out of a hundred thousand, the wholesome healthy doctrine is, "Don't
bother yourselves with what is beyond you; try to lead a sweet, clean,
wholesome life, keep yourselves in health above everything, stick to
your work, and when your day is done amuse and refresh yourselves."

It is not only a duty to ourselves, but it is a duty to others to take
this course. Great men do the world much good, but not without some
harm, and we have no business to be troubling ourselves with their
dreams if we have duties which lie nearer home amongst persons to whom
these dreams are incomprehensible. Many a man goes into his study,
shuts himself up with his poetry or his psychology, comes out, half
understanding what he has read, is miserable because he cannot find
anybody with whom he can talk about it, and misses altogether the far
more genuine joy which he could have obtained from a game with his
children or listening to what his wife had to tell him about her
neighbours.

"Lor, miss, you haven't looked at your new bonnet to-day," said a
servant girl to her young mistress.

"No, why should I? I did not want to go out."

"Oh, how can you? why, I get mine out and look at it every night."

She was happy for a whole fortnight with a happiness cheap at a very
high price.

That same young mistress was very caustic upon the women who block the
pavement outside drapers' shops, but surely she was unjust. They
always seem unconscious, to be enjoying themselves intensely and most