You know your Wordsworth, who has been trying to teach you about:

The Upholder of the tranquil soul
That tolerates the indignities of Time
And, from the centre of Eternity
All finite motions over-ruling, lives
In glory immutable.

But you are capable of being seriously unhappy when your suburban train
selects a tunnel for its repose!


And the A. V. of the Bible, which you now read, not as your forefathers
read it, but with an æsthetic delight, especially in the Apocrypha!
You remember:

Whatsoever is brought upon thee, take cheerfully, and be patient
when thou art changed to a low estate. For gold is tried in the fire
and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.

And yet you are ready to lie down and die because a woman has scorned you!
Go to!

You think some of my instances approach the ludicrous? They do.
They are meant to do so. But they are no more ludicrous than life itself.
And they illustrate in the most workaday fashion how you can test
whether your literature fulfils its function of informing and transforming
your existence.