure in the doing. Content with five hundred, you could afford to do only that work that does give you pleasure. This is not a perfect world, we must remember. In the perfect world the thinker would be worth more than the mere jester. In the perfect world the farmer would be worth more than the stockbroker. In ****** the exchange I had to write myself down. I earn less money, but get more enjoyment out of life. I used to be able to afford champagne, but my liver was always wrong, and I dared not drink it. Now I cannot afford champagne, but I enjoy my beer. That is my theory, that we are all of us entitled to payment according to our market value, neither more nor less. You can take it all in cash. I used to. Or you can take less cash and more fun: that is what I am getting now."
"It is delightful," I said, "to meet with a philosopher. One hears about them, of course; but I had got it into my mind they were all dead."
"People laugh at philosophy," he said. "I never could understand why. It is the science of living a free, peaceful, happy existence.
I would give half my remaining years to be a philosopher."
"I am not laughing at philosophy," I said. "I honestly thought you were a philosopher. I judged so from the way you talked."
"Talked!" he retorted. "Anybody can talk. As you have just said, I talk like a philosopher."
"But you not only talk," I insisted, "you behave like a philosopher.
Sacrificing your income to the joy of living your own life! It is the act of a philosopher."
I wanted to keep him in good humour. I had three things to talk to him about: the cow, the donkey, and ****.
"No, it wasn't," he answered. "A philosopher would have remained a stockbroker and been just as happy. Philosophy does not depend upon environment. You put the philosopher down anywhere. It is all the same to him, he takes his philosophy with him. You can suddenly tell him he is an emperor, or give him penal servitude for life. He goes on being a philosopher just as if nothing had happened. We have an old tom-cat. The children lead it an awful life. It does not seem to matter to the cat. They shut it up in the piano: their idea is that it will make a noise and frighten someone. It doesn't make a noise; it goes to sleep. When an hour later someone opens the piano, the poor thing is lying there stretched out upon the keyboard purring to itself. They dress it up in the baby's clothes and take it out in the perambulator: it lies there perfectly contented looking round at the scenery--takes in the fresh air. They haul it about by its tail.
You would think, to watch it swinging gently to and fro head downwards, that it was grateful to them for giving it a new sensation. Apparently it looks on everything that comes its way as helpful experience. It lost a leg last winter in a trap: it goes about quite cheerfully on three. Seems to be rather pleased, if anything, at having lost the fourth--saves washing. Now, he is your true philosopher, that cat; never minds what happens to him, and is equally contented if it doesn't."