stions.
The modern puritan seeks to change the nature of our natural
longing. He tells us that what we need is not less labor but more
labor, not less "concentrated effort," but more "concentrated effort";
not "Heaven," in fact, but "Hell."

I do not know. There is much affectation abroad, and some
hypocrisy. Puritans were ever addicted to hypocrisy. But because of
these "virtuous" prophets of "action," are we to give up our Beatific
Vision? Why not be honest for once, and confess that what Man,
born of Woman, craves for in his heart is a little joy, a little
happiness, a little pleasure, before "he goes hence and is no more
seen"? We know that we know nothing. Why, then, pretend that we
know the importance of being "up and doing"? There may be no
such importance. The common burden of life we have, indeed, all to
bear--and they are not very gracious or lovely souls who seek to put
it off on others--but for this additional burden, this burden of "being
consistent" and having a "strong character," does it seem very wise,
in so brief an interval, to put the stress just there?

Somehow I think a constant dwelling in the company of the "great
masters" leads us to take with a certain "pinch of salt" the strenuous
"duties" which the World's voices make so clamorous! It may be
that our sense of their greatness and remoteness produces a certain
"humility" in us, and a certain mood of "waiting on the Spirit," not
altogether encouraging to what this age, in its fussy worship of
energy, calls "our creative work." Well! There is a place doubtless
for these energetic people, and their strenuous characters, and their
"creative work." But I think there is a place also for those who
cannot rush about the market-place, or climb high Alps, or make
engines spin, or race, with girded loins, after "Truth." I think there is
a place still left for harmless spectators in this Little Theatre of the
Universe, And such spectators will do well if they see to it that
nothing of the fine or the rare or the exquisite escapes them.
Somebody must have the discrimination and the detachment
necessary to do justice to our "creative minds." The worst of it is,
everybody in these days rushes off to "create," and pauses not a
moment to look round to see whether what is being created is worth
creating!

We must return to the great masters; we must return to the things in
life that really matter; and then we shall acquire, perhaps, in our
little way the ar