It is an easy phrase, “the art of living,” and one which, like any cliché, is rather of the tongue than of the mind, yet in a general way we know well enough what we mean to signify by it. It means primarily an intelligent ordering of experience, and, to that end, an intelligent ordering of the relations between ourselves and the outer world of things or the inner world of possible emotions and thoughts. As one moves about the world in order to test life in its great foci, in New York or Washington, London or Paris, Prague or Vienna, one cannot but be struck by the differing degrees in which various peoples have attained to the practice of this most difficult of all the arts. In America, indeed, there seems to be hardly any appreciation at all on the part of most people that such an art exists. Any discussion of it is relegated by them to that sphere of nonsensical moonshine that may be indulged in by billionaires or by those inefficient Europeans who do not realize that time is money. It is not without significance that in Europe the ordering of our existence is spoken of as “the art of life,” whereas when any such discussion takes place in America it is usually under the caption, “the business of life.” There is, of course, a business of life. A man must have some financial means of support; he must have some sort of shelter; some sort of clothing; he must put a certain amount of food into his body daily. The business of life, however, is much the same for man as it is for the animals,[Pg 290] although it may be more complicated. It is only when man attempts to rise above the mere business of life, and order the experiences of his life, that he becomes man. An architect cannot do without bricks and steel, but the workman who spends his life puddling molten steel in the furnace or putting clay in the ovens is not an architect. Machines will some day do the work as well, but no machine will ever design a cathedral of Amiens, arrange the glass in a rose window of Chartres or daringly raise the choir at Beauvais. Just as the art of building is utterly different from the business of building, so does the art of life differ from the business of life. The difference extends throughout the whole domain of experience. It is not concerned merely with the highbrow. Eating at a lunch counter in New York belongs to the business of life; eating at a café in France belongs to the art of life; though one may put as many calories into one’s body in the one as in the other.