is to pay for it? The
discussion on this point is bound to be acrimonious, as we are not
saints and nobody wants to pay more than his share of the costs of
progress. Even the price of liberty is something which we grumble over.

You have noticed how it is when a new boulevard is laid in any part of
the city. There is always a dispute between the municipality and the
abutters. Should the abutters be assessed for betterments or should they
sue for damages? Usually both actions are instituted. The cost of such
litigation should be included in the price which the community pays for
the improvement.

If people always knew what was good for them and acted accordingly, this
would be a very different world, though not nearly so interesting. But
we do not know what is good for us till we try; and human life is spent
in a series of experiments. The experiments are costly, but there is no
other way of getting results. All that we can say to a person who
refuses to interest himself in these experiments, or who looks upon all
experiments as futile which do not turn out as he wished, is that his
attitude is childish. The great commandment to the worker or thinker
is,--Thou shalt not sulk.

* * * * *

Sulking is no more admirable in those of great reputation than it is in
the nursery. Thackeray declared that, in his opinion, "love is a higher
intellectual exercise than hate." And looked at as an exercise of mental
power courage must always be greater than the most highly
intellectualized form of fear or despair.

I cannot take with perfect seriousness Matthew Arnold's oft-quoted
lines:--

"Achilles ponders in his tent,
The kings of modern thought are dumb.
Silent they are, though not content,
And wait to see the future come.
They have the grief men had of yore,
But they contend and cry no more."

If that is ever the attitude of the best minds, it is only a momentary
one of which they are quickly ashamed. Achilles sulked in his tent when
he was pondering not a big problem, but a small grievance. The kings of
modern thought who are described seem like kings out of a job. We are
inclined to turn from them to the intellectual monarchs _de facto_. They
are the ones who take up the hard job which the representatives of the
old regime give up as hopeless. For when the king has abdicated and
contends no more--Long live the King!

The real thinkers of any age do not remain long in a blue