Nevertheless, in his quality of a wise plain man, he would never agree
that any problem of human conduct, however hard and apparently
hopeless, could not be solved by dint of sagacity and
ingenuity--provided it was the problem of another person! He is quite
fearfully good at solving the problems of his friends. Indeed, his
friends, recognizing this, constantly go to him for advice. If a
friend consulted him and said:
"Look here, I'm engaged in an enterprise which will absorb all my
energies for three years. It will enable me in the meantime to live
and to keep my family, but I shall have scarcely a moment's freedom of
mind. I may have a little leisure, but of what use is leisure without
freedom of mind? As for pleasure, I shall simply forget what it is. My
life will be one long struggle. The ultimate profit is extremely
uncertain. It may be fairly good; on the other hand, it may be nothing
at all."
The plain man, being also blunt, would assuredly interrupt:
"My dear fellow, what a fool you've been!"
Yet this case is in essence the case of the wise plain man. The chief
difference between the two cases is that the wise plain man has
enslaved himself for about thirty years instead of three, with naught
but a sheer gambling chance of final reward! Not being one of the rare
individuals with whom business is a passion, but just an average plain
man, he is labouring daily against the grain, stultifying daily one
part of his nature, on the supposition that later he will be
recompensed. In other words, he is preparing to live, so that at a
distant date he may be in a condition to live. He has not effected a
compromise between the present and the future. His own
complaint--"What pleasure do I get out of life?"--proves that he is
completely sacrificing the present to the future. And how elusive is
the future! Like the horizon, it always recedes. If, when he was
thirty, some one had foretold that at forty-five, with a sympathetic
wife and family and an increasing income, he would be as far off
happiness as ever, he would have smiled at the prophecy.
The consulting friend, somewhat nettled by the plain man's bluntness,
might retort:
"I may or may not have been a fool. That's not the point. The point is
that I am definitely in the enterprise, and can't get out of it. And
there's nothing to be done."
Whereupon the plain man, in an encouraging, enheartening, reasonable
tone, would respond:
"Don't say that, my dear chap. Of course, if you're in it, you're in
it. But give me all the details. Let's examine the thing. And allow me
to tell you that no case that looks bad is as bad as it looks."
It is precisely in this spirit that the plain man should approach his
own case. He should say to himself in that reasonable tone which he
employs to his friend, and which is so impressive: "Let me examine the
thing."
And now the plain man who is reading this and unwillingly fitting the
cap will irately protest: "Do you suppose I haven't examined my own
case? Do you suppose I don't understand it? I understand it
thoroughly. Who should understand it if I don't? I beg to inform you
that I know absolutely all about it."
Still the strong probability is that he has not examined it. The
strong probability is that he has just lain awake of a night and felt
extremely sorry for himself, and at the same time rather proud of his
fortitude. Which process does not amount to an examination; it amounts
merely to an indulgence. As for knowing absolutely all about it, he
has not even noticed that the habit of feeling sorry for himself and
proud of his fortitude is slowly growing on him, and tending to become
his sole form of joy--a morbid habit and a sickly joy! He is sublimely
unaware of that increasing irritability which others discuss behind
his back. He has no suspicion that he is balefully affecting the
general atmosphere of his home.
Above all, he does not know that he is losing the capacity for
pleasure. Indeed, if it were suggested that such a change was going on
in him he would be vexed and distressed. He would cry out: "Don't you
make any mistake! I could amuse myself as well as any man, if only I
got the chance!" And yet, how many tens of thousands of plain and (as
it is called) successful men have been staggered to discover, when
ambition was achieved and the daily yoke thrown off and the direct
search for immediate happiness commenced, that the relish for pleasure
had faded unnoticed away--proof enough that they had neither examined
nor understood themselves! There is no more ingenuous soul, in affairs
of supreme personal importance than your wise plain man, whom all his
friends consult for his sagacity.
Mind, I am not hereby accusing the plain man of total spiritual
blindness--any more than I would accuse him of total physical
blindness because he cannot see how he looks to others when he walks
into a room. For nobody can see all round himself, nor know absolutely
all about his own case; and he who boasts that he can is no better
than a fool, despite his wisdom; he is not even at the beginning of
any really useful wisdom. But I do accuse my plain man of deliberately
shutting his eyes, from pride and from sloth. I do say that he might
know a great deal more about his case than he actually does know, if
only he would cease from pitying and praising himself in the middle of
the night, and tackle the business of self-examination in a rational,
vigorous, and honest fashion--not in the dark, but in the sane
sunlight. And I do further say that a self-examination thus properly
conducted might have results which would stultify those outrageous
remarks of his to his wife.