And then finally he cries:

"It's too drastic. I haven't the pluck!"

Now we are coming to the real point.



IV


The machinery of his volition, in all directions save one, has been
clogged, through persistent neglect, due to over-specialization. His
mind needs to be cleared, and it can be cleared--it will clear
itself--if regular periods of repose are enforced upon it. As things
are, it practically never gets a holiday from business. I do not mean
that the plain man is always thinking about his business; but I mean
that he is always liable to think about his business, that his
business is always present in his mind, even if dormant there, and
that at every opportunity, if the mind happens to be inactive, it sits
up querulously and insists on attention. The man's mind is indeed
rather like an unfortunate domestic servant who, though not always at
work, is never off duty, never night or day free from the menace of a
damnable electric bell; and it is as stale as that servant. His
business is capable of ringing the bell when the man is eating his
soup, when he is sitting alone with his wife on a warm summer evening,
and especially when he wakes just before dawn to pity and praise
himself.