here that things are
seriously wrong in that heathen land, and make ourselves unpleasant in
the hope of getting them put right. We have all our own brain and body
on which to wreak our personality, but this is not enough; we must
extend our personality further, just as though we were a colonising
world-power intoxicated by the idea of the 'white man's burden.'

One of the central secrets of efficient daily living is to leave our
daily companions alone a great deal more than we do, and attend to
ourselves. If a daily companion is conducting his life upon principles
which you know to be false, and with results which you feel to be
unpleasant, the safe rule is to keep your mouth shut. Or if, out of your
singular conceit, you are compelled to open it, open it with all
precautions, and with the formal politeness you would use to a stranger.
Intimacy is no excuse for rough manners, though the majority of us seem
to think it is. You are not in charge of the universe; you are in charge
of yourself. You cannot hope to manage the universe in your spare time,
and if you try you will probably make a mess of such part of the
universe as you touch, while gravely neglecting yourself. In every
family there is generally some one whose meddlesome interest in other
machines leads to serious friction in his own. Criticise less, even in
the secrecy of your chamber. And do not blame at all. Accept your
environment and adapt yourself to it in silence, instead of noisily
attempting to adapt your environment to yourself. Here is true wisdom.
You have no business trespassing beyond the confines of your own
individuality. In so trespassing you are guilty of impertinence. This is
obvious. And yet one of the chief activities of home-life consists in
prancing about at random on other people's private lawns. What I say
applies even to the relation between parents and children. And though my
precept is exaggerated, it is purposely exaggerated in order effectively
to balance the exaggeration in the opposite direction.

All individualities, other than one's own, are part of one's
environment. The evolutionary process is going on all right, and they
are a portion of it. Treat them as inevitable. To assert that they are
inevitable is not to assert that they are unalterable. Only the
alteration of them is not primarily your affair; it is theirs. Your
affair is to use them, as they are, without self-righteousness, blame,
or complaint, for the smooth furthe