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quietude. What happens in the case of the majority of people is that
they are so much occupied in the process of acquisition that they have
no time to sort or dispose their stores; and thus life, which ought to be a
thing complete in itself, and ought to be spent, partly in gathering
materials, and partly in drawing inferences, is apt to be a hurried
accumulation lasting to the edge of the tomb. We are put into the world,
I cannot help feeling, to BE rather than to DO. We excuse our thirst for
action by pretending to ourselves that our own doing may minister to
the being of others; but all that it often effects is to inoculate others
with the same restless and feverish bacteria.

And anyhow, as I said, it is but an experiment. I can terminate it
whenever I have the wish to do so. Even if it is a failure, it will at all
events have been an experiment, and others may learn wisdom by my
mistake; because it must be borne in mind that a failure in a deliberate
experiment in life is often more fruitful than a conventional success.
People as a rule are so cautious; and it is of course highly disagreeable
to run a risk, and to pay the penalty. Life is too short, one feels, to risk
making serious mistakes; but, on the other hand, the cautious man often
has the catastrophe, without even having had the pleasure of a run for
his money. Jowett, the high priest of worldly wisdom, laid down as a
maxim, "Never resign"; but I have found myself that there is no
pleasure comparable to disentangling oneself from uncongenial
surroundings, unless it be the pleasure of making mild experiments and
trying unconventional schemes.

II
CONTENTMENT

I have attempted of late, in more than one book, to depict a certain kind
of tranquil life, a life of reflection rather than of action, of
contemplation rather than of business; and I have tried to do this from
different points of view, though the essence has been the same. I
endeavoured at first to do it anonymously, because I have no desire to
recommend these ideas as being my own theories. The personal
background rather detracts from than adds to the value of the thoughts,
because people can compare my theories with my practice, and show
how lamentably I fail to carry them out. But time after time I have been
pulled reluctantly out of my burrow, by what I still consider a wholly
misguided zeal for publicity, till I have decided that I will lurk no
longer. It was in this frame of mind that I published, under my own
name, a book called Beside Still Waters, a harmless enough volume, I
thought, which was meant to be a deliberate summary or manifesto of
these ideas. It depicted a young man who, after a reasonable experience
of practical life, resolved to retire into the shade, who in that position
indulged profusely in leisurely reverie. The book was carefully enough
written, and I have been a good deal surprised to find that it has met

with considerable disapproval, and even derision, on the part of many
reviewers. It has been called morbid and indolent, and decadent, and
half a hundred more ugly adjectives. Now I do not for an instant
question the right of a single one of these conscientious persons to form
whatever opinion they like about my book, and to express it in any
terms they like; they say, and obviously feel, that the thought of the
book is essentially thin, and that the vein in which it is written is
offensively egotistical. I do not dispute the possibility of their being
perfectly right. An artist who exhibits his paintings, or a writer who
publishes his books, challenges the criticisms of the public; and I am
quite sure that the reviewers who frankly disliked my book, and said so
plainly, thought that they were doing their duty to the public, and
warning them against teaching which they believed to be insidious and
even immoral. I honour them for doing this, and I applaud them,
especially if they did violence to their own feelings of courtesy and
urbanity in doing so. Then there were some good-natured reviewers
who practically said that the book was simply a collection of amiable
platitudes; but that if the public liked to read such stuff, they were quite
at liberty to do so. I admire these reviewers for a different reason, partly
for their tolerant permission to the public to read what they choose, and
still more because I like to think that there are so many intelligent
people in the world who are wearisomely familiar with ideas which
have only