creaks and sets our teeth on edge, or refuses to obey the steering-wheel
and deposits us in the ditch, we say: 'Can't be helped!' or 'Doesn't
matter! It will be all the same a hundred years hence!' or: 'I must make
the best of things.' And we try to believe that in accepting the _status
quo_ we have justified the _status quo_, and all the time we feel our
insincerity.

You exclaim that I exaggerate. I do. To force into prominence an aspect
of affairs usually overlooked, it is absolutely necessary to exaggerate.
Poetic licence is one name for this kind of exaggeration. But I
exaggerate very little indeed, much less than perhaps you think. I know
that you are going to point out to me that vast numbers of people
regularly spend a considerable portion of their leisure in striving
after self-improvement. Granted! And I am glad of it. But I should be
gladder if their strivings bore more closely upon the daily business of
living, of self-expression without friction and without futile desires.
See this man who regularly studies every evening of his life! He has
genuinely understood the nature of poetry, and his taste is admirable.
He recites verse with true feeling, and may be said to be highly
cultivated. Poetry is a continual source of pleasure to him. True! But
why is he always complaining about not receiving his deserts in the
office? Why is he worried about finance? Why does he so often sulk with
his wife? Why does he persist in eating more than his digestion will
tolerate? It was not written in the book of fate that he should complain
and worry and sulk and suffer. And if he was a professional at living he
would not do these things. There is no reason why he should do them,
except the reason that he has never learnt his business, never studied
the human machine as a whole, never really thought rationally about
living. Supposing you encountered an automobilist who was swerving and
grinding all over the road, and you stopped to ask what was the matter,