rvalued in those old, dry, high-principled books was the charm of
vivid apprehension, of fanciful imagination, of simple, neighbourly
kindliness. The aim was too much to improve everybody and everything,
to impart and retain correct information. Nowadays the pendulum has
swung a little too far the other way, and children are too much
encouraged, if anything, to be childish; but there is a certain austere
charm in the old simple high-minded household life for all that.

The point is that habit should be there, like the hem of a
handkerchief, to keep the fabric together; but that it should not be
relentlessly and oppressively paraded; the triumph is to have habits
and to conceal them, just as in Ruskin's celebrated dictum, that the
artist's aim should be to be fit for the best society, and then that he
should renounce it. One ought to be reliable, to perform the work that
one undertakes without ceaseless reminders, to discharge duties easily
and satisfactorily; and then, if to this one can add the grace of
apparent leisureliness, the power of never appearing to be interrupted,
the good-humoured readiness to amuse and to be amused, one is high upon
the ladder of perfection. It is absolutely necessary, if one is to play
a satisfactory part in the world, to be in earnest, to be serious; and
it is no less necessary to abstain from ostentatiously parading that
seriousness. One has to take for granted that others are serious too;
and far more is effected by example than by precept, in this, as in
most matters. But if one cannot do both, it is better to be serious and
to show it, than to make a show of despising seriousness and decrying
it. It is better to have habits and to let others know it, than to lose
one's soul by endeavouring to escape the reproach of priggishness, a
quality which in these easy-going days incurs an excessive degree of
odium.

XVIII

RELIGION

There is a motto which I should like to see written over the door of
every place of worship, both as an invitation and a warning: THOU SHALT
MAKE ME TO UNDERSTAND WISDOM SECRETLY. It is an invitation to those who
enter, to come and participate in a great and holy mystery; and it is a
warning to those who believe that in the formalities of religion alone
is the secret of religion to be found. I will not here speak of
worship, of the value of the symbol, the winged prayer, the uttered
word; I wish rather to speak for a little of religion itself, a thing,