Everybody has, or has had, a secret desire, a hidden
leaning. Let him discover what his is, or was--gardening, philosophy,
reading, travel, billiards, raising animals, training animals, killing
animals, yachting, collecting pictures or postage-stamps or autographs
or snuff-boxes or scalps, astronomy, kite-flying, house-furnishing,
foreign languages, cards, swimming, diary-keeping, the stage,
politics, carpentry, riding or driving, music, staying up late,
getting up early, tree-planting, tree-felling, town-planning, amateur
soldiering, statics, entomology, botany, elocution, children-fancying,
cigar-fancying, wife-fancying, placid domestic evenings, conjuring,
bacteriology, thought-reading, mechanics, geology, sketching,
bell-ringing, theosophy, his own soul, even golf....
I mention a few of the ten million directions in which his secret
desire may point or have pointed. I have probably not mentioned the
right direction. But he can find it. He can perhaps find several right
directions without too much trouble.
And now he says:
"I suppose you mean me to 'take up' one of these things?"
I do, seeing that he has hitherto neglected so clear a duty. If he had
attended to it earlier, and with perseverance he would not be in the
humiliating situation of exclaiming bitterly that he has no pleasure
in life.
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