There is a pleasant story of a man who was asked by an ardent
missionary for a subscription to some enterprise or other in the ends
of the earth. The man produced a shilling and a sovereign. "Here is a
shilling for the work," he said, "and here is a sovereign to get it out
there!" That seems to me an allegory of much of our Western work. So
little of it direct benefit, so much of it indirect transit! When I was
a schoolmaster, it always seemed to me that nine-tenths of what we did
was looking over work which we had given the boys to do to fill up
their time, and to keep them, as we used to say, out of mischief. The
worst of bringing up boys on that system is that they require to be
kept out of mischief all their life long; and yet the worst kind of
mischief, after all, may be to fill life with useless occupations.
There are two ways of going out into your garden. You may walk out
straight from the bow-window on to the lawn; or you may go out into the
street, take the first turn to the right, then the next to the right,
and let yourself in at the back-garden door. But there is no merit in
that! It is not a thing to be complacent about; still less does it
justify you in saying to the simple person who prefers the direct
course that the world is getting lazy and decadent and is always trying
to save itself trouble. The point is to have lived, not to have been
merely occupied.
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