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Beyond Self-Interest
 Beyond Self-Interest

WHY THE MARKET REWARDS THOSE WHO REJECT

IT

KRZYSZTOF PELC
 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and
certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Krzysztof Pelc 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under
terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer.

CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN 978–0–19–762093–9
eISBN 978–0–19–762095–3
For Elza, to the conversions and insurrections to come.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
A Recurrent Paradox
1. CRISIS AND CONVERSION
The Origins of Crisis
The Utilitarian Kool-Aid
A New “Theory of Life”: Happiness “by the Way”
Romantic Origins
Warring Views of the Self
Which Way Back to Eden?
Mill’s Legacy
A Conversion of My Own
2. THE BYPRODUCT SOCIETY
From Products to Byproducts
Ritual Analogues
The Demise of Idleness
The Veblen Treadmill
The Contortions of the Wealthy
Training the Impartial Spectator
The Paradox of Consumption
Turnips versus Transcendence: The Evolving Basket of Goods
A Recipe for Frustration
A Persistent Idea
3. WHY DISINTEREST PAYS
The Original (Reluctant) Capitalists
Why Disinterest Pays
“Believe Me”: The Cornerstone of Capitalism
 Two Sorts of Commerce
“Interested Commerce” in Early Markets
Credibility and Transaction Costs
Venture Capitalism and Disinterest
The Aesthetic of Credibility
(Dis)interest in Political Markets
Twisted Incentives
4. ON FAKERS
The Risks of Faking
Detecting the Faker: A 350-Year-Old Tradition
Fooling Others, Ourselves, and God
Is the Faker Doomed?
5. ON SELLOUTS
The Artist as Sellout
The Sellout’s Natural Habitat
Faker and Sellout Meet
The New Puritans
Tragedy Once More?
Does Selling Out Matter?
Mouth-Watering Market Implications
6. THE ANTI-INSTRUMENTALISTS
The Changing Fortunes of Leisure
The Current State of Leisure
Voices of Dissent
The Apostles of Leisure
Means versus Ends
7. THE PLACE OF LEISURE IN A MARKET ECONOMY
Leisure Is Useful: Trouble Ensues
The Wages of Sleep
The Unholy Leisure Alliance
Coopted: Tapping the Fruit of Leisure
Leisure’s Left Flank
8. RESISTING THE INTELLIGENCE INTELLIGENTLY
 The Demurrers
The Crisis of Utility, and the Utility of Crisis
The Multiple Self as Curse and Remedy
Resisting the Intelligence Intelligently
The Multiple Self and the Market
Going Through the Motions
Costly Signals of Disinterest
A Warning: The Perils of Disinterest
9. SOCIAL CONDITIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL EPIPHANIES
Self-Reform vs. Social Reform
The Role of Government
The Technocrat’s Unexpected Advantage
A Schedule for Social Conversion

Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
 Introduction

Success in Circuit lies.

