But the scientific
attitude tends, except in the highest minds, to develop a certain
dryness, a scepticism about spiritual and imaginative forces, a dulness
of the inner apprehension, a hard quality of judgment. Not in such a
mood as this does humanity fare further and higher. Men become
cautious, prudent, and decisive thus, instead of generous, hopeful, and
high-hearted.
But to despair too soon of an era, to despise and satirise an age, a
national temper, is a deep and fatal mistake. The world moves onwards
patiently and inevitably, obeying a larger and a mightier law. What is
rather the duty of all who love what is noble and beautiful is not to
carp and bicker over faulty conditions, but to realise their aims and
hopes, to labour abundantly and patiently, to speak and feel sincerely,
to encourage rather than to condemn, _Serviendum lietandum_ says the
brave motto. To serve, one cannot avoid that; but to serve with
blitheness, that is the secret.
XXII
I cannot help wondering what the substance was which my
fellow-traveller to-day was consuming under the outward guise of
cigarettes. It had a scent that was at once strange and afflicting. It
was no more like tobacco than tobacco is like violets. It seemed as
though it must have been carefully prepared and procured for some
unknown purpose, but it was impossible to connect pleasure with it.
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