"The Art of Living" – Samuel Smiles

by Samuel Smiles

Introduction:

Samuel Smiles is still well known today as a writer and moralist. His works have always reflected the spirit of his age. This essay, “The Art of Living” is an excerpt from Chapter XVI of his book Thrift (1875).Arguing for the importance of the seeing eye and the feeling heart which are an ingredient of good taste, the essay also celebrates the eminent household qualifications like Prudence, Punctuality and Perseverance, which eventually result in peace, comfort and domestic prosperity.

The Art of Living in Actual Life:

The Art of Living is the art of turning the means of living to the best account – in short, it is the art of making the best of everything. It is the art of extracting from life its highest enjoyment, and, thereby reaching its highest results.

Like poetry and painting, the art of living comes chiefly by nature; but everyone can cultivate and develop it. It can be encouraged and developed by parents and teachers, and perfected by self-culture. Without intelligence, it cannot exist.

Take two men of equal means – one of whom knows the art of living, and the other does not. For the former, life has a deep meaning and performs his duties which are satisfactory to his conscience. He improves upon himself, helps to elevate the depressed classes, and is active in every good work. His hand is never tired and his mind is never weary.

The latter has comparatively little pleasures in life. Before he has reached manhood he has exhausted all its enjoyments. He feels life to be vacant and cheerless. Life becomes a masquerade, a failure, for he has not known the Art of Living, without which life cannot be enjoyed.

The Importance of Good Taste:

It is not wealth that gives enthusiasm and energy to life. It is culture, appreciation, taste and reflection that give true enthusiasm and energy. Hence, the seeing eye and the feeling heart are indispensable.

Even in material comfort, good taste is a real maximiser of profit, as well as an enhancer of joy. Just by passing through your friend’s house you can detect whether taste presides within or not. There is an air of neatness, order, arrangement, grace and refinement that gives a thrill of pleasure, which cannot be defined or explained.

It selects wholesome food, and serves it with taste. Even though the fare may be humble, it has a savour to it. Everything is so clean and neat that water so sparkles in the glass.

On the contrary, look into another house, and you will see abundance enough, without either taste or order. The atmosphere seems to be full of discomfort. Books, hats, shawls and stockings are strewn about. Two or three chairs are loaded with goods. Taste is wanting, for the manager of the house has not yet learnt the Art of Living.

The Art to Extract Joy and Happiness from Life:

In cottage life, the lot of poverty is sweetened by taste. He is merry as a lark, always cheerful, well-clad, comes out on Sunday mornings in his best suit, to go to church with his family, is never without a penny in his purse, and has something besides in the savings bank. He is a reader of good books and a subscriber to a newspaper, besides taking in some literary journal for family reading.

The other man comes to work in the mornings sour and sad, is always full of grumbling, is badly clad, his face unwashed, his children left to run about the gutters, and is always at his last coin, and he has a long score of borrowings to repay. He reads none, thinks none, but only toils, eats, drinks and sleeps.

The difference between these two men lies in the fact that the one has the intelligence and the art to extract joy and happiness from life – to be happy himself and to make those about him happy.

Art of Living at Home:

The Art of Living is best exhibited in the home. The first condition of a happy home is Comfort. The least the wife can do for her husband is to make his house clean and tidy against his homecoming at eve. That is the best housekeeping, the worthiest domestic management, which makes the home so pleasant and agreeable that the man, when he returns to his home, feels like he is about to enter a sanctuary.

“A man cannot thrive unless his wife let him”, says the proverb. As such, the organisation of the home depends for the most part upon woman. She is the manager of every family and household. Man’s life revolves around the woman and she is the sun of his social system. She is the queen of his domestic life. Hence the comfort of every home mainly depends upon her, her character, her temper, her power of organisation, and her business management.

Importance of Method:

According to Sire Arthur Helps, “women are for the most part deficient in method. But this surely might be remedied by training. For instance, why is it that a man-cook is always better than a woman-cook? Simply because a man is more methodical in his arrangements. Women are also found to be absolutely deficient in the appreciation of time.

Thus, to manage a household efficiently, there must be Method. Without this, work cannot be got through satisfactorily either in offices, workshops or households. Industry is the soul of business, but without method, industry will be less productive. The methodical and industrious woman gets through her work in a quiet, steady style, without fuss, or noise, or dust-clouds.

Prudence, Punctuality and Perseverance are the other eminently household qualifications. Late breakfasts and late dinners, “too late” for church and market, “cleanings” out of time, and “washings” going on till midnight, engagements and promises unfulfilled are all little nuisances that arise out of being unpunctual. To the business man, time is money, and to the business woman, it is much more- peace, comfort, and domestic prosperity.

Conclusion:

For these reasons, Samuel Smiles argues that it is worth every man’s while to study the importance of the Art of Living, which is the art of extracting from life its highest enjoyment, and through it, of reaching the highest results.

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