I used to skate: I don't now. I obey herein one of the great maxims of my life: 'If you want to get a thing well done, _don't_ do it yourself.' I consider that K----, in this as in other similar pursuits, performs the ancient and 'sacred duty of delegation.' I have no doubt that he does it admirably. Why must people try what they can't do well? Why not leave it to those who like it and can do it well? The wretched public-school-boy conception of dull uniformity is an abomination to me! If K---- does the walking, you do the thinking; G---- does the dandy, M---- the grumbling, S---- the jack-in-the-box, G---- the running, M---- the philosopher, and D---- the little vulgar boy--allow me to do what after all is the hardest of all tasks, 'to do nothing gracefully.' (I am afraid that I begin by trying 'to do nothing--gracefully,' but end by 'doing nothing gracefully.' You see the difference!) I believe in division of labour--let each man do what he is made to do best--and those who feel their vocation to be nothing but receiving the results of the labour of others--why, let them try to do it with the best grace they can! Forgive me if such be my case. _To J. L. D._ Christ's College, Cambridge: May 15, 1893. I think you are right in believing in the intense worth of sympathy. But 'sympathy' is the Greek {92} as 'compassion' is the Latin form of 'suffering together with.' He who has suffered most has perhaps the most power to sympathise; not simply to pity or console, but to go right out of self and to get right into another, to see life with his eyes, to feel as he feels. If, then, you find many of those among whom your lot is cast almost incapable of sympathy, may it not be that they have not yet learned the meaning of suffering? They may not have had so many opportunities of suffering as you, or, if they have had as many, they may not have found any one to interpret to them what it all meant. Thank Him from whom all sympathy comes if you have known anything of the sufferings of life, anything of the worries and disappointments and delays and unsatisfied ambitions which so many have; if you have known these--known their inner meaning, and have been led out and beyond your own into that wider life of suffering, and have learned what it is to fill up in your turn _ta husteremata ton thlipseon tou Christou_. [Transcriber's note: The above Greek phrase was transliterated as follows: _ta_--tau, alpha; _husteremata_--(rough breathing mark) upsilon, sigma, tau, epsilon, rho, eta, mu, alpha, tau, alpha; _ton_--tau, omega, nu; _thlipseon_--theta, lambda, iota, psi, epsilon, omega, nu; _tou_--tau, omicron, upsilon; _Christou_--Chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omicron, upsilon]