the
wariness to obtain advantage, do in reality far more in hewing out a
successful future than all the gods of Greek or Gentile. They are very
unwise. It is of no use to break their hearts for the world; they will
not change it. _La culte de l'humanite_ is the one of all others which
will leave despair as its harvest. Laugh like Rabelais, smile like
Montaigne; that is the way to take the world. It only puts to death its
Sebastians, and makes its Shelleys not sorrowful to see the boat is
filling.

* * *

Society always adheres to its principles; just as a Moslem subscribes
none the less to the Koran because he may just have been blowing the
froth off his bumper of Mumm's before he goes to his mosque.

* * *

Pleasantness is the soft note of this generation, just as scientific
assassination is the harsh note of it. The age is compounded of the two.
Half of it is chloroform; the other half is dynamite.

* * *

You make us think, and Society dislikes thinking. You call things by
their right names, and Society hates that, though Queen Bess didn't mind
it. You trumpet our own littleness in our ear, and we know it so well
that we do not care to hear much about it. You shudder at sin, and we
have all agreed that there is no such thing as sin, only mere
differences of opinion, which, provided they don't offend us, we have no
business with: adultery is a _liaison_, lying is gossip, debt is a
momentary embarrassment, immorality is a little slip, and so forth: and
when we have arranged this pretty little dictionary of convenient
pseudonyms, it is not agreeable to have it sent flying by fierce,
dreadful, old words, that are only fit for some book that nobody ever
reads, like Milton or the Family Bible. We do not want to think. We do
not want to hear. We do not care about anything. Only give us a good
dinner and plenty of money, and let us outshine our neighbours. There is
the Nineteenth Century Gospel. My dear, if Ecclesiasticus himself came
he would preach in vain. You cannot convince people that don't want to
be convinced. We call ourselves Christians--Heaven save the mark!--but
we are only the very lowest kind of pagans. We do not believe in
anything--except that nothing matters. Well, perhaps nothing does
matter. Only one wonders why ever so many of us were all created, only
just to find _that_ out.

* * *

Love to the looker-on may be blind