All a charter really meant lingers alive
in that poetic phrase that calls the wind a "chartered" libertine.

Lie awake at night and hear the wind blowing; hear it knock at every
man's door and shout down every man's chimney. Feel how it takes
liberties with everything, having taken primary liberty for itself; feel
that the wind is always a vagabond and sometimes almost a housebreaker.
But remember that in the days when free men had charters, they held that
the wind itself was wild by authority; and was only free because it had
a father.

THE CONTENTED MAN

The word content is not inspiring nowadays; rather it is irritating
because it is dull. It prepares the mind for a little sermon in the
style of the Vicar of Wakefield about how you and I should be satisfied
with our countrified innocence and our simple village sports. The word,
however, has two meanings, somewhat singularly connected; the "sweet
content" of the poet and the "cubic content" of the mathematician. Some
distinguish these by stressing the different syllables. Thus, it might
happen to any of us, at some social juncture, to remark gaily, "Of the
content of the King of the Cannibal Islands' Stewpot I am content to be
ignorant"; or "Not content with measuring the cubic content of my safe,
you are stealing the spoons." And there really is an analogy between the
mathematical and the moral use of the term, for lack of the observation
of which the latter has been much weakened and misused.

The preaching of contentment is in disrepute, well deserved in so far
that the moral is really quite inapplicable to the anarchy and insane
peril of our tall and toppling cities. Content suggests some kind of
security; and it is not strange that our workers should often think
about rising above their position, since they have so continually to
think about sinking below it. The philanthropist who urges the poor to
saving and simple pleasures deserves all the derision that he gets. To
advise people to be content with what they have got may or may not be
sound moral philosophy.

But to urge people to be content with what they haven't got is a piece
of impudence hard for even the English poor to pardon. But though the
creed of content is unsuited to certain special riddles and wrongs,
it remains true for the normal of mortal life. We speak of divine
discontent; discontent may sometimes be a divine thing, but content must
always be the human thing. It may be true that a