— EMILY DICKINSON

The pursuit of self-interest makes the world go round. This is the

standard story we tell ourselves, most often with a sigh of
resignation. Self-interest has brought about a society of greed and
naked ambition. Faced with an increasingly competitive economy, we
have no choice but to vie for an edge at our neighbor’s expense. The
causes are structural, technological, and outside our control: foreign
competition, rising automation, looming uncertainty. We feel this
pressure as individuals, too: in this cut-throat marketplace, we must
curate our personal brand, polish our résumés, and prepare our
children to do the same. We bemoan how instrumental our attitude
has become—how everything we do, we do to get ahead, rather
than for its own sake. We blame the internet, the rise of social
media, the devices in our pockets, all of which have hijacked our
self-interested reflexes to purposes not our own.
That same story was once told triumphantly. As 18th-century
Enlightenment thinkers saw it, the pursuit of self-interest was the
magic social glue that led strangers to serve one another’s needs. It
was the essential building block of civilization. If we could count on
getting our daily bread, it was because a self-interested farmer sold
wheat to a self-interested miller, who delivered flour to the self-
interested baker who made us our sourdough.
These seemingly opposite accounts share a basic premise, namely
that self-interest is the undisputed driver of human behavior in
modern market societies. Those who want to do well are advised to
toe the line: to set their goals, arm themselves with strong will, and
work relentlessly toward reaching them. According to which of the
two accounts we choose to believe, the effects of self-interest are
either socially beneficial or socially destructive. But neither story
departs from the shared belief that markets reward individually
rational, self-seeking actions. It is this unquestionable premise that I
want to question in this book.
I want to suggest instead that the true idols of our market-driven
age are its most committed dissidents. That the market actually
celebrates those who openly flout market rules: the producers who
pooh-pooh productivity; the makers who disdain efficiency and
economies of scale; the workers who shun work and profess instead
to be pursuing their passion. Those who opt out, those who give up
on the rat race, those who downsize rather than expand—to follow
their whim, their calling, their true nature. In a world given over to
interest, the disinterested passionates are the ones we can trust.
Actions that appear disinterested often bear more fruit than those
that come across as self-interested. Unintended effects are often
more potent by virtue of being unintended. As a result, the most
compelling force driving today’s affluent market societies is not the
pursuit of self-interest, but its opposite. Increasingly, those who
prosper do so by spurning prosperity. Or better yet, by convincing
others that they are pursuing purpose, passion, love of craft—
anything, in fact, but their own self-advancement. There are limits to
the returns of calculation, planning, and resolve, and in a growing
number of instances, these limits have been reached. Increasingly, in
the age of self-interest, the world belongs to the credibly
disinterested.
Consider what strange sounds we hear market actors making
above the apparently dominant din of self-interest. Hear the
company founders who vow, “We don’t do [it] for money. We get the
biggest investors emailing us every day, but we say no. A guy in a
tie tells you what to do . . . the business becomes like a machine.”
Or the investors who claim to be more interested in “passionate
founders” than in balance sheets. Or look at the polls that tell us
millennials choosing careers are looking for “meaning, not money”
and that they value “purpose over paycheck.” Or consider the
consumers who swear that what they really want is to feel a
“connection” to the people who made their chair, designed their
dress, baked their bread. They want chairs, dresses, and bread
made with passion, and they’re willing to pay premium for it.
Doesn’t this sound like market heresy? Shouldn’t CEOs be in it
precisely for the money? Shouldn’t they be single-mindedly focused
on expanding their business, for their shareholders’ sake and their
own? And shouldn’t workers provide their labor only on the condition
of getting paid as high wages as possible? What about consumers:
Shouldn’t they seek the highest quality goods at the lowest price,
and to hell with their makers’ intentions?
One might think that a capitalist society would rush to condemn
anyone who questions its iron logic. That those who dare flout its
rules would swiftly fall by the wayside, ground up by the steady
advance of economic progress. Yet these market dissidents never
quite manage to become outcasts. Somehow, just the opposite
happens: the dissidents are embraced by the very market they claim
