e and ail, and
we have to bear the burden of our ancestors' weaknesses as well as
the burden of our own; but just as, in the physical region, diet
and exercise and regularity can effect more cures than the strongest
medicines, so, in the life of the spirit, self-restraint and deliberate
limitation and tranquil patience will often lead into a vigorous and
effective channel the stream that, left to itself, welters and wanders
among shapeless pools and melancholy marshes.

III. FRIENDSHIP

To make oneself beloved, says an old French proverb, this is, after
all, the best way to be useful. That is one of the deep sayings which
children think flat, and which young men, and even young women, despise;
and which a middle-aged man hears with a certain troubled surprise, and
wonders if there is not something in it after all; and which old people
discover to be true, and think with a sad regret of opportunities
missed, and of years devoted, how unprofitably, to other kinds of
usefulness! The truth is that most of us who have any ambitions at all,
do not start in life with a hope of being useful, but rather with an
intention of being ornamental. We think, like joseph in his childish
dreams, that the sun and moon and the eleven stars, to say nothing
of the sheaves, are going to make obeisance to us. We want to be
impressive, rich, beautiful, influential, admired, envied; and then, as
we move forward, the visions fade. We have to be content if, in a quiet
corner, a single sheaf gives us a nod of recognition; and as for the
eleven stars, they seem unaware of our very existence! And then we
make further discoveries; that when we have seemed to ourselves most
impressive, we have only been pretentious; that riches are only a
talisman against poverty, and even make suffering and pain and grief
more unendurable; that beauty fades into stolidity or weariness; that
influence comes mostly to people who do not pursue it, and that the
best kind of influence belongs to those who do not even know that they
possess it; that admiration is but a brilliant husk, which may or may
not contain a wholesome kernel; and as for envy, there is poison in that
cup! And then we become aware that the best crowns have fallen to those
who have not sought them, and that simple-minded and unselfish people
have won the prize which has been denied to brilliance and ambition.

That is the process which is often called disillusionment; and it is a
sad enough b