, we soar a step higher and
see all things with a wider and a clearer vision.

XXVII

LIFE

But in all this, and indeed beyond all this, we must not dare to
forget one thing; that it is life with which we are confronted, and
that our business is to live it, and to live it in our own way; and
here we may thankfully rejoice that there is less and less tendency in
the world for people to dictate modes of life to us; the tyrant and
the despot are not only out of date--they are out of fashion, which is
a far more disabling thing! There is of course a type of person in the
world who loves to call himself robust and even virile--heaven help us
to break down that bestial ideal of manhood!--who is of the stuff that
all bullies have been made since the world began, a compound of
courage, stupidity, and complacency; to whom the word 'living' has no
meaning, unless it implies the disturbing and disquieting of other
people. We are gradually putting him in his right place, and the
kindlier future will have little need of him; because a sense is
gradually shaping itself in the world that life is best lived on
peaceful and orderly lines.

But if the robust _viveur_ is on the wrong tack, so long as he grabs
and uses, and neither gives nor is used, so too the more peaceable and
poetical nature makes a very similar mistake, if his whole heart is
bent upon receiving and enjoying; for he too is filching and conveying
away pleasure out of life, though he may do it more timidly and
unobtrusively. Such a man or woman is apt to make too much out of the
occasions and excitements of life, to over-value the aesthetic kind of
success, which is the delicate impressing of other people, claiming
their admiration and applause, and being ill-content if one is not
noticed and praised. Such an one is apt to overlook the common stuff
and use of life--the toil, the endurance, the discipline of it; to
flutter abroad only on sunshiny days, and to sit sullenly with folded
wing when the sky breaks into rain and chilly winds are blowing. The
man who lives thus, is in danger of over-valuing the raptures and
thrills of life, of being fitful and moody and fretful; what he has to
do is to spread serenity over his days, and above all to be ready to
combine, to minister, to sympathise, to serve. _Joyous Gard_ is a very
perilous place, if we grow too indolent to leave it; the essence of it
is refreshment and not continuance. There are two conditions attach