to be shunning. Pitching their passion against ruthless market forces
is flattering to the passionates, who can portray themselves as
fighting nobly against an unbending capitalist machine. But the truth
is more complicated—and far more interesting.
Declaring passion over profit has become a profitable move. The
company founder above, sneering at money and investors, was
being quoted in the Financial Times, in an article that concluded:
“The way to build a globally successful [brand], it seems, is to not
really try to build one at all.” The same esteemed publication informs
its readers that today’s consumers “want committed brands with
authentic products . . . and if possible small, as small as you can.” As
the consulting firm McKinsey advised the world’s corporate giants in
a recent report, while the conventional wisdom has always been that
“in the long run Goliaths beat Davids,” the times have changed:
“These days [scale] does not in itself guarantee consumer appeal—
so Goliaths need to find their inner David.” What the McKinsey report
omitted to say is how fraught this exercise is: the Goliaths’
impersonations had better be convincing, because the market swiftly
punishes any hint of misrepresentation.
 The story of passion over profit is not new. It is merely the latest
iteration of a longstanding fascination with disinterested behavior
that lies at the very heart of capitalism. As I show in this book,
markets have long put their greatest trust in those who do not
subscribe to market values. And since credibility is the most precious
asset in any market-based system, these market dissenters have
often thrived, quite in spite of themselves.
The original American capitalists, the descendants of 17th-century
Puritans, were above all reluctant capitalists. They were pursuing not
profits, but a divinely ordained calling. They prospered in spite of
their best intentions. This is also how a handful of 19th-century
Utopian communes, and their 1960s hippie successors, all equally
committed to a rejection of bourgeois capitalism, turned themselves
into flourishing commercial enterprises, in seeming contradiction
with their founding visions. They prospered commercially because
those they dealt with trusted that commercial prosperity was the last
thing on their minds. Today, the world’s most forward-thinking and
fastest-growing firms are applying these lessons, styling themselves
after passionate, disinterested Utopians: they are “changing the
world,” “building global communities,” “doing what they love”—
anything, in fact, but seeking profit. And in so doing, they’re making
a killing.
None of this is to say that passion is any guarantee of success.
There are countless obsessive entrepreneurs, artists, scholars, and
saints toiling away on their projects, oblivious to any outside
recognition, who never come out of obscurity. In fact, part of the
implication of this book’s central story is that we should expect the
number of such passionates to grow. Being disinterested in market
returns is thus not a sufficient condition for market success—but
increasingly, it may be a necessary one. In advanced economies
premised on self-interest, successful market actors can no longer
afford to be merely self-interested.
There are market settings where shunning market principles has
long been expected. In October 2018, the British street artist
Banksy, who has staked his career on disdaining the art market,
pulled off an inspired stunt. Having managed to secretly encase a
shredder in the frame of one of his paintings, he had the piece self-
destruct moments after it was sold at the Sotheby’s auction house
for $1.4 million. So evidently marketable was this apparent assault
on market forces that observers suspected Sotheby’s executives of
being in on the coup. The market value of the half-shredded painting
is now considerably higher than it was prior to the stunt, enhanced
as it is by this spectacular expression of scorn against market
principles. Its value would have risen even more, in fact, were it not
for the enduring suspicion of Sotheby’s involvement in the affair: the
faint whiff of commercial calculation is the one thing that has put a
cap on the dividend from disinterest. Had Banksy’s intention been to
maximize the value of his work, he could not have acted any more
shrewdly; but had value maximization actually been his declared
intent, it would have failed entirely.
Which gives rise to a bit of a conundrum: being seen to try is the
surest way to fail. As it turns out, British street artists trying to
outsmart the art market are not the only ones facing this paradox,
which is increasingly cropping up across a wide range of market
settings. Much like the artist who grows popular by being seen to
shun popularity, the very strength of our intentions seems to thwart
their object. The greater and more evident our resolve, the less
fruitful it becomes. But if the greatest rewards go to disinterested
behavior, what are the self-interested to do?

