What I think tends to counteract this for many people
is love and marriage, the wonder and amazement of having children
of their own, and all the offices of tenderness that grow up
naturally beside their path. But this again brings a whole host of
fears and anxieties as well--arrangements, ways and means,
household cares, illnesses, the homely stuff of life, much of it
enjoyed, much of it cheerfully borne, and often very bravely and
gallantly endured. It is out of this simple material that life has
to be constructed. But there is a twofold danger in all this. There
is a danger of cynicism, the frame of mind in which a man comes to
face little worries as one might put up an umbrella in a shower--
"Thou know'st 'tis common!" Out of that grows up a rude dreariness,
a philosophy which has nothing dignified about it, but is merely a
recognition of the fact that life is a poor affair, and that one
cannot hope to have things to one's mind. Or there is a dull frame
of mind which implies a meek resignation, a sense of disappointment
about life, borne with a mournful patience, a sense of one's sphere
having somehow fallen short of one's deserts.
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