"
That is the root of the matter after all--the soul and horizons. He who
says, "To-day shall suffice for me," whether it be in the high
intellectual plane or in the low earthly one, has fallen into the grip
of the world that passeth away; and that is a danger which Omar's advent
has certainly not lessened.
The second reason for care in this neighbourhood is that epicureanism is
only safe for those whose tastes lie in the direction of the simple
life. Montaigne has wisely said that it is pernicious to those who have
a natural tendency to vice. But vice is not a thing which any man loves
for its own sake, until his nature has suffered a long process of
degradation. It is simply the last result of a habit of luxurious
self-indulgence; and the temptation to the self-indulgent, the present
world in one form or another, comes upon everybody at times. There are
moods when all of us want to break away from the simple life, and feel
the splendour of the dazzling lights and the intoxication of the strange
scents of the world. To surrender to these has always been, and always
will be, deadly. It is the old temptation to cease to strive, which we
have already found to be the keynote of Goethe's _Faust_.
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