A Recurrent Paradox
The spectacle of market actors professing “passion over profits” is
merely one instance of a broader phenomenon. Many of the things
we value most highly are becoming less attainable through
instrumental means. And this shift is in every way expected. It is, in
fact, an unavoidable part of the economic development of any
advanced society.
The examples run from the prosaic to the profound. Those who
are most eager to make a favorable impression become most likely
to fail; the transparency of the effort does them in. That is why the
nouveaux riches are always being unmasked by the old money, who
fault them for trying too hard. It’s also why gifts can sway minds and
elevate the giver’s status, but only if swaying and elevating are not
too obviously their intent. The best toasts are those that sound
convincingly impromptu. Politicians who seem too eager for power
become less likely to attain it; Plato himself argued that the best
rulers were those who did not want to rule and who had to be
forced into taking office. The game of seduction in its various guises
usually consists of concealing, rather than revealing the effort. What
I show in the coming chapters is that these various settings share a
common explanation: namely, a concern for credibility. The main
reason why these valuable goals elude willful effort is because we
have all evolved well-honed social sonars to scrutinize one another’s
intent. In these circumstances, the only ones to be trusted are those
who seem blind to their own interests—driven by other, higher
concerns, or more base ones.
This paradox of intention is only becoming more prevalent. As
societies grow more affluent, they naturally shift their sights away
from objects that can be obtained through willful exertion, like
physical security and material comfort, and towards things that resist
an instrumental, goal-oriented approach, like status, esteem,
influence, creative flow, and self-actualization. Increasingly, the
things that individuals care for most can no longer be planned for,
grasped at, or captured; they can only be stumbled upon, fallen into,
or obtained in passing. Which poses a problem, because while
advanced societies have got very good at planning and grasping,
they are not so good at stumbling upon.
An instrumental attitude is the modal approach to life in advanced
societies. As I argue throughout this book, we live in a
consequentialist world bequeathed to us by the 18th-century
Enlightenment, refracted through a particular 19th-century utilitarian
worldview, buffeted by the assumptions of 20th-century neoclassical
economics, and made digestible by a 21st-century combination of
pop-managerial insights and New Age tenets. We champion will,
determination, effort. We set our goals and we work to reach them.
We keep our eyes on the prize.
 This intellectual tradition has served us well. It has contributed not
only to tremendous economic growth, but it has also provided a
powerful set of arguments for expanding individual freedoms. Even
in the wake of a devastating once-in-a-century pandemic, ours
remains the wealthiest, healthiest, and safest society that has ever
roamed the earth. Then how is it that we are here, coming up short?
At once conscious of our good fortune, and oddly bereft? Asking
ourselves, if we are so lucky as to live in a world of plenty, if our
consumption is bounded only by our appetites—which keep duly
expanding—if we can instantly satisfy our curiosity by looking up
anything we want on a device in our pocket, why does it not seem
like quite enough?
Why is the number of working hours in advanced economies
increasing, as the amount and quality of leisure continues to
decline? Why does this appear to be especially true for the luckiest
segments of our lucky societies, those whom we might think most
able to enjoy their leisure? Why are rates of anxiety increasing
across the wealth spectrum, and why are these trends most
pronounced among young people, in the generation of my
undergraduate students? The fact that the people who have been
maximized—over-educated, over-fed, and over-consuming—are
nonetheless beset by doubts over what to aspire to, and how to
achieve it, should give us pause.
The same approach that has served us so well until now begins to
fall short when it is deployed toward goals that elude willful effort.
The original theorists of commercial society sensed this: they never
envisioned capitalism as an end in itself, but only ever as a splendid
means to furthering higher human aims. Commercial society can still
accomplish this, if only we treat it once more as the tool it was
conceived as. Prosperity is hugely desirable, but only insofar as it
increases human agency, and through it, allows for individual
flourishing.
This is not to say that the current outlook for economic prosperity
is especially rosy. We continue to weather the aftershocks of a once-
in-a-century pandemic, the uneven impact of which has only
highlighted existing inequities. The recovery will be an extended
one, and it will have to contend with the necessity of reducing global
emissions.
The success of that recovery will be measured against where we
stood prior to the pandemic; but that was a world already saddled
with a long list of socioeconomic concerns. The labor force
participation rate in the United States was at its lowest in half a
century, with concerns that it may continue to fall in all advanced
economies due to automation, a trend the pandemic has only
accelerated. Inequality has become a salient issue, and the study of
past economic crises suggests it will only increase in the coming
years before it decreases. Recent mass demonstrations have
underscored how such inequality intersects with racial and social
cleavages in ways that perpetuate historical inequities, which means
that opportunities continue to be unevenly distributed.
All this might be seen as a reason to focus on the emergencies at
home and direct all our attention on these most pressing, near-term
concerns. Adding jobs. Boosting growth. Building resilience. Yet one
recurrent theme of this book is how often thinkers and writers have
taken to questioning social goals precisely as these have seemed
suddenly out of reach.
It was in 1930, as the world was sliding into the Great Depression,
that the economist John Maynard Keynes wondered about whether
we were up to the challenge that would come when the economic
problem of scarcity would be permanently resolved, and we would
have to confront “our real problems—the problems of life and of
human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.” Two years
later, with the Depression reaching its nadir as global unemployment
peaked, the philosopher Bertrand Russell found the space to
question the instrumental mindset he saw all about him, observing
how “the modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for
the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.” And it was
in the wake of another global crisis, as Europe was recovering from
its material and moral devastation following the Second World War,
that the philosopher Josef Pieper warned against the “restlessness of
a self-destructive work-fanaticism.” As he sought to remind himself
and his readers, “Work is the means of life; leisure the end.”
 We find ourselves once more in such a moment of flux, calling into
question long-held assumptions. And it is precisely in this moment of
reconstruction and uncertainty, as we come out of our respective
cells of self-isolation, that a reassessment of long-term social goals
may be most timely. Moments of economic distress often coincide
with a calling into question of collective values. As we think of the
optimal means of addressing the demands that need urgent
attention, it is also worth considering anew the nature of our highest
aspirations: what we understand “the real values of life” to be, and
whether our current efforts are best suited to achieving them.
We are relying on means developed during the industrial 19th
century to attain 21st -century post-industrial aspirations. In so
doing, we are coming up against the limits of what a single-minded
pursuit of self-interest can achieve. In a growing number of settings,
advancing our interest demands that we suspend our default self-
interested approach. This calls for a fundamental adjustment of how
we set about achieving our aims.
The shift in mindset is a task for every one of us, but it isn’t only
up to individuals. It relies on an appropriate set of social institutions.
Moving away from a strictly instrumental outlook is inherently risky,
and governments have a concrete role to play in response, by
providing social insurance policies that can cover downside risk.
Humdrum public policies, from healthcare to wage insurance, may
be a key requirement for individual epiphanies. Self-reform depends
on social reform, and social reform depends on people pushing for it.
That shift in mindset is ultimately a political project.
Increasingly, we find ourselves in the shoes of British street artists
jockeying with the art market’s conflicting incentives: to get ahead,
we must convince others that merely getting ahead is not our prime
objective. This is no easy trick. It is, in fact, so difficult, that maybe
only the truly disinterested are able to pull it off. To persuade others,
it might be necessary to persuade ourselves.
This book tells the story of that paradox. From its unlikely
emergence among a group of thinkers in the early 19th century, to
its development over the subsequent two centuries, as it is
successively picked up by philosophers, theologians, psychologists,
novelists, economists, and political scientists. All of them arriving at
a common realization: disinterest pays—but only for those who
appear truly disinterested. Which leaves the self-interested in a
pickle. This book is about that pickle.
 1

