lain man, with his horror of self-examination, is apt
to forget the immediate end of existence in the means. And so much so,
that when the first distant end--that of a secure old age--approaches
achievement, he is incapable of admitting it to be achieved, and goes
on worrying and worrying about the means--from simple habit! And when
he does admit the achievement of the desired end, and abandons the
means, he has so badly prepared himself to relish the desired end that
the mere change kills him! His epitaph ought to read: "Here lies the
plain man of common sense, whose life was all means and no end."

A remedy will be worth finding.

II - THE TASTE FOR PLEASURE

I

One evening--it is bound to happen in the evening when it does
happen--the plain man whose case I endeavoured to analyse in the
previous chapter will suddenly explode. The smouldering volcano within
that placid and wise exterior will burst forth, and the surrounding
country will be covered with the hot lava of his immense hidden
grievance. The business day has perhaps been marked by an unusual
succession of annoyances, exasperations, disappointments--but he has
met them with fine philosophic calm; fatigue has overtaken him--but it
has not overcome him; throughout the long ordeal at the office he has
remained master of himself, a wondrous example to the young and the
foolish. And then some entirely unimportant occurrence--say, an
invitation to a golf foursome which his duties forbid him to accept--a
trifle, a nothing, comes along and brings about the explosion, in a
fashion excessively disconcerting to the onlooker, and he exclaims,
acidly, savagely, with a profound pessimism:

"What pleasure do I get out of life?" And in that single abrupt
question (to which there is only one answer) he lays bare the central
flaw of his existence.

The onlooker will probably be his wife, and the tone employed will
probably imply that she is somehow mysteriously to blame for the fact
that his earthly days are not one unbroken series of joyous
diversions. He has no pose to keep up with his wife. And, moreover, if
he really loves her he will find a certain curious satisfaction in
hurting her now and then, in being wilfully unjust to her, as he would
never hurt or be unjust to a mere friend. (Herein is one of the
mysterious differences between love and affection!) She is alarmed and
secretly aghast, as well she may be. He also is secretly aghast. For
he has con