upon his pillar by the comfortable sense of his superiority to his
wicked fellow-creatures.

To get the best out of life there must be some adequate fulfilment of
one's best self. Man is a bundle of tastes and appetites, some lofty,
and some ignoble, but all crying out for satisfaction. Wisdom lies in
the discernment of essentials; in just discrimination between false and
true tastes. Man has been a long time upon the earth, and he has spent
his time for the most part in one ceaseless experiment, viz., how he
may become a satisfactory creature in his own eyes. All civilisations
converge upon this point; and we maybe sure that, in their lonely hours
of meditation, the fantastic warder on the great wall of China, and the
Roman soldier pacing to and fro in the porticoes of the Palatine, had
much the same thoughts. Whosoever speaks to man on the art of becoming
happy is secure of a hearing; even though he be the vilest of quacks he
will have his following, even though he were the worst of scoundrels
some will take him for a prophet. In short, we are all the dupes of
hope, and it needs some experience to assure us that our only real hope
is in ourselves. In our own hearts lies the Eldorado which we scour
the world to find; could we but fulfil our best selves we should ask no
other happiness.

The question that soon comes to obtrude itself upon the mind of a
thoughtful man in a great city, is this old persistent question of
whether his method of life is such as to answer to the ideal of
fulfilling his best self? It seemed to me that the inhabitants of
cities were too busy getting a living to have time to live.

Let us take the life of the average business man by way of example.
Such a man will rise early, sleep late, and eat the bread of