CLOSE QUARTERS.
ONE must be tidy in a small house. That is one of the constant irritations which attend small quarters. On the same principle, one must try to keep one's ideas tidy if one has a small mind. It is very bard luck that we cannot all have large ones. On the other hand, there is a peculiar kind of comfort only to be found in little rooms, something apart from luxury, yet even further removed from hardship. Also the peace which dwells in a small and well-arranged mind dwells nowhere else. It is not self-satisfaction, but is still further removed from mental strain. Now by small quarters we are not meaning cells or pigsties. We mean something large enough for it to be possible to eliminate the sordid element. And by a small mind we do not mean a little rubbish-shoot, full of cast-off prejudices, stale spites, and dead letters. We mean a decent receptacle, the dimensions of which are known to its owner, which will hold a good deal if neatly packed, but which cannot be stuffed at random. Limits have advantages, even while we admit that space has the advantage.
It is a great thing for young peop'e to "live in a large way." The effect of space upon the spirit is difficult to exaggerate. For one thing, plenty of room makes exclusiveness unnecessary, especially where books are concerned. Rubbish is not rubbish if it does not assert its presence, and rubbishy literature has a place in the life of the educated, but not a front place. The sort of novels that we all like to read when we have a cold have not a right to standing-room in small quarters. Dozens of books upon a single subject are also in the way. They bore their owner and give a false impression to his friends. A large number of volumes of theology, for instance, have a very dis- agreeable effect in a small room, and so have too many books on India or books in foreign languages. Of course, if a man is getting up a subject, at least half of his book-assistants "live out." The lending library has revolutionized private libraries. It is the books which "live in" that must be very carefully selected—unless we have space to accommodate all and sundry. A small, well-chosen library is apt to consist rather of the books we feel we ought to like than those we do like ; and moments come when we long for rubbish, and because we have none we cannot read at all. .Apart from books which help us in our work, there are more frivolous guest-books, which we like to have to spend a few days with us. They were created to live this sort of life, and very few copies of them have any home anywhere; but one has to be careful even among guests whom one admits into small quarters. They often get upon our nerves before we have the energy to pack them off to their more permanent address. The same principle applies in the matter of association. It is embittering to live among those with whom one is out of sym- pathy, or even exclusively among those with whom one is in intellectual disagreement. On the other hand, it is "over- sweetening," if one may use such an expression, to live only among those who think as we think. Life among our co- believers and those whom we admire and warmly like may seem, when it is impossible, to be almost paradisiacal ; but when we come to lead it we are apt to find ourselves in a fool's paradise.
* This Is not intended as a record of fact ; but it la sufficiently true to life to be realistic. Perhaps many will say : " lie is describing —; but he IA wrong
about The writer Is not describing anything but the sort of thing that quite likely might happen, and quite essay has happened. Many of the incident,