Acentury ago European aristocrats living on inherited and industrial wealth and North American 'robber barons' enriched by railroads and oil were enjoying the life of la belle époque. Their wealth and extravagance were expressed in multiple residences, jewels, designer clothing, cruising in luxury vessels and on personal yachts. They were the first socalled "beautiful people".

They also were the proud possessors of works of art, the appreciation of which in monetary terms often outweighed the aesthetic appreciation. Their public benefactions had as much to do with the prestige and other benefits that would accrue to them as any of those donations did with charity except, perhaps, for the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie.

Contemporary consumerism and much of the personal indebtedness that is common now can be traced to a popular desire to imitate the selfish lifestyles of the Edwardian 'upper class', now perpetuated by the 'stars' of the entertainment world. Edward VII was king/emperor in the nineyear period after the 1901 death of Queen Victoria. While he achieved an entente with France his German, Russian and other royal European cousins watched the gathering war clouds that would lead to the two world wars in which thrones and empires perished. Although Britain was, as usual, prepared only to fight the previous war, not the coming one, reconciliation had also been achieved with 'America' the worldwide financial interests of which made necessary, and the abundant natural resources of which made possible, the victories of 1918 and 1945.

In 1906 an essay entitled The Simple Life appeared in a London magazine. The author, Arthur Christopher Benson, was a fellow of Magdalene College, Oxford. He wrote "There is a great deal of talk just now about 'the simple life' although I would not go so far as to say that there is a movement in the direction of it". The slums of London and Liverpool were known to him, though far beyond his privileged and tenured Oxonian experience.

There was, he wrote, a charming Edwardian lady of his acquaintance who had the need for a simpler life constantly on her lips. Her method of practising it was "a delightful one". To take her mind, at least temporarily, from "the stress of living in three magnificent residences she bought a cottage in a secluded location and furnished it "with that stately austerity which can only be achieved at great expense". She went there occasionally to spend three or four days with friends who were equally in love with simplicity. Benson was included in one such cottage experience.

The chief sign of austerity was that dinner was reduced to a mere five courses. It was served at the early hour of seven o'clock to distinguish it from an evening meal "in town". The wine was drunk from glasses the rims of which neither rang to the tap of a fingernail nor sang to the touch of a moistened finger. Those who have done such things will understand. The bucolic atmosphere was heightened by the presence of two bleating goats that were tethered outside the dining room window. No use was made nor any attention paid to them but without their presence the diners' retreat from urban life might have suffered.

The hostess and her guests talked about and visited simple things all day long, even popping into the ancient local church to appreciate its calm. Some bemoaned the hard fate that would tear them all too soon away from rural felicity. Later they settled down to drinks before the above dinnertimes. They discussed with animation their social engagements and theatrical tickets for the next several weeks. Their simple country life took no account of the rural poor who, it was accepted, are always with us. One did hope that the local vicar knew them and was seeing that their needs were met. He was not, of course, consulted.

This season of Lent challenges those who, although they do not covet the lifestyles of the likes of Lord Black or the condone extravagance of his four times wedded "lady", are unaware of the growing Great Divide between the rich and the poor. Statistics Canada and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives lay out the facts. The number of employees working in jobs without benefits or pensions has increased from 11% to 21% in the past 15 years. Until 2002 the 40-year average household savings rate was 10%. It has now dropped to 1.5% of disposable income. As a percentage of after-tax income, personal debt rose from 72% in 1985 to just under 120% in 2004. Some of us can remember the Royal Bank's 1950 slogan, "Be thrifty in fifty". Now we are exhorted to accept that extra credit card even if we already have one of the same ilk. More borrowing power to you!

Meanwhile, several charities call us every week for help. About 330,000 Ontarians need to get some of their groceries from food banks, one in five of which runs out of supplies before it runs out of people at the door. In 2001 18.4% of Canadian children lived below the poverty line. The top 20% of the nation's households own 75% of the household wealth, up from 69% in 1989.

It takes planning and resolution to simplify one's lifestyle. As with our environmental problems, it is difficult to foresee the social fall-out of the Great Economic Divide on the next generation or so. In Britain there is a 'Livesimply' campaign to raise public awareness of the problems of rising personal indebtedness and our society's growing poverty rate. Last year the average income of fully employed persons in Canada was $38, 010. That of the 100 highest paid chief executive officers was $9,059,113.

In the foreword to the late John S. Goodall's charming little picture book, An Edwardian Summer (Macmillan, London, 1976), former U.K. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan remembered that a century ago the darker side of Edwardian Britain cast but the smallest shadow on the general sense of 1906 prosperity and peace. It was soon to change with the wartime breaking of nations and the collapse of the world economy in the Depression. Some say that it could not happen again.

On the other hand, it could do so sooner than we think