ht of achievement will
compensate for the rigours and self-denials of the route, and second
that the misery of non-achievement would outweigh the immediate
pleasures of dallying. If this theory were not indestructible, for
reasons connected with the secret nature of humanity, it would
probably have been destroyed long ago by the mere cumulative battering
of experience. For the earth's surface is everywhere thickly dotted
with old men who have achieved ambition, old men drenched in luxury,
old men as safe as Mont Blanc from overthrow, old men with the health
of camels, old men who know more than anybody ever knew before, old
men whose nod can ruin a thousand miles of railroad, and old men with
consciences of pure snow; but who are not happy and cannot enjoy life.

The theory, however, does happen to be indestructible, partly because
old age is such a terrible long way off, partly because the young
honestly believe themselves to have a monopoly of wisdom, partly
because every plain man is convinced that his case will be different
from all the other cases, and chiefly because endeavour--not any
particular endeavour, but rather any endeavour!--is a habit that
corresponds to a very profound instinct in the plain man. So the
reputation of Timbuctoo as a pleasure resort remains entirely
unimpaired, and the pilgrimages continue with unabated earnestness.

And there is another and a paramount reason why the pilgrimages should
continue. The two men in the parable both said that they just had to
start--and they were right. We have to start, and, once started, we
have to keep going. We must go somewhere. And at the moment of
starting we have neither the sagacity nor the leisure to invent fresh
places to start for, or to cut new paths. Everybody is going to
Timbuctoo; the roads are well marked. And the plain man, with his
honour of being peculiar, sets out for Timbuctoo also, following the
signposts. The fear of not arriving keeps him on the trot, the fear of
the unknown keeps him in the middle of the road and out of the forest
on either side of it, and hope keeps up his courage.

Will any member of the Society for the Suppression of Moral
Indignation step forward and heatedly charge the plain man with
culpable foolishness, ignorance, or gullibility; or even with
cowardice in neglecting to find a convincing answer to the fundamental
question about the other end of his life?

IV

There is, however, a third form of the fun