Doctrinaire. You have chosen the better part."
But fortunately there is a still more excellent way. It is possible to
be a practical idealist pursuing the ideal with full regard for
practical considerations. There is something better than the conscience
that moves with undeviating rectitude through a moral vacuum. It is the
conscience that is related to realities. It is a moral force operating
continuously on the infinitely diversified materials of human life. It
feels its way onward. It takes advantage of every incident, with a noble
opportunism. It is the conscience that belongs to the patient,
keen-witted, open-minded, cheery "men of good will," who are doing the
hard work of the world.

III

Christmas and the Literature of Disillusion

[Illustration]

"What makes the book so cross?" asked the youngest listener, who had for
a few minutes, for lack of anything better to do, been paying some
slight attention to the reading that was intended for her elders.

It was a question which we had not been bright enough to ask. We had
been plodding on with the vague idea that it was a delightful book.
Certainly the subject was agreeable. The writer was taking us on a
ramble through the less frequented parts of Italy. He had a fine
descriptive power, and made us see the quiet hill towns, the old walls,
the simple peasants, the white Umbrian cattle in the fields. It was just
the sort of thing that should have brought peace to the soul; but it
didn't.

The author had the trick of rubbing his subject the wrong way.
Everything he saw seemed to suggest something just the opposite. When
every prospect pleased, he took offense at something that wasn't there.
He was himself a favored man of leisure, and could go where he pleased
and stay as long as he liked. Instead of being content with a short
Pharisaic prayer of thanksgiving that he was not as other men, he
turned to berate the other men, who in New York were, at that very
moment, rushing up and down the crowded streets in the frantic haste to
be rich. He treated their fault as his misfortune. Indeed, it was
unfortunate that the thought of their haste should spoil the serenity of
his contemplation. His fine sense for the precious in art led him to
seek the untrodden ways. He indulged in bitter gibes at the poor taste
of the crowd. In some far-away church, just as he was getting ready to
enjoy a beautifully faded picture on the wall, he caught sight of a
tourist. He was