rarely are we told
precisely how to begin! How glibly it is taken for granted that we are
all equally capable of it. Yet energy itself is a quality, a gift of
temperament. The man who, like Sir Richard Grenville, says "Fight on,"
when there is nothing left to fight with or to fight for, except that
indefinable thing honour, or the man who, like Sir Andrew Barton, says:

"I'll but lie down and bleed awhile,
And then I'll rise and fight again;"--

they are people of heroic temper, and cannot be called a common
species. "Do the next thing," says the old motto. But what if the next
thing is one of many, none of them very important, and if at the same
time one has a good book to read, a warm fire to sit by, an amusing
friend to talk to? "He who of such delights can judge, and spare to
interpose them oft, is not unwise," says Milton. Most of us have a
certain amount of necessary work to do in the world, and it can by no
means be regarded as established that we are also bound to do
unnecessary work. Supposing that one's heart is overflowing with mercy,
compassion, and charity, there are probably a hundred channels in which
the stream can flow; but that is only because a good many hearts have
no such abounding springs of love; and thus there is room for the
philanthropist; but if all men were patient, laborious, and
affectionate, the philanthropist's gifts would find comparatively
little scope for their exercise; there might even be a _queue_ of
benevolent people waiting for admission to any house where there was
sickness or bereavement. Moreover, all sufferers do not want to be
cheered; they often prefer to be left alone; and to be the compulsory
recipient of the charity you do not require is an additional burden. A
person who is always hungering and thirsting to exercise a higher
influence upon others is apt to be an unmitigated bore. The thing must
be given if it is required, not poured over people's heads, as
Aristophanes says, with a ladle. To be ready to help is a finer quality
than to insist on helping, because, after all, if life is a discipline,
the aim is that we have to find the way out of our troubles, not that
we should be lugged and hauled through them, "bumped into paths of
peace," as Dickens says. Just as justice requires to be tempered by
mercy, so energy requires to be tempered by inaction. But the
difficulty is for the indolent, the dreamy, the fastidious, the loafer,
the vagabond. Energy is to a l