emperament always, and
not circumstance, which is the happy or the unhappy thing. I felt, when you
said what you did about poverty, that you neither knew how harmless it
could be, or how infinitely noxious it might be. I don't take a high-minded
view of money myself. I don't tell people to despise it. I always tell the
fellows here to realise what they can endure and what they can't. The first
requisite for a sensible man is to find work which he enjoys, and the next
requisite is for him to earn as much as he really needs--that is to say
without having to think daily and hourly about money. I don't over-estimate
what money can do, but it is foolish to under-estimate what the want of it
can do. I have seen more fine natures go to pieces under the stress of
poverty than under any other stress that I know. Money is perfectly
powerless as a shield against many troubles--and on the other hand it can
save a man from innumerable little wretchednesses and horrors which destroy
the beauty and dignity of life. I don't believe mechanically in humiliation
and renunciation and ignominy and contempt, as purifying influences. It all
depends upon whether they are gallantly and adventurously and humorously
borne. They often make some people only sore and diffident, and I don't
believe in learning to hate life. Not to learn your own limitations is
childish: and one of the insolences which is most heavily punished is that
of making a sacrifice without knowing if you can endure the consequences of
it. The people who begin by despising money as vulgar are generally the
people who end by making a mess which other people have to sweep up. So
don't be either silly or prudent about money, my boy! Just realise that
your first duty is not to be a burden on yourself or on other people. Find
out your minimum, and secure it if you can; and then don't give the matter
another thought. If it is any comfort to you, reflect that the best authors
and artists have almost invariably been good men of business, and don't
court squalor of any kind unless you really enjoy it."

LIV

OF PEACEABLENESS

Father Payne, talking one evening, made a statement which involved an
assumption that the world was progressing. Rose attacked him on this point.
"Isn't that just one of the large generalisations," he said, "which you are
always telling us to beware of?"

"It isn't an assumption," said Father Payne, "but a conviction of mine,
based upon a good deal of seco