One knows of houses where some trifling
omission of detail, some failure of service in a meal, will plunge
the hostess into a dumb and incommunicable despair. The slightest
lapse of the conventional order becomes a cloud that intercepts the
sun. But the right attitude to life, if we desire to set ourselves
free from this self-created torment, is a resolute avoidance of
minute preoccupations, a light-hearted journeying, with an amused
tolerance for the incidents of the way. A conventional order of
life is useful only in so far as it removes from the mind the
necessity of detailed planning, and allows it to flow punctually
and mechanically in an ordered course. But if we exalt that order
into something sacred and solemn, then we become pharisaical and
meticulous, and the savour of life is lost.
One remembers the scene in David Copperfield which makes so fine a
parable of life; how the merry party who were making the best of an
ill-cooked meal, and grilling the chops over the lodging-house
fire, were utterly disconcerted and reduced to miserable dignity by
the entry of the ceremonious servant with his "Pray, permit me,"
and how his decorous management of the cheerful affair cast a gloom
upon the circle which could not even be dispelled when he had
finished his work and left them to themselves.
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