of rectitude? The people who have done most to help the
world along have been the people who have had an overwhelming natural
tenderness, an overflowing love for helpless, weak, and unhappy people.
That is a thing which cannot be simulated. One knows quite well, to put
the matter simply, the extent of one's own limitations. There are
courses of action which seem natural and easy; others which seem hard,
but just possible; others again which are frankly impossible. However
noble a life, for instance, I thought the life of a missionary or of a
doctor to be, I could not under any circumstances adopt the role of
either. There are certain things which I might force myself to do which
I do not do, and which I practically know I shall not do. And the
number of people is very small who, when circumstances suggest one
course, resolutely carry out another. The artistic life is a very hard
one to analyse, because at the outset it seems so frankly selfish a
life. One does what one most desires to do, one develops one's own
nature, its faculties and powers. If one is successful, the most one
can claim is that one has perhaps added a little to the sum of
happiness, of innocent enjoyment, that one has perhaps increased or fed
in a few people the perception of beauty. Of course the difficulty is
increased by the conventional belief that any career is justified by
success in that career. And as long as a man attains a certain measure
of renown we do not question very much the nature of his aims.

Then, again, if we put that all aside, and look upon life as a thing
that is given us to teach us something, it is easy to think that it
does not matter very much what we do; we take the line of least
resistance, and think that we shall learn our lesson somehow.

It is difficult to believe that our one object ought to be to thwart
all our own desires and impulses, to abstain from doing what we desire
to do, and to force ourselves continually to do what we have no impulse
to do. That is a philosophical and stoical business, and would end at
best in a patient and courteous dreariness of spirit.

Neither does it seem a right solution to say: "I will parcel out my
energies--so much will I give to myself, so much to others." It ought
to be a larger, more generous business than that; yet the people who
give themselves most freely away too often end by having very little to
give; instead of having a store of ripe and wise reflection, they have
gene