The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04
CHAPTER 1.
CHAPTER 1.
 OUR COMPLEX LIFE. IT the home of the Blanchards "A everything is topsy turvy, and with reason. Think of it! 4 A Mile. Yvonne is to be married

4 A Mile Yvonne is to be married Tuesday, and today is Friday!
 Callers loaded with gifts and trades men bending under packages come and go in endless procession. The servants are at the end of their endurance. AS for the family and the betrothed, they no longer have life or a fixed abode. Their mornings are spent with dress makers, milliners upholsterers, JeWei- CTS, decorators and caterers. Alter that comes a rush through offices, where one waits in The, gazing vague fly at busy clerks engulfed in papers. A fortunate thing if there be time when this is over to run home and dress for the series of ceremonial din ners - betrothal dinners, dinners of Ipresentation, the settlement dinner-re- ceptons, balls About midnight, home again. harassed and weary, to find the latest accumulation of parcels and deluge of letters - congratulations, fe- iicitations, acceptances and regrets from bridesmaids and ushers, excuses of tardy tradesmen. And the contre- temps of the last minute-a sudden death that disarranges the bridal par 'ty, a wretched cold that prevents q Ifavorte cantatrice from singing, and so forth. 6 @s so forth. Those poor Blanehards. They will never be ready and they thought they had foreseen everything!
 Such has been their existence for a month. No longer possible to breathe, Ito restn half hour, to tranquillze ones thoughts. No, this is not liyingl
 Mercifully, there is grandmother's room. Grandmother is verging on eighty. Through many tolls and much suffering she has come to meet things with the calm assurance which life brings to men and women of high thinking and large hearts. She sits there in her armchair, enjoying the silence of long meditative hours. So the flood of affairs surging through the house ebbs at her door At the thresh- old of this retreat voices are hushed and footballs softened, and when the young fiances want to hide away for Ia moment they flee to grandmother.
 Poor childrenr is her greeting. 'You are worn outl Rest little and belong to each other. All these things count for nothing. Don't let than ab- Isorb you; 1t isn't worth while"
 They know 1t well, these two young people. How many times in the last weeks has their love had to make way for all sorts of conventions and futili- Ities Fate at this decisive moment of their lives seems bent upon drawing their minds away from the one thing essential, to harry them with a host of trivialities, and heartily do they ap- prove the opinion of grandmamma Fwhen she says, between a smile and a caress, Decidedly, my dear, the world ts growing too complex, and 1t does not make people happier-quite the con traryr'
 I also am of grandmamma's opinion. From the cradle to the grave, in his needs as in his pleasures, in his con lception of the world and of himself, the man of modern times struggles through q maze of endless complica- ton. Nothing is simple any longer neither thought nor action; not pleas Iure not even dying. With our own hands we have added to existence train of hardships and Topped off many Ia qualification. I believe that thou sands of our fellow men, suffering the Iconsequences of too artificial life. will be grateful if we try to give .ex- pression to their discontent and to jus tify the regret for naturalness which vaguely expresses them.
 Let us first speak of a series of facts that put into relief the truth we wish Ito show.
 The complexity of our life appears in the number of our material needs. It is fact universally conceded that our needs have grown with our resources. This is not an evil in itself, for the birth of certain needs is often the mark of progress To feel the necessity of bathing, of wearing fresh linen, inhab- iting wholesome houses. eating health ful food and cultivating our minds Is a sign of superiority. But If certain needs exist by right and are desirable, there are others whose effects are fa- tal which, like parasites, live at our ex- pense Numerous and imperious, they fngross us completely.
 Could our fathers have foreseen that we should some day have at our dis posal the means and forces we now use in sustaining and defending our material life, they would have predict ed for us an increase of independence, and therefore of happiness, and de- crease in competition for worldly goods They might even have thought that through the simplifcation of life thus made possible higher degree of mo rality would be attained. None of these things has come to pass; neither happiness nor brotherly love nor power for good has been increased. In the first place, do you think your fellow citizens, taken as a whole, are more contented than their forefathers and less anxious about the futuref do not ask if they should find reason to be so. but if they really are so. To see them live 1t seems to me that matori- ty of them are discontented with their lot and, above all. absorbed in material