And now I would go on to say a few words as to the larger object which I have had in view.  My aim has been to show how it is possible for people living quiet and humdrum lives, without any opportunities of gratifying ambition or for taking a leading part on the stage of the world, to make the most of simple conditions, and to live lives of dignity and joy.  My own belief is that what is commonly called success has an insidious power of poisoning the clear springs of life; because people who grow to depend upon the stimulus of success sink into dreariness and dulness when that stimulus is withdrawn.  Here my critics have found fault with me for not being more strenuous, more virile, more energetic.  It is strange to me that my object can have been so singularly misunderstood.  I believe, with all my heart, that happiness depends upon strenuous energy; but I think that this energy ought to be expended upon work, and everyday life, and relations with others, and the accessible pleasures of literature and art.  The gospel that I detest is the gospel of success, the teaching that every one ought to be discontented with his setting, that a man ought to get to the front, clear a space round him, eat, drink, make love, cry, strive, and fight.  It is all to be at the expense of feebler people.  That is a detestable ideal, because it is the gospel of tyranny rather than the gospel of equality.  It is obvious, too, that such success depends upon a man being stronger than his fellows, and is only made possible by shoving and hectoring, and bullying the weak.  The preaching of this violent gospel has done us already grievous harm; it is this which has tended to depopulate country districts, to make people averse to discharging all honest subordinate tasks, to make men and women overvalue excitement and amusement.  The result of it is the lowest kind of democratic sentiment, which says, “Every one is as good as every one else, and I am a little better,” and the jealous spirit, which says, “If I cannot be prominent, I will do my best that no one else shall be.”  Out of it develops the demon of municipal politics, which makes a man strive for a place, in the hope being able to order things for which others have to pay.  It is this teaching which makes power seem desirable for the sake of personal advantages, and with no care for responsibility.  This spirit seems to me an utterly vile and detestable spirit.  It tends to disguise its rank individualism under a pretence of desiring to improve social conditions.  I do not mean for a moment to say that all social reformers are of this type; the clean-handed social reformer, who desires no personal advantage, and whose influence is a matter of anxious care, is one of the noblest of men; but now that schemes of social reform are fashionable, there are a number of blatant people who them for purposes of personal advancement.