VII


One day I said to Amroth, "Are there no rules of life here? It seems
almost too good to be true, not to be found fault with and censured and
advised and blamed."

"Oh," said Amroth, laughing, "there are plenty of _rules_, as you call
them; but one feels them, one is not told them; it is like breathing and
seeing."

"Yes," I replied, "yet it was like that, too, in the old days; the
misery was when one suddenly discovered that when one was acting in what
seemed the most natural way possible, it gave pain and concern to some
one whom one respected and even loved. One knew that one's action was
not wrong, and yet one desired to please and satisfy one's friends; and
so one fell back into conventional ways, not because one liked them but
because other people did, and it was not worth while making a fuss--it
was a sort of cowardice, I suppose?"

"Not quite," said Amroth; "you were more on the right lines than the
people who interfered with you, no doubt; but of course the truth is
that our principles ought to be used, like a stick, to support
ourselves, not like a rod to beat other people with. The most difficult
people to teach, as you will see hereafter, are the self-righteous
people, whose lives are really pure and good, but who allow their
preferences about amusements, occupations, ways of life, to become
matters of principle. The worst temptation in the world is the habit of
influence and authority, the desire to direct other lives and to conform