Consciously or unconsciously, men are proud of their firmness, steadfastness¹ of purpose, directness of aim. They go straight towards their desire, to the accomplishment² of virtue³ — sometimes of crime — in an uplifting persuasion⁴ of their firmness. They walk the road of life, the road fenced in by their tastes, prejudices, disdains⁵ or enthusiasms, generally honest, invariably stupid, and are proud of never losing their way. If they do stop, it is to look for a moment over the hedges that make them safe, to look at the misty⁶ valleys, at the distant peaks, at cliffs and morasses⁷, at the dark forests and the hazy⁸ plains where other human beings grope their days painfully away, stumbling over the bones of the wise, over the unburied remains⁹ of their predecessors¹⁰ who died alone, in gloom or in sunshine, halfway¹¹ from anywhere. The man of purpose does not understand, and goes on, full of contempt. He never loses his way. He knows where he is going and what he wants. Travelling on, he achieves great length without any breadth, and battered¹², besmirched¹³, and weary, he touches the goal at last; he grasps the reward of his

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