A Writer's Notebook (12 page)

There can be nothing praiseworthy in sacrifice in itself, and before a man does a self-sacrificing thing, he may reasonably ask himself if it is worth while; but it proves how intense a pleasure there is in self-sacrifice that people are willing to sacrifice themselves for the most ignoble objects.

It is a great pleasure to confer favours upon another; and it is a pleasure which is increased by the praise of the world; but the giver seldom considers whether his favours will be welcome. Nor is he satisfied with the pleasure he has obtained; he demands gratitude into the bargain.

Pleasures are largely a matter of opinion. They change like women's fashions, and a pleasure that is fashionable is doubly desirable. Actions which are not in themselves pleasurable can be made by fashion the source of keen delight.

Today persons pursue no pleasures so avidly as the luxury of pity and goodness. I think it was unjust to accuse the women in the Boer War of going to the Cape merely for a pleasant change and to flirt with soldiers: the pleasures that attracted them were more definite and less hackneyed.

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.

The relations between the individual and society are like a roulette table. Society is the banker. Individuals sometimes win and sometimes lose; but the banker wins always.

They say that sympathy with pain, long continued, turns into callousness; but does not sympathy with pleasure do the same?

Ideal pleasure, that is pleasure imagined, cannot be so vivid as pleasure experienced.

However harmless a thing is, if the law forbids it most people will think it wrong.

We hear much of the nobility of labour; but there is nothing noble in work in itself. Looking at early societies, we see that when warfare was rampant, work was despised and soldiering honoured. Now that the vast majority are workmen work is honoured. The fact is simply that men in their self-conceit look upon their particular activities as the noblest object of man.

Work is lauded because it takes men out of themselves. Stupid persons are bored when they have nothing to do. Work with the majority is their only refuge from ennui; but it is comic to call it noble for that reason. It requires many talents and much cultivation to be idle, or a peculiarly constituted mind.

It is notorious that persistence in any course, however immoral to the ordinary mind, robs it of any idea of immorality.

If you only tell people often enough that they must do such and such a thing, they will end by doing it, and never ask you why. And if you only tell people often enough that such and such a thing is right, they will end by believing you; and possibly they will believe you with greater readiness if you give no reason.