performance rather than upon a man's usefulness to the human race.

The kind of contentment that I should like to see on the increase
is the contentment of a man who works hard and enjoys work, both in
itself and in the contrast it supplies to his leisure hours; and,
further, whose leisure is full of varied interests, not only
definite pursuits, but an interest in his relations with others,
not only of a spectatorial kind, but with the natural and
instinctive desire to contribute to their happiness, not in a
priggish way, but from a sense of cordial good-fellowship.

This programme may seem, as I have said, to be unambitious and
prosaic, and to have very little that is stirring about it. But my
belief is that it can be the most lively, sensitive, fruitful, and
enjoyable programme in the world, because the enjoyment of it
depends upon the very stuff of life itself, and not upon skimming
the cream off and throwing away the milk.

My critics will say that I am only appearing again from my cellar,
with my hands filled with bottled platitudes; but if they are
platitudes, by which I mean plain and obvious truths, why do we not
find more people practising them? What I mean by a platitude is a
truth so obvious that it is devoid of inspiration, and has become
one of the things that every one does so instinctively, that no
reminder of them is necessary. Would that it were so in the present
case! All I can say is that I know very few people who live their
lives on these lines, and that most of the people I know find
inspiration anywhere but in the homely stuff of life. Of course
there are a good many people who take life stolidly enough, and do
not desire inspiration at all; but I do not mean that sort of life