From ‘Depression and its Causes’, The Spectator, 5 June 1915:
What causes fear and anxiety in moments of crisis is not the inevitable, but the thought whether one is doing enough or doing the right thing to prevent the peals which one dreads. When men have made the renunciation and are spending their last shilling and their last ounce of strength, have given, in fact, all that they have to give, they are happy. The bitterness is past.
When, however, they have not made voluntarily, or been compelled by circumstances to make, the great renunciation, it is a very different matter. It was not the poor widow who cast in all that she had who was unhappy. He who went away sorrowful was the young man who was prepared to act very generously and in a very public-spirited way, but who could not bear to take the final plunge—”for he had great possessions.”
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