f the world are
unimportant, I believe, and all the temptations which arise from
wanting to do things, as it is called, on a large scale. Money, the
love of which as representing liberty is a sore temptation to such as
myself, is unimportant. Conventional orthodoxies, whether they be of
manners, or of ways of life, or of thought, or of religion, or of
education, are unimportant. What then remains? Courage, and patience,
and simplicity, and kindness, and beauty, and, last of all, ideas
remain; and these are the things to lay hold of and to live with.

And even so one cannot help puzzling and grieving and wondering over
all the dreadful waste of time and energy, all the stupidities and
misunderstandings, all the unnecessary business and tiresome pleasure,
all the spitefulness and malignity, all the sham rules and artificial
regulations, all the hard judgments and dismal fears and ugly cruelties
of the world, beginning so early and ending so late. An hour ago I met
two tiny children, a boy and girl, in the road. The girl was the older
and stronger. The little boy, singing to himself, had gathered some
leaves from the hedge, and was enjoying his posy harmlessly enough.
What must his sister do? She wanted some fun; so she took the posy
away, dodged her brother when he tried to catch her, and finally threw
it over a paling, and went off rejoicing in her strength, while the
little boy sate down and cried. Why should they not have played
together in peace? On my table lie letters from two old friends of mine
who have had a quarrel over a small piece of business, involving a few
pounds. One complains that the other claims the money unjustly; the
other resents being accused of meanness; the result, a rupture of
familiar relations. One cannot, it seems, prevent sorrows and pains and
tragedies; but what is the ironical power which gives us such rich
materials for happiness, and then infects us with the devilish power of
misusing them, and worrying over them, and hating each other, and
despising ourselves? And then the little lives cut relentlessly short,
how does that fit in? And even when the life is prolonged, one becomes
a puckered, winking, doddering old thing, stiff and brittle,
disgraceful and humiliated, and, what is worse than anything, feeling
so young and sensible inside the crazy machine. If we knew that it was
all going to help us somewhere, sometime, no matter how far off, to be
strong and cheerful and brave and kind,