It may be urged that we ought not to regulate our conduct upon the
basis of trying to avoid what is dull; but I am myself of opinion
that dulness is responsible for a large amount of human error and
misery. Readers of The Pilgrim's Progress will no doubt remember
the young woman whose name was Dull, and her choice of companions--
Simple, Sloth, Presumption, Short-mind, Slow-pace, No-heart,
Linger-after-lust, and Sleepy-head. These are the natural
associates of Madam Dull. The danger of dulness, whether natural or
acquired, is the danger of complacently lingering among stupid and
conventional ideas, and losing all the bright interchange of the
larger world. The dull people are not, as a rule, the simple
people--they are generally provided with a narrow and self-
sufficient code; they are often entirely self-satisfied, and apt to
disapprove of everything that is lively, romantic, and vigorous.
Simplicity, as a rule, is either a natural gift, or else can be
attained only by people of strong critical powers, who will, firmly
and vigorously, test, examine, and weigh motives, and arrive
through experience at a direct and natural method of dealing with
men and circumstances. True simplicity is not an inherited poverty
of spirit; it is rather like the poverty of one who has
deliberately discarded what is hampering, vexatious, and
unnecessary, and has learnt that the art of life consists in
disentangling the spirit from all conventional claims, in living by
trained impulse and fine instinct, rather than by tradition and
authority. I do not say that the dull people are not probably, in a
way, the happier people; I suppose that anything that leads to
self-satisfaction is, in a sense, a cause of happiness; but it is
not a species of happiness that people ought to pursue.