To make oneself beloved, says an old French proverb, this is, after all, the best way to be useful.  That is one of the deep sayings which children think flat, and which young men, and even young women, despise; and which a middle-aged man hears with a certain troubled surprise, and wonders if there is not something in it after all; and which old people discover to be true, and think with a sad regret of opportunities missed, and of years devoted, how unprofitably, to other kinds of usefulness!  The truth is that most of us who have any ambitions at all, do not start in life with a hope of being useful, but rather with an intention of being ornamental.  We think, like joseph in his childish dreams, that the sun and moon and the eleven stars, to say nothing of the sheaves, are going to make obeisance to us.  We want to be impressive, rich, beautiful, influential, admired, envied; and then, as we move forward, the visions fade.  We have to be content if, in a quiet corner, a single sheaf gives us a nod of recognition; and as for the eleven stars, they seem unaware of our very existence!  And then we make further discoveries; that when we have seemed to ourselves most impressive, we have only been pretentious; that riches are only a talisman against poverty, and even make suffering and pain and grief more unendurable; that beauty fades into stolidity or weariness; that influence comes mostly to people who do not pursue it, and that the best kind of influence belongs to those who do not even know that they possess it; that admiration is but a brilliant husk, which may or may not contain a wholesome kernel; and as for envy, there is poison in that cup!  And then we become aware that the best crowns have fallen to those who have not sought them, and that simple-minded and unselfish people have won the prize which has been denied to brilliance and ambition.

That is the process which is often called disillusionment; and it is a sad enough business for people who only look at one side of the medal, and who brood over the fact that they have been disappointed and have failed.  For such as these, there follow the faded years of cynicism and dreariness.  But that disillusionment, that humiliation, are the freshest and most beautiful things in the world, for people who have real generosity of spirit, and whose vanity has been of a superficial kind; because they thus realise that these great gifts are real and true things, but that they must be deserved and not captured; and then perhaps such people begin their life-work afresh, in a humble and hopeful spirit; and if it be too late for them to do what they might have once done, they do not waste time in futile regret, but are grateful for ever so little love and tenderness.  After all, they have lived, they have learnt by experience; and it does not yet appear what we shall be.  Somewhere, far hence—­who knows?—­we shall make a better start.