SIMPLE LIFE EXPENSIVE

Evening Star, Issue 21628, 25 January 1934, Page 12

SIMPLE LIFE EXPENSIVE

BEVEBLEY NICHOLS'S VIEWS

A great many people, in these days of stress, are talking glibly of their return to the simple life. ,r We shall all be doing it, my dear 1 And I for one shall adore it!” I wonder! For I have often noticed that the exponents of the simple life, when put to the hard test of reality, are inclined to wilt and revise their opinions, writes Beverley Nichole, in ‘ The Queen.’ We all know the woman who longs for a tiny cottage in the country . . . “ just a couple of bedrooms and a little rose garden . . . and a few vegetables (I adore vegetables) and one or two chickens —all I would need is an omelette —one could live like that for absolutely nothing, and be too terribly happy!” Oh yeah? (As the. Americans are supposed to say.) I wish I could believe it. But I have seen too many experiments in this sort of simplicity. The two little bedrooms do not seem nearly so attractive when there is no bathroom at the end of the corridor. The rose garden has a regrettable habit of growing weeds. The chickens have to be fed—every other minute—so it seems. And it is not very easy to make an omelette on an oil stove that leaks, Real simplicity is extremely expensive. Any good dressmaker will tell you that (or if he does not tell you in so many words you will learn it as soon as you get his bill). These “simple” modern rooms, with one triangular sofa, a square lamp, a steel stool, and a bookshelf that looks like a proposition from a very advanced book of Euclid—well, it is cheaper to go in for Sheraton. Even simple diet is expensive—for many people. Greens out of season, plenty of fruit—tempting salads —oh, yes, it is simple enough. But it is not cheap. The best and cheapest way to indulge in the simple life is to stay where you are, continue to do what you arc doing as far as possible,, and to take 20 per cent, off your allowance. You cannot fool a chequebook. In fact, those tell-tale little counterfoils are about the simplest way of achieving simplicity that has yet been invented.