At Large by Arthur Christopher Benson
page 15 of 269 (05%)
page 15 of 269 (05%)
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to try impatiently to force the hand of God, and to make amends for
His apparent slothfulness. What really makes a nation grow, and improve, and progress, is not social legislation and organisation. That is only the sign of the rising moral temperature; and a man who sets an example of soberness, and kindliness, and contentment is better than a pragmatical district visitor with a taste for rating meek persons. It may be asked, then, do I set myself up as an example in this matter? God forbid! I live thus because I like it, and not from any philosophical or philanthropical standpoint. But if more men were to follow their instincts in the matter, instead of being misled and bewildered by the conventional view that attaches virtue to perspiration, and national vigour to the multiplication of unnecessary business, it would be a good thing for the community. What I claim is that a species of mental and moral equilibrium is best attained by a careful proportion of activity and quietude. What happens in the case of the majority of people is that they are so much occupied in the process of acquisition that they have no time to sort or dispose their stores; and thus life, which ought to be a thing complete in itself, and ought to be spent, partly in gathering materials, and partly in drawing inferences, is apt to be a hurried accumulation lasting to the edge of the tomb. We are put into the world, I cannot help feeling, to BE rather than to DO. We excuse our thirst for action by pretending to ourselves that our own doing may minister to the being of others; but all that it often effects is to inoculate others with the same restless and feverish bacteria. And anyhow, as I said, it is but an experiment. I can terminate it |
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