office. He must plunge--he plunges. The day has genuinely begun now.
The appointed path stretches straight in front of him, for five, six,
seven, eight hours.

Oh! but he chose his vocation. He likes it. It satisfies his
instincts. It is his life. (So you say.) Well, does he like it? Does
it satisfy his instincts? Is it his life? If truly the answer is
affirmative, he is at any rate not conscious of the fact. He is aware
of no ecstasy. What is the use of being happy unless he knows he is
happy? Some men know that they are happy in the hours of business, but
they are few. The majority are not, and the bulk of the majority do
not even pretend to be. The whole attitude of the average plain man to
business implies that business is a nuisance, scarcely mitigated. With
what secret satisfaction he anticipates that visit to the barber's in
the middle of the morning! With what gusto he hails the arrival of an
unexpected interrupting friend! With what easement he decides that he
may lawfully put off some task till the morrow! Let him hear a band or
a fire-engine in the street, and he will go to the window with the
eagerness of a child or of a girl-clerk. If he were working at golf
the bands of all the regiments of Hohenzollern would not make him turn
his head, nor the multitudinous blazing of fireproof skyscrapers. No!
Let us be honest. Business constitutes the steepest, roughest league
of the appointed path. Were it otherwise, business would not be
universally regarded as a means to an end.

Moreover, when the plain man gets home again, does his wife's face say
to him: "I know that your real life is now over for the day, and I
regret for your sake that you have to return here. I know that the
powerful interest of your life is gone. But I am glad that you have
had five, six, seven, or eight hours of passionate pleasure"? Not a