le who do it
remarkably well, and whose ideal of efficiency is so high that they
criticise severely in themselves any deviation from their standard.
Moreover, if one goes a little deeper--if, for instance, one cordially
re-echoes their own criticisms upon their work--such criticisms are apt
to be deeply resented.

I will go further, and say that only once in the course of my life have
I found a man who did his work really well, without any particular
pride and pleasure in it. To do that implies an extraordinary degree
of will-power and self-command.

I do not mean to say that, if any professional person found himself
suddenly placed in the possession of an independent income, greater
than he had ever derived from his professional work, his pleasure in
his work would be sufficient to retain him in the exercise of it. We
have most of us an unhappy belief in our power of living a pleasurable
and virtuous life of leisure; and the desire to live what is called the
life of a gentleman, which character has lately been defined as a
person who has no professional occupation, is very strong in the hearts
of most of us.

But, for all that, we most of us enjoy our work; the mere fact that one
gains facility, and improves from day to day, is a source of sincere
pleasure, however far short of perfection our attempts may fall; and,
generally speaking, our choice of a profession is mainly dictated by a
certain feeling of aptitude for and interest in what we propose to
undertake.

It is, then, a happy and merciful delusion by which we are bound. We
grow, I think, to love our work, and we grow, too, to believe in our
method of doing it. We cannot, a great preacher once said, all delude
ourselves into believing that we are richer, handsomer, braver, more
distinguished than others; but there are few of us who do not cherish a
secret belief that, if only the truth were known, we should prove to be
more interesting than others.

To leave our work for a moment, and to turn to ordinary social
intercourse. I am convinced that the only thing that can account for
the large number of bad talkers in the world is the wide-spread belief
that prevails among individuals as to their power of contributing
interest and amusement to a circle. One ought to keep this in mind,
and bear faithfully and patiently the stream of tiresome talk that
pours, as from a hose, from the lips of diffuse and lengthy
conversationalists. I once made a terrible m