live thus because I like it, and not from any
philosophical or philanthropical standpoint. But if more men were
to follow their instincts in the matter, instead of being misled
and bewildered by the conventional view that attaches virtue to
perspiration, and national vigour to the multiplication of unnecessary
business, it would be a good thing for the community. What I claim is
that a species of mental and moral equilibrium is best attained by a
careful proportion of activity and quietude. What happens in the case of
the majority of people is that they are so much occupied in the process
of acquisition that they have no time to sort or dispose their stores;
and thus life, which ought to be a thing complete in itself, and ought
to be spent, partly in gathering materials, and partly in drawing
inferences, is apt to be a hurried accumulation lasting to the edge of
the tomb. We are put into the world, I cannot help feeling, to BE rather
than to DO. We excuse our thirst for action by pretending to ourselves
that our own doing may minister to the being of others; but all that it
often effects is to inoculate others with the same restless and feverish
bacteria.

And anyhow, as I said, it is but an experiment. I can terminate it
whenever I have the wish to do so. Even if it is a failure, it will at
all events have been an experiment, and others may learn wisdom by my
mistake; because it must be borne in mind that a failure in a deliberate
experiment in life is often more fruitful than a conventional
success. People as a rule are so cautious; and it is of course highly
disagreeable to run a risk, and to pay the penalty. Life is too short,
one feels, to risk making serious mistakes; but, on the other hand,
the cautious man often has the catastrophe, without even having had
the pleasure of a run for his money. Jowett, the high priest of worldly
wisdom, laid down as a maxim, "Never resign"; but I have found myself
that there is no pleasure comparable to disentangling oneself from
uncongenial surroundings, unless it be the pleasure of making mild
experiments and trying unconventional schemes.

II. CONTENTMENT

I have attempted of late, in more than one book, to depict a certain
kind of tranquil life, a life of reflection rather than of action, of
contemplation rather than of business; and I have tried to do this
from different points of view, though the essence has been the same. I
endeavoured at first to do it anonymou