is after all the life that must fall to the majority of people. We
cannot organise society on the lines of the army of a lesser German
state, which consisted of twenty-four officers, covered with
military decorations, and eight privates. The successful men,
whatever happens, must be a small minority; and what I desire is
that success, as it is called, should fall quietly and inevitably
on the heads of those who deserve it, while ordinary people should
put it out of their thoughts. It is no use holding up an ideal
which cannot be attained, and which the mere attempt to attain is
fruitful in disaster and discontent.

I do not at all wish to teach a gospel of dulness. I am of the
opinion of the poet who said:


"Life is not life at all without delight,
Nor hath it any might."


But I am quite sure that the real pleasures of the world are those
which cannot be bought for money, and which are wholly independent
of success.

Every one who has watched children knows the extraordinary amount
of pleasure that they can extract out of the simplest materials. To
keep a shop in the corner of a garden, where the commodities are
pebbles and thistle-heads stored in old tin pots, and which are
paid for in daisies, will be an engrossing occupation to healthy
children for a long summer afternoon. There is no reason why that
kind of zest should not be imported into later life; and, as a