nstance of that pettiest artificiality,
leaving cards. Well, searchers after the real, what would you
substitute for it? If you dropped it and substituted nothing, the
result would tend towards a loosening of the bonds of society, and it
would tend towards the diminution of the number of your friends. And
if you dropped it and tried to substitute something less artificial
and more real, you would accomplish no more than you accomplish with
cards, you would inconvenience everybody, and waste a good deal of
your own time. I cannot too strongly insist that the basis of
convention is a symbolism, primarily meant to display a regard for the
feelings of other people. If you do not display a regard for the
feelings of other people, you may as well go and live on herbs in the
desert. And if you are to display such a regard you cannot do it more
expeditiously, at a smaller outlay of time and brains, than by
adopting the code of convention now generally practised. It comes to
this--that you cannot have all the advantages of living in the desert
while you are living in a society. It would be delightful for you if
you could, but you can't.

There are two further reasons for the continuance of conventionality.
And one is the mysterious but indisputable fact that the full beauty
of an activity is never brought out until it is subjected to
discipline and strict ordering and nice balancing. A life without
petty artificiality would be the life of a tiger in the forest. A
beautiful life, perhaps, a life of "burning bright," but not reaching
the highest ideal of beauty! Laws and rules, forms and ceremonies are
good in themselves, from a merely aesthetic point of view, apart from
their social value and necessity.

And the other reason is that one cannot always be at the full strain
of "self-improvement," and "evolutionary progress," and generally
beating the big drum. Human nature will not stand it. There is, if we
will only be patient, ample time for the "artificial" as well as for
the "real." Those persons who think that there isn't, ought to return
to school and learn arithmetic. Supposing that all "petty
artificialities" were suddenly swept away, and we were able to show
our regard and consideration for our fellow creatures by the swift
processes of thought alone, we should find ourselves with a terrible
lot of time hanging heavy on our hands. We can no more spend all our
waking hours in consciously striving towards higher things tha