What I rather desire is to encourage a very different kind of
individualism, the individualism of the man who realises that the hope
of the race depends upon the quality of the life, upon the number of
people who live quiet, active, gentle, kindly, faithful lives, enjoying
their work and turning for recreation to the nobler and simpler sources
of pleasure--the love of nature, poetry, literature, and art. Of course
the difficulty is that we do not, most of us, find our pleasures in
these latter things, but in the excitement and amusement of social life.
I mournfully admit it, and I quite see the uselessness of trying to
bring pleasures within the reach of people when they have no taste for
them; but an increasing number of people do care for such things, and
there are still more who would care for them, if only they could be
introduced to them at an impressionable age.
If it is said that this kind of simplicity is a very tame and spiritless
thing, I would answer that it has the advantage of being within the
reach of all. The reason why the pursuit of social advancement and
success is so hollow, is that the subordinate life is after all the life
that must fall to the majority of people. We cannot organise society
on the lines of the army of a lesser German state, which consisted
of twenty-four officers, covered with military decorations, and
eight privates. The successful men, whatever happens, must be a small
minority; and what I desire is that success, as it is called, should
fall quietly and inevitably on the heads of those who deserve it,
while ordinary people should put it out of their thoughts. It is no use
holding up an ideal which cannot be attained, and which the mere attempt
to attain is fruitful in disaster and discontent.
I do not at all wish to teach a gospel of dulness. I am of the opinion
of the poet who said:
"Life is not life at all without delight,
Nor hath it any might."
But I am quite sure that the real pleasures of the world are those which
cannot be bought for money, and which are wholly independent of success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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