and to live lives of dignity and joy. My own belief is that what is
commonly called success has an insidious power of poisoning the
clear springs of life; because people who grow to depend upon the
stimulus of success sink into dreariness and dulness when that
stimulus is withdrawn. Here my critics have found fault with me for
not being more strenuous, more virile, more energetic. It is
strange to me that my object can have been so singularly
misunderstood. I believe, with all my heart, that happiness depends
upon strenuous energy; but I think that this energy ought to be
expended upon work, and everyday life, and relations with others,
and the accessible pleasures of literature and art. The gospel that
I detest is the gospel of success, the teaching that every one
ought to be discontented with his setting, that a man ought to get
to the front, clear a space round him, eat, drink, make love, cry,
strive, and fight. It is all to be at the expense of feebler
people. That is a detestable ideal, because it is the gospel of
tyranny rather than the gospel of equality. It is obvious, too,
that such success depends upon a man being stronger than his
fellows, and is only made possible by shoving and hectoring, and
bullying the weak. The preaching of this violent gospel has done us
already grievous harm; it is this which has tended to depopulate
country districts, to make people averse to discharging all honest
subordinate tasks, to make men and women overvalue excitement and
amusement. The result of it is the lowest kind of democratic
sentiment, which says, "Every one is as good as every one else, and
I am a little better," and the jealous spirit, which says, "If I
cannot be prominent, I will do my best that no one else shall be."
Out of it develops the demon of municipal politics, which makes a
man strive for a place, in the hope being able to order things for
which others have to pay. It is this teaching which makes power