i
One can bring no greater reproach against a man than to say that he does
not set sufficient value upon pleasure, and there is no greater sign of a
fool than the thinking that he can tell at once and easily what it is
that pleases him. To know this is not easy, and how to extend our
knowledge of it is the highest and the most neglected of all arts and
branches of education. Indeed, if we could solve the difficulty of
knowing what gives us pleasure, if we could find its springs, its
inception and earliest _modus operandi_, we should have discovered the
secret of life and development, for the same difficulty has attended the
development of every sense from touch onwards, and no new sense was ever
developed without pains. A man had better stick to known and proved
pleasures, but, if he will venture in quest of new ones, he should not do
so with a light heart.
One reason why we find it so hard to know our own likings is because we
are so little accustomed to try; we have our likings found for us in
respect of by far the greater number of the matters that concern us; thus
we have grown all our limbs on the strength of the likings of our
ancestors and adopt these without question.
Another reason is that, except in mere matters of eating and drinking,
people do not realise the importance of finding out what it is that gives
them pleasure if, that is to say, they would make themselves as
comfortable here as they reasonably can. Very few, however, seem to care
greatly whether they are comfortable or no. There are some men so
ignorant and careless of what gives them pleasure that they cannot be
said ever to have been really born as living beings at all. They present
some of the phenomena of having been born—they reproduce, in fact, so
many of the ideas which we associate with having been born that it is
hard not to think of them as living beings—but in spite of all
appearances the central idea is wanting. At least one half of the misery
which meets us daily might be removed or, at any rate, greatly
alleviated, if those who suffer by it would think it worth their while to
be at any pains to get rid of it. That they do not so think is proof
that they neither know, nor care to know, more than in a very languid
way, what it is that will relieve them most effectually or, in other
words, that the shoe does not really pinch them so hard as we think it
does. For when it really pinches, as when a man is being flogged, he
will seek relief by any means in his power. So my great namesake said,
“Surely the pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat”; and so,
again, I remember to have seen a poem many years ago in _Punch_ according
to which a certain young lady, being discontented at home, went out into
the world in quest to “Some burden make or burden bear, But which she did
not greatly care—Oh Miseree!” So long as there was discomfort somewhere
it was all right.
To those, however, who are desirous of knowing what gives them pleasure
but do not quite know how to set about it I have no better advice to give
than that they must take the same pains about acquiring this difficult
art as about any other, and must acquire it in the same way—that is by
attending to one thing at a time and not being in too great a hurry.
Proficiency is not to be attained here, any more than elsewhere, by short
cuts or by getting other people to do work that no other than oneself can
do. Above all things it is necessary here, as in all other branches of
study, not to think we know a thing before we do know it—to make sure of
our ground and be quite certain that we really do like a thing before we
say we do. When you cannot decide whether you like a thing or not,
nothing is easier than to say so and to hang it up among the
uncertainties. Or when you know you do not know and are in such doubt as
to see no chance of deciding, then you may take one side or the other
provisionally and throw yourself into it. This will sometimes make you
uncomfortable, and you will feel you have taken the wrong side and thus
learn that the other was the right one. Sometimes you will feel you have
done right. Any way ere long you will know more about it. But there
must have been a secret treaty with yourself to the effect that the
decision was provisional only. For, after all, the most important first
principle in this matter is the not lightly thinking you know what you
like till you have made sure of your ground. I was nearly forty before I
felt how stupid it was to pretend to know things that I did not know and
I still often catch myself doing so. Not one of my school-masters taught
me this, but altogether otherwise.
ii
I should like to like Schumann’s music better than I do; I dare say I
could make myself like it better if I tried; but I do not like having to
try to make myself like things; I like things that make me like them at
once and no trying at all.
iii
To know whether you are enjoying a piece of music or not you must see
whether you find yourself looking at the advertisements of Pear’s soap at
the end of the programme.