being inevitable, it must be carried through as well as it can be
carried through. It will not end brilliantly, but precautions can be
taken against it ending disgracefully. These precautions consist in the
devising of a plan of campaign, and the plan of campaign is defined by a
series of resolutions: which resolutions are generally made at or
immediately before the beginning of a New Year. Without these the
struggle would be formless, confused, blind and even more futile than it
is with them. Organised effort is bound to be less ineffective than
unorganised effort.

* * * * *

A worldly ambition can be, frequently is, realised: but an ideal cannot
be attained--if it could, it would not be an ideal. The virtue of an
ideal is its unattainability. It seems, when it is first formed, just as
attainable as a worldly ambition which indeed is often schemed as a
means to it. After twenty-four hours, the ideal is all but attained.
After forty-eight, it is a little farther off. After a week, it has
receded still further. After a month it is far away; and towards the end
of a year even the keen eye of hope has almost lost sight of it; it is
definitely withdrawn from the practical sphere. And then, such is the
divine obstinacy of humanity, the turn of the year gives us an excuse
for starting afresh, and forming a new ideal, and forgetting our shame
in yet another organised effort. Such is the annual circle of the ideal,
the effort, the failure and the shame. A rather pitiful history it may
appear! And yet it is also rather a splendid history! For the failure
and the shame are due to the splendour of our ideal and to the audacity
of our faith in ourselves. It is only in comparison with our ideal that
we have fallen low. We are higher, in our failure and our shame, than we
should have been if we had not attempted to rise.