siness
man, who urged him to devote his scientific knowledge and ability to
commercial pursuits, promising that if he did so, he, Tyndall, would
easily make "a big pile." Tyndall very calmly replied, "Well, I myself
thought of that once, but I soon abandoned the idea, having come to
the conclusion that I had NO TIME TO WASTE IN MAKING MONEY." The man of
dollars nearly sank into the ground. Such a conception of life had never
entered his head before. But to Tyndall no doubt it was obvious that if
he chained himself to the commercial ideal all the joy and glory of his
days would be gone.

We sometimes hear of the awful doom of some of the Russian convicts in
the quarries and mines of Siberia, who are (or were) chained permanently
to their wheelbarrows. It is difficult to imagine a more dreadful fate:
the despair, the disgust, the deadly loathing of the accursed thing from
which there is no escape day or night--which is the companion not only
of the prisoner's work but of his hours of rest--with which he has to
sleep, to feed, to take his recreation if he has any, and to fulfil all
the offices of nature. Could anything be more crushing? And yet, and
yet... is it not true that we, most of us, in our various ways are
chained to our wheelbarrows--is it not too often true that to these
beggarly things we have for the most part chained OURSELVES?

Let me be understood. Of course we all have (or ought to have) our work
to do. We have our living to get, our families to support, our trade,
our art, our profession to pursue. In that sense no doubt we are tied;
but I take it that these things are like the wheelbarrow which a man
uses while he is at work. It may irk him at times, but he sticks to it
with a good heart, and with a certain joy because it is the instrument
of a noble purpose. That is all right. But to be chained to it, not to
be able to leave it when the work of the day is done--that is indeed
an ignoble slavery. I would say, then, take care that even with these
things, these necessary arts of life, you preserve your independence,
that even if to some degree they may confine your body they do not
enslave your mind.

For it is the freedom of the mind which counts. We are all no doubt
caught in the toils of the earth-life. One man is largely dominated
by sensual indulgence, another by ambition, another by the pursuit
of money. Well, these things are all right in themselves. Without the
pleasures of the senses we should