rs in his chamber, for he will not always confess to these
exercises; he would have you believe that he alone, in a world of
simpletons, is above the faddism of the hour; he is as ashamed of
these exercises as of a good resolution, and when his wife happens to
burst in on them he will pretend to be doing some common act, such as
walking across the room or examining a mole in the small of his back.
And yet he will not abandon them. They have an empire over him. To
drop them would be to be craven, inefficient. The text-book asserts
that they will form one of the pleasantest parts of the day, and that
he will learn to look forward to them. He soon learns to look forward
to them, but not with glee. He is relieved and proud when they are
over for the day.

He would enjoy his breakfast, thanks to the strenuous imitation of
diagrams, were it not that, in addition to being generally in a hurry,
he is preoccupied. He is preoccupied by the sense of doom, by the
sense that he has set out on the appointed path and dare not stray
from it. The train or the tram-car or the automobile (same thing) is
waiting for him, irrevocable, undeniable, inevitable. He wrenches
himself away. He goes forth to his fate, as to the dentist. And just
as he would enjoy his breakfast in the home, so he would enjoy his
newspaper and cigarette in the vehicle, were it not for that
ever-present sense of doom. The idea of business grips him. It matters
not what the business is. Business is everything, and everything is
business. He reaches his office--whatever his office is. He is in his
office. He must plunge--he plunges. The day has genuinely begun now.
The appointed path stretches straight in front of him, for five, six,
seven, eight hours.

Oh! but he chose his vocation. He likes it. It satisfies his
instincts. It is his life. (So you say.) Well, does he like it? Does
it satisfy his instincts? Is it his life? If truly the answer is
affirmative, he is at any rate not conscious of the fact. He is aware
of no ecstasy. What is the use of being happy unless he knows he is
happy? Some men know that they are happy in the hours of business, but
they are few. The majority are not, and the bulk of the majority do
not even pretend to be. The whole attitude of the average plain man to
business implies that business is a nuisance, scarcely mitigated. With
what secret satisfaction he anticipates that visit to the barber's in
the middle of the morning! With what gusto