Those who decry the joy of achievement are like tyros at skating who venture alone upon thin ice, fall down, fall in, and insist on the way home that winter sports have been grossly overestimated. This outcry about men being unable to enjoy what they have attained is a half-truth which cannot skate two consecutive strokes in the right direction without the support of its better half. And its better half is the fact that one may enjoy achievement hugely, provided only he will get himself into proper condition. Of course I am not for one moment denying that achievement is harder to enjoy than the hope of achievement. Undoubtedly the former lacks the glamour of the indistinct, "that sweet bloom of all that is far away." But our celebrated writer-friends overlook the fact that glamour and "sweet bloom" are so much pepsin to help weak stomachs digest strong joy. If you would have the best possible time of it in the world, develop your joy-digesting apparatus to the point where it can, without a qualm, dispose of that tough morsel, the present, obvious and attained. There will always be enough of the unachieved at table to furnish balanced rations. "God help the attainers!"--forsooth! Why, the ideas which I have quoted, if they were carried to logical lengths, would make heaven a farcical kill-joy, a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable morgue of disappointed hopes, with Ennui for janitor. I admit that the old heaven of the Semitic poets was constructed somewhat along these lines. But that was no real heaven. The real heaven is a quiet, harpless, beautiful place where every one is a heaven-born creator and is engaged--not caring in the least for food or sleep--in turning out, one after another, the greatest of masterpieces, and enjoying them to the quick, both while they are being done and when they are quite achieved.