ought to be discontented with what they are, that they ought to try
to better themselves, that they ought to be active, and what they
call normal; that when they have done their work as energetically
as possible, they should amuse themselves energetically too, take
hard exercise, shout and play,


"Pleased as the Indian boy to run
And shoot his arrows in the sun,"


and that then they should recreate themselves like Homeric heroes,
eating and drinking, listening comfortably to the minstrel, and
take their fill of love in a full-blooded way.

That is, I think, a very good theory of life for some people,
though I think it is a little barbarous; it is Spartan rather than
Athenian.

Some of my critics take a higher kind of ground, and say that I
want to minimise and melt down the old stern beliefs and principles
of morality into a kind of nebulous emotion. They remind me a
little of an old country squire of whom I have heard, of the John
Bull type, whose younger son, a melancholy and sentimental youth,
joined the Church of Rome. His father was determined that this
should not separate them, and asked him to come home and talk it
over. He told his eldest son that he was going to remonstrate with
the erring youth in a simple and affectionate way. The eldest son
said that he hoped his father would do it tactfully and gently, as
his brother was highly sensitive, to which his father replied that