AND THIS OUR LIFE 335 



traits of successive days. To what purpose was the effort 

 to memorise one day from another when all were precisely 

 alike in colour and uneventfulness ? Each day had been 

 blue — radiantly blue — nothing more. And the entries in 

 the diary set at naught dogmatic assertions of disproof 

 But the steamer cuts a deep weekly notch. We jolted into 

 it and became harmonised once more with the rigid 

 calendar of the workaday world. 



Thus we keep the noiseless tenor of our way, finding in 

 life if not great and gaudy pleasures, at least content and 

 relief from many of the vexations that gnaw away the 

 lives of the multitude. Though it was acknowledged a 

 long time ago to be — indecorous — an abominable thing 

 for a man to commend his ways ; though his mode of 

 living may not commend itself to others ; though it may 

 seem blank and colourless, thin and watery, devoid of 

 expectation, and the hope of fame, name, and that kind of 

 success which comes of the acquirement of riches, yet — and 

 in a spirit of thankfulness be it said — the obscure and 

 minor part the writer plays in the tragic-comedy of life 

 affords gratification. He does what he likes to do. He 

 frankly confesses that he sought isolation because of the 

 lack of those qualities which make for dutiful citizenship, 

 because of indifference to the ordinary enchantments of 

 the kaleidoscopic world, not because of any lack of 

 appreciation of the wisdom of the majority. He has 

 dared to be what he is, rather than submit to be pulled 

 this way and that on the rack of fashion and custom. 



Remember that "the measure of choosing well is 

 whether a man likes what he has chosen." Other men 

 have other ranks to take, other fates to command. Do 

 not politicians and publicists ; professional men and princes 

 of trade ; those who toil for others, with brain or hands ; 

 the charitable and the miserly ; those who pine if removed 

 from the noise and breath of the crowd ; those who spend 

 their days in meditation and study ; those who live con- 

 scientiously every moment in "the gateway of the life 

 eternal " ; those who are at enmity to law and order ; the 



