ed, blind and even more futile than it
is with them. Organised effort is bound to be less ineffective than
unorganised effort.

* * * * *

A worldly ambition can be, frequently is, realised: but an ideal cannot
be attained--if it could, it would not be an ideal. The virtue of an
ideal is its unattainability. It seems, when it is first formed, just as
attainable as a worldly ambition which indeed is often schemed as a
means to it. After twenty-four hours, the ideal is all but attained.
After forty-eight, it is a little farther off. After a week, it has
receded still further. After a month it is far away; and towards the end
of a year even the keen eye of hope has almost lost sight of it; it is
definitely withdrawn from the practical sphere. And then, such is the
divine obstinacy of humanity, the turn of the year gives us an excuse
for starting afresh, and forming a new ideal, and forgetting our shame
in yet another organised effort. Such is the annual circle of the ideal,
the effort, the failure and the shame. A rather pitiful history it may
appear! And yet it is also rather a splendid history! For the failure
and the shame are due to the splendour of our ideal and to the audacity
of our faith in ourselves. It is only in comparison with our ideal that
we have fallen low. We are higher, in our failure and our shame, than we
should have been if we had not attempted to rise.

* * * * *

There are those who will say: "At any rate, we might moderate somewhat
the splendour of our ideal and the audacity of our self-conceit, so that
there should be a less grotesque disparity between the aim and the
achievement. Surely such moderation would be more in accord with common
sense! Surely it would lessen the spiritual fatigue and disappointment
caused by sterile endeavour!" It would. But just try to moderate the
ideal and the self-conceit! And you will find, in spite of all your sad
experiences, that you cannot. If there is the stuff of a man in you, you
simply cannot! The truth, is that, in the supreme things, a man does
not act under the rules of earthly common sense. He transcends them,
because there is a quality in him which compels him to do so. Common
sense may persuade him to attempt to keep down the ideal, and
self-conceit may pretend to agree. But all the time, self-conceit will
be whispering: "I can go one better than that." And lo! the ideal is
furtively rais