comforted by them.

And here lies the weakness of the epicurean and artistic attitude, that
it assorts so ill with the harder and grimmer facts of life. Life has
a habit of twitching away the artistic chair with all its cushions from
under one, with a rude suddenness, so that one has, if one is wise, to
learn a mental agility and to avoid the temptation of drowsing in the
land where it is always afternoon. The real attitude is to be able to
play a robust and manful part in the world, and yet to be able to banish
the thought of the bank-book and the ledger from the mind, and to submit
oneself to the sweet influences of summer and sun.

"He who of such delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft is not unwise."

So sang the old Puritan poet; and there is a large wisdom in the word
OFT which I have abundantly envied, being myself an anxious-minded man!

The solution is BALANCE--not to think that the repose of art is all,
and yet on the other hand not to believe that life is always jogging
and hustling one. The way in which one can test one's progress is by
considering whether activities and tiresome engagements are beginning to
fret one unduly, for if so one is becoming a hedonist; and on the other
hand by being careful to observe whether one becomes incapable of taking
a holiday; if one becomes bored and restless and hipped in a cessation
of activities, then one is suffering from the disease of Martha in the
Gospel story; and of the two sisters we may remember that Martha was the
one who incurred a public rebuke.

What one has to try to perceive is that life is designed not wholly for
discomfort, or wholly for ease, but that we are here as learners, one
and all. Sometimes the lesson comes whispering through the leaves of the
plane-tree, with the scent of violets in the air; sometimes it comes in
the words and glances of a happy circle full of eager talk, sometimes
through the pages of a wise book, and sometimes in grim hours, when
one tosses sleepless on one's bed under the pressure of an intolerable
thought--but in each and every case we do best when we receive the
lesson as willingly and large-heartedly as we can.

Perhaps, in some of my writings, those who have read them have thought
that I have unduly emphasised the brighter, sweeter, more tranquil side
of life. I have done so deliberately, because I believe that we should
follow innocent joy as far as we can. But it is not because I am una