Crisis and Conversion

Fall in London is a dreary time of year. In the 1820s, it was drearier

still: newly built factories coughed up sulphurous smoke into the sky
and pumped their waste into the Thames. The burning of cheap coal
covered the city with soot. London’s pea-soup fog was at its worst in
November, when the season trapped the city’s emissions under a
blanket of cold air. The first half of the 19th century was also a
moment of great social and political flux for England. The industrial
revolution was nearing its peak; London was about to become the
world’s largest city. Mounting social movements were questioning
the twin pillars of received power, the aristocracy and the Church.
Doubts were emerging over the British Empire’s relations to its
colonies. Cheap imports from India were threatening domestic
manufactures, and English workers were calling for bans on all
foreign goods.
In the midst of all the fog and flux, a home-schooled British
twenty-year-old—call him John—was having a mental breakdown. It
was a crisis that would mark John for the rest of his life. He still
vividly remembered it half a century later when, looking back on it
as an older man, he described its beginnings as “a dull state of
nerves” of the kind anyone might occasionally fall into. “One of those
moods in which what is pleasure at other times, becomes insipid and
indifferent.”
John tried to reason himself out of this impasse. He had an
unusually sharp mind, and reasoning through problems was what
he’d been taught to do from a young age. But in this case,
introspection seemed only to aggravate the problem: “the more I
dwelt upon it, the more hopeless it appeared,” he later wrote. Fall
turned into winter, and by the start of 1827, John was still in the
grips of the malady. He lost all drive for life. Dark thoughts came
over him. Looking ahead, he wondered how long he could last in this
state: “I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year.”
Had the circumstances been different, John might have turned to
his father, to whom he was close. But his father was actually part of
the problem, making him “the last person to whom . . . I looked for
help.” In fact, as John saw it, his inner despair was itself proof that
his father’s grand plan had failed in an “irremediable” way.
Had this twenty-year-old been living today, it would have made for
a quick diagnosis. Say, Xanax for the anxiety, Zoloft for the
depression, and Ambien for the sleeplessness. But in the 1820s, with
the invention of the telegraph still two decades away, no such
remedy was on offer. This didn’t keep John from wishing for one: he
kept returning to a line from Shakespeare, where Macbeth complains
of doctors’ uselessness in dealing with existential gloom. In vain,
Macbeth pleads with his own doctor for some “antidote”:

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased . . .

And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

John knew the doctor’s reply, and now it fell on him like a dark
verdict: “Therein the patient / Must minister to himself.” But his inner
resources, tremendous though they were when faced with problems
of calculus, logic, or metaphysics, now came up short.
John had been a child prodigy. Kept away from regular schooling,
he was imbibing Greek and Latin classics at an age when most boys
are concerned with playing with toy trucks. By age eight, he was
reading Plato’s dialogues, the plays of Sophocles, and the histories of
Thucydides, in the original Greek. By age thirteen, he had mastered
Newton’s theories, and the latest advances in the burgeoning field of
economics. As a sixteen-year-old, he was expounding on his policy
ideas in British newspapers. By his twentieth year, he had taken up a
Another random document with
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 In the afternoon, Charity and Hope were to leave Faith's
presents at the Hall, and she herself staggered up to
Timothy's cottage with her big brown paper parcel.

She would allow nobody to carry the coat but herself. It

was a bright, frosty afternoon; the woods looked black and
silent. In the distance, Faith heard the church bells pealing
out. Aunt Alice had gone to help in the decorations at the
church. When Faith reached the cottage she found Timothy
had just come in. He was hanging up his old coat on a nail
behind the door, and turned round with a pleased smile
when he saw who it was.

"Come right in, Missie. Eh! 'Tis good to see ye lookin' up

agin! Sit ye down now. There be Sandy waitin' to shake
hands wi' ye!"

Faith breathlessly held out her big parcel.

"For you, Timothy, with my love and a happy Christmas.

I bought it for you myself with some of the money I told
you about. Do try it on and see how it fits!"

Timothy slowly undid the parcel. When he unfolded the

thick coat, he looked at her with his slow, sweet smile:

"Well, I never did! This beats me altogether. 'Tis fit for

the king hisself. However am I to thank you big enough,
Missie?"

"Put it on! Put it on!" cried Faith, dancing up and down

in her excitement. "I'll help you, Timothy."

So between them, they got Timothy into the coat, and

he pronounced it a "perfect fit."

"My last new coat was twelve years agone!" he said.

 "Why, that was before I was born," said Faith in awed
tones.

"Well, I'm wonderful grateful, Missie! To think that you

should give me such a big gift as this! My old bones will
ache no more with cold this winter! Dearie me, I shall not
know myself!"

He turned himself round and round and Faith admired

him amazingly. Then after she had told him the whole
history of the purchase they settled down to talk of other
things.

"Isn't Christmas a lovely time, Timothy?"

"Ay, Missie, surely it be; and never will there be such a

Christmas as this with 'Peace on earth' again. 'Tis like a
horrible dream, these four years of killin' and burnin' and
drownin'! I always have been fond of Christmas. To us
shepherds, when we go round at night, the Message seems
to sound out in a partic'lar way, just as it did to them
Eastern shepherds. I pray God He will send the Message
afresh to the aching hearts in the world to-day to tell them
of the joy to be found in the Saviour."

"But it's the Comforter Who speaks to aching hearts,"

said Faith.

"So 'tis, Missie, and He'll be tellin' them of the One Who
loved 'em, and gave Himself for 'em! There'll be those this
Christmas who'll be wantin' all the love and comfort they
can get. For there be no such sad a time for those who have
lost their dear ones, as a real merry-making time all round
'em. It just stabs 'em cruel all the time!"

Faith sat very still on her little stool. She hardly

understood Timothy's words, for she was feeling supremely
happy herself. Sandy had his nose in her lap, and she was
stroking his head.

"I hope there'll be nobody unhappy in our village this

Christmas, Timothy. Do you think there will be?"

"We'll hope not, though there is a few with mourning

hearts who stiffen their backs, an' will not listen to the
Comforter."

"And I suppose if everybody listened, there wouldn't be

an unhappy person in the world?" said Faith.

"That there would not," said Timothy earnestly.

When Faith came away from him it was getting dark. He

walked over the fields with her and saw her safely into the
lane; and she then ran home as fast as she could.

The little cottage was quite gay that night. It was

trimmed up with holly and evergreen; there was a beautiful
cake for tea made by Aunt Alice. And after tea was cleared
away, the presents were produced. Granny was speechless
when she saw her cloak, and Aunt Alice was almost
distressed when she was given her furs.

"My dear Faith, you ought not to have spent so much

money on me!"

But she put them on, and said she felt a duchess in
them. The little girls all had Christmas presents from
Granny and Aunt Alice. Warm gloves, books, and boxes of
chocolates.

When at last the children retired to bed, they were

almost worn out with excitement, but very happy. As
Granny said when Aunt Alice remarked on Faith's white
cheeks:

"Well, Christmas only comes once a year, and this is a

year that will be remembered all our lives. We have been
pretending for the last four years to feel happy at
Christmastime, now we really are."

CHAPTER XV
THE PIRATE'S CHRISTMAS STORY

CHRISTMAS Day dawned bright and clear. After

breakfast they shut up the Cottage and all went to church.
Dinner was to be late that day, for Aunt Alice was
determined not to miss church in the morning.

"We'll have a snack of cold lunch," she said; "and then

we'll have a proper Christmas dinner at six o'clock."

The church was very full. Sir George and Lady Melville
had their boys home and a party of visitors as well. Charlie
was there with his father and mother, but just before the
service began, there was a great surprise for the little girls.
The Pirate appeared and walked up the aisle, taking a seat
on the opposite side to where they sat. Faith nudged her
Aunt, and Aunt Alice smiled with a little flush on her cheeks.
When they came out of church, greetings took place in the
churchyard. Sir George and Lady Melville both thanked Faith
very much for her presents, and then Charlie rushed up in
great excitement.

"You are a brick!" he said. "You should have heard me

yell when I saw my cycle! How did you think of it?"

"We all thought of it," said Faith; "Charity and Hope

helped me with everything. Hope said she knew you wanted
one."

"It's simply stunning! And I say, I'm going to have a

party with fireworks on New Year's Eve, and you're all to
come!"

"How jolly!" cried the little girls. "Of course we will."

Then the Pirate, who had been talking to Granny and

Aunt Alice, came up, and they all seized hold of him.

"We thought you were in France!" "When did you come

back?" "Are you going to stay?"

He laughed.

"I came back last night, and I'm coming to dinner with
you to-day. Won't we have fun!"

The little girls of course were entranced.

Then Faith pulled him aside.

"We're having such a lovely Christmas because of the

money in the coin cabinet. Aunt Alice says you know about
it. Wasn't it the most wonderful surprise for me?"

"I guess it was. Yes, I know all about it. Has it all gone
yet?"
 "The most awful lot of it has. Wasn't it good of Mr.
Cardwell? I do hope he knows how we're enjoying
ourselves."

"I expect he does. What have you done to your Aunt

Alice? She's looking ripping!"

Faith slipped over to her Aunt's side.

Aunt Alice was wearing her furs, and she was indeed
looking her very best. A bright colour was in her cheeks,
and a light in her eyes. She took hold of Faith's hand.

"Come along, chicks! We must get home. You will see

your Pirate again, so we won't say good-bye."

But Faith had to speak to another of her friends first,

and that was old Timothy, who was in the new overcoat and
standing outside the gate.

He gripped hold of her small hand.

"A happy Christmas, missie!—But your face tells me

you're having that."

"Yes, everything is delicious," said Faith. "Wouldn't you

like a week of Christmas Days, Timothy, all bunched
together? It goes too quickly for us."

"We can have a week of Christmas joy," the old man

said, and then he went off and Faith joined her sisters.

The Pirate arrived about four that afternoon; and he

produced out of his pockets the most wonderful presents for
everyone. They came from Paris; there were three big
chocolate boxes for the little girls tied up with pink satin
ribbon; there was a most dainty silk work-bag for Granny,
and a tiny little leather box for Aunt Alice. There were
dainty handkerchiefs, and scent bottles, and sachets, which
were also distributed round.

The children were quite overcome by it all.

"I shall have to write to Mrs. Cox to-morrow," said

Charity; "I feel I must tell about it all to somebody."

The Pirate was sitting round the fire with Granny and
Aunt Alice.

Aunt Alice every now and then ran away to see how the
cooking was getting on, for she had one of the village
women to help her for the day, and she wanted some
superintendence.

"What is inside your little box, Aunt Alice?" asked Hope

presently.

Aunt Alice looked at the Pirate and laughed.

"I will show you after dinner," she said, "not now."

They had a light tea round the fire, and, later on, the
children all went upstairs and put on their best party
dresses in honour for the occasion.

Dinner, of course, was a great success.

Sir George had sent Granny a huge turkey, there were

mince-pies and plum pudding, and apples and nuts and
oranges, and a big box of crackers, which was a present
from Lady Melville.

And they were all very merry, for the Pirate told them
funny stories; some were true, some did not sound as if
they were, but they made everybody laugh. And as the
Pirate said, this Christmas must be the very jolliest of all,
for Peace was amongst them once more.

And then when dinner was over, they all gathered in a

circle round the blazing fire, and the little girls besought the
Pirate once more for a story. At first he refused, and then
he suddenly sat up, and said he would tell them one.

"It was Christmas Eve," he began, "and very dark and

cold. A carriage was lumbering up a long drive towards a
big gloomy house. Inside was a young man. We will call him
Rufus. He did not look happy. He was tired with a very long
journey. A few days before he had been busy and happy, for
he was doing some hard work, and was told he was doing it
very satisfactorily; but suddenly he was told the work was
finished, and that he was needed no more. He was glad to
come back to his home, and yet he was sorry, for there was
nobody to greet him. The only one who had really belonged
to him had passed away.

"And when the carriage stopped at the door, Rufus gave

a big sigh and walked into the dim, gloomy hall, nodded to
the servants, and then went into the library, where he
always used to sit and smoke. There was a big fire to
welcome him, and a small white terrier. He sat down by it
and took the terrier into his arms, and then he kept very
still until he began to see pictures in the fire. He saw
himself coming into the big house, but flying to meet him
was a lady with a beautiful face, and two or three dancing
sprites behind her. In the background was another face of
an older lady, almost heavenly in its welcoming radiance,
and he felt his heart get warm, as warm as his body was
getting from the blazing fire. He sprang to his feet and
walked up and down the room.
 "'I will! I will!' he cried. 'I won't put it off any longer!'"

"What was he going to do?" enquired Charity

breathlessly.

"You'll hear. Soon afterwards he went into another

room, where he had to eat his Christmas Eve dinner all by
himself. But he did not feel lonely any more. He pictured the
faces he had seen in the fire round his table. Then he went
upstairs after he had dined, and wandered into a great
many empty rooms, and planned how he could make them
more comfortable. And he went into one particular room,
and unlocked a safe in the wall, and took out of it an old-
fashioned silver casket; there were precious stones and
jewels inside it. He took out one particular jewel, and
wrapped it up, and put it in his pocket next his heart, to
keep it warm. And then he went downstairs into the hall
again, and buttoned himself into his great coat, and
jammed on his old felt hat, and away he went down the
drive with great swinging strides. His chest was thrown out,
and his head well up in the air, for he was determined to be
brave. He was going out to meet someone, and he did not
know whether he would return to his house that night a
conqueror, or a vanquished and despairing man."

"Oh! Was he going to fight an enemy?" asked Hope.

She was hushed up at once by her sisters.

"It's getting most awfully exciting," murmured Charity.

The Pirate went on without noticing these interruptions.

"And then suddenly, when he had got out on the dry,

high road, his spirits sank all at once. He remembered how
full of hope he had been once before, just before he left for
a foreign land; and how he had determined to come off
conqueror, but how absolutely he was humbled to the dust;
how the desire of his heart was not granted to him. Of
course he had said he would win sooner or later, because it
was only that horrid big word, 'circumstances' against him.
And then he heard a little robin chirping in the hedge, and
he bucked up again and went on.

"At last he came to his destination.

"A little, quiet, dark house, with just one light shining
out, but that light gave him a cheerful wink, and he got in
at the gate and up to the door, and suddenly before he
could knock, it was flung open and the one he sought came
out."

The Pirate stopped. Aunt Alice bent forward and stirred

the fire, and coughed rather loudly.

The Pirate went on a little nervously.

"Well, that's nearly all, children—but he had his

interview, and it was well worth all the doubts and fears and
tremblings that had beset him before. He went back to his
gloomy house in an hour's time, but it was gloomy no more.
He came back to it as victor, and it seemed to him as if the
whole place was full of glory."

"Is that all?" asked Faith, softly. "And what about the
box with the jewel?"

"He kept it for a Christmas present."

"But who was he so frightened of? Who did he go to

meet?"

"Ask your Aunt Alice. She will tell you."

 But Aunt Alice was looking into the fire. Her hand was
shielding her face.

Granny sat back in her chair, and looked smilingly

amused. There seemed to be a mystery somewhere.

Suddenly Charity sprang to her feet.

"I know," she said; "Rufus went to meet the beautiful

lady. He wanted her to come and live with him as his wife,
and he wasn't certain whether she would or not."

"Oh, Charity, you're too sharp altogether!" The Pirate

leant back in his chair and laughed.

"Did she say yes?" Hope asked.

"She did," the Pirate said; "she saw how unhappy poor
Rufus would be without her. And the next day he went back
to her and gave her the ring."

"Was the jewel a ring? Oh, how exciting! And did they
marry and live happy ever after?"

"That takes time in the doing," said the Pirate, with

twinkling eyes, "but of course that will come to pass."

"And what was the ring like?" asked Hope.

"Ask your Aunt Alice!"

Aunt Alice turned and held up her left hand in the

firelight. There upon her third finger sparkled a diamond
ring!

And then the little girls gave screams of astonishment

and joy.
 "Why, you've been telling us about yourself! It's a true
story!"

"And you came home yesterday to the Towers."

"And did you come and see Aunt Alice last night?"

"And are you going to take her away from us? We really
can't spare her."

"I am going to carry her off to my house, of course. But

a pirate sticks at nothing. I shall do more than that. I shall
carry dear old Granny off—very gently so as not to hurt her;
and then I shall come back for all of you—I shall carry you
all off to my gloomy castle, and there you will have to stay.
What do you think of that?"

He leant back in his chair and looked at them with a

cheerful smile.

It was some time before they could grasp this wonderful

news, and when they did, they hardly knew what to say.

"Do you mean," Charity said, earnestly, "that you're

going to marry Aunt Alice and take us all to live at the
Towers? Why, it will be like a fairy tale. It can't be true!"

"Do you think there will be room enough for you?"

asked the Pirate, anxiously.

And then the little girls began to laugh, as they thought

of the big, rambling passages, and the large, lofty rooms
that were mostly empty.

Bedtime came too soon. But they went upstairs

obediently when they were told.
 Surely this was the most wonderful Christmas Day that
they had ever seen!

The next morning Granny talked quietly about the

change in front of them.

The Pirate was coming home to farm his own land. At

first, Aunt Alice said she could not leave Granny and her
nieces. That sent him away to France very sorrowful, for
Granny did not see her way to come to the Towers too. She
wanted to stay on in the Cottage with the little girls.

But when he wrote miserable letters saying what a

gloomy, empty home he had, and how he longed to fill it
with them all, Granny began to think she must give up her
own will for his sake, and for Aunt Alice's, and when he
arrived at the Cottage in the dark the night before, and
Aunt Alice met him at the door, Granny came forward and
said she was ready to do anything they wished.

The children listened to this account with the greatest

interest.

"What I can't make out," said Charity, "is why you like
living here in a tiny cottage better than a lovely house like
the Towers, Granny."

"Ah, well," said Granny, smiling a little sadly, "you may

understand one day when you are older."

And then she said no more.

A few days after Christmas, the Pirate had Aunt Alice

and the children over to tea at the Towers.

They went all over it, and had the joy of settling the
different rooms that would be arranged for them. Granny
was to have one of the big sunny rooms looking over the
green lawns and cedar trees, the little girls were to have a
big room next to her for their schoolroom, and then three
small bedrooms which led into each other at the end of the
passage, were for them to sleep in.

It was bliss to think that they would each have a

bedroom of their own.

Aunt Alice was talking to the old housekeeper about

some of the downstairs rooms, when Faith stole softly along
to the one in which she had first seen old Mr. Cardwell.

The Pirate found her standing by the couch with tears in

her eyes.

Turning to him she said:

"Oh, I do wish he was here to see us all. I do miss him

so much."

"Why were you so fond of him, I wonder," said the

young man, looking at her with tender eyes.

"Oh, he was so unhappy," said Faith, "and then, you

know, he got happy, and I liked him better than ever. And
he was so kind to me. And he called me 'little Miss Moth.' I
shall never, never hear that name again! I did love it so."

"Did you?" said the Pirate, sitting down on a chair and

taking her up on his lap. "But you shall hear that name
again, for I mean to call you by it."

"Will you, really? Oh, it will be lovely if you do?"

Faith's face was radiant.

 "Then come, little Miss Moth, we will go back to the
others."

And he and she went out into the big hall, where the
Pirate saw once more the picture that had appeared in the
fire—his beautiful lady turning with a smiling face to meet
him, and two dancing sprites behind her.

CHATS WITH

CHILDREN

BY

AMY LE FEUVRE

...is an outstanding example of the art of interesting

young people. The ordinary and every-day things of life
in such skilful hands assume a new character, while
spiritual lessons therefrom are reached by an easy
transition.
A delight to the children. A real treasure for the parents.

CHAT I. OUTSIDE AND INSIDE

CHAT II. WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP

CHAT III THE WAY TO HEAVEN

 CHAT III. THE WAY TO HEAVEN

CHAT IV. A KNOCK AT THE DOOR

CHAT V. HOW TO TACKLE GIANTS

CHAT VI. A FREE GIFT

CHAT VII. TO BE READY

CHAT VIII. THE UNKNOWN VISITOR

CHAT IX. OUR INHERITANCE

Four Illustrations in Full Colour

Eight Illustrations in Black and White

COLOURED JACKET PICKERING

CR. OCTAVO 2/6 NET & INGLIS

 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE MISS
MOTH ***

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