hings which go to make a truce in this battle we
call Life, but because they have been used to all these blessings so
long, they have ceased to regard them. And a man who is not keenly alive
to his own blessings is a man who is neither happy nor of much good to
the world in which he lives. You have to be able to appreciate your own
good fortune in order to realise the tragedy of the less fortunate.

_The Happy Discontent_

What is the happiest time of a man's life? Not the attainment of his
ambitions, but when the attainment is _just in sight_. Every man and
woman must have something to live for, otherwise they become discontented
or dull. People wonder at the present unrest among the working classes.
But to me this unrest is inevitable to the conditions in which they live.
They have no ideal to light up their drudgery with glory. They cannot
express themselves in the dull labour which is their daily task. They
just have to go on and on doing the same monotonous jobs, not in order to
enjoy life, but just in order to live at all. Their "rut" is well-nigh
unendurable. Of what good, for example, is education, an appreciation of
art and beauty, any of those things, in fact, which are the only things
which make life splendid and worth living, if all one is asked to do, day
in, day out, is to clean some lift in the morning and pull it up and down
all the rest of the day! To me the wonder of the working classes is, not
that they are restless, but that they are not all _mad_! Were they doing
their tasks for themselves, I can imagine even the dullest work might
become interesting, because it would lead, if well done, to development
and self-expression. But to do these mechanical labours solely and
entirely for other people, and to know that you must keep on doing them
or starve, well, it seems to me a man needs for his own sanity everything
_outside_ his work to make life worth living. The man who is working for
himself, no matter how dreary his occupation may be, is rarely restless.
He has ambition; there is competition to keep his enthusiasms alive, he
feels that, however lowly his labour may be, it belongs to him, and its
success is his success, too. But can anyone imagine what a life must be,
we will say, cleaning other people's windows for a wage which just
enables him to live? I can imagine it, and, in putting myself in that
position, I cast envious eyes on the freedom of tramps! It seems to me
that,