oung. Then I
have loved books, and music, and, above all, the earth and the things
of the earth. To the wholesome, normal man these things are but an
agreeable background, and the real business of life lies with wife and
child and work. But to me the real things have been the beautiful
things--sunrise and sunset, streams and woods, old houses, talk,
poetry, pictures, ideas. And I always liked my work, too."

"And you did it well?" I said.

"Oh, yes, well enough," he replied. "I have a clear head, and I am
conscientious; and then there was some fun to be got out of it at
times. But it was never a part of myself for all that. And the reason
why I gave it up was not because I was tired of it, but because I was
getting to depend too much upon it. I should very soon have been
unable to do without it."

"But what is your programme?" I said, rather urgently. "Don't you want
to be of some use in the world? To make other people better and
happier, for instance."

"My dear boy," said my companion, with a smile, "do you know that you
are talking in a very conventional way? Of course, I desire that
people should be better and happier, myself among the number; but how
am I to set about it? Most people's idea of being better and happier
is to make other people subscribe to make them richer. They want more
things to eat and drink and wear; they want success and respectability,
to be sidesmen and town councillors, and even Members of Parliament.
Nothing is more hopelessly unimaginative than ordinary people's aims
and ideas, and the aims and ideas, too, that are propounded from
pulpits. I don't want people to be richer and more prosperous; I want
them to be poorer and simpler. Which is the better man, the shepherd
there on the down, out all day in the air, seeing a thousand pretty
things, or the grocer behind his counter, living in an odour of lard
and cheese, bowing and fussing, and drinking spirits in the evening?
Of course, a wholesome-minded man may be wholesome-minded everywhere
and anywhere; but prosperity, which is the Englishman's idea of
righteousness, is a very dangerous thing, and has very little of what
is divine about it. If I had stuck to my work, as all my friends
advised me, what would have been the result? I should have had more
money than I want, and nothing in the world to live for but my work.
Of course, I know that I run the risk of being thought indolent and
unpractical. If I were a prophet,