t day; and yet no philosopher or priest could have given me a hint
of what the mystery was, why so ceaselessly renewed; but it was clear
to me at least that the mind behind it was joyful enough, and wished
me to share its joy.

And then an hour later I was doing for no reason but that it was my
business the dullest of tasks--no less than revising a whole sheaf of
the driest of examination papers. Elaborate questions to elicit
knowledge of facts arid and meaningless, which it was worth no human
being's while to know, unless he could fill out the bare outlines with
some of the stuff of life. Hundreds of boys, I dare say, in crowded
schoolrooms all over the country were having those facts drummed into
them, with no aim in sight but the answering of the questions which I
was manipulating. That was a bewildering business, that we should
insist on that sort of drilling becoming a part of life. Was that a
relation it was well to establish? As the fine old, shrewd, indolent
Dr. Johnson said, he for his part, while he lived, never again desired
even to hear of the Punic War! And again he said, "You teach your
daughters the diameters of the planets, and wonder, when you have
done, why they do not desire your company."

Cannot we somehow learn to simplify life? Must we continue to think
that we can inspire children in rows? Is it not possible for us to be
a little less important and pompous and elaborate about it all, to aim
at more direct relations, to say more what we feel, to do more what
nature bids us do?

The heart sickens at the thought of how we keep to the grim highways
of life, and leave the pleasant spaces of wood and field unvisited!
And all because we want more than we need, and because we cannot be
content unless we can be envied and admired.

The cure for all this, it seems to me, is a resolute avoidance of
complications and intricacies, a determination to live life more on
our own terms, and to open our eyes to the simpler pleasures which lie
waiting in our way on every side.

I do not believe in the elaborate organisation of life; and yet I
think it is possible to live in the midst of it, and yet not to be
involved in it. I do not believe in fierce rebellion, but I do believe
in quiet transformation; and here comes in the faith that I have in
_Joyous Gard_. I believe that day by day we should clear a space to
live with minds that have felt, and hoped, and enjoyed. That is the
first duty of all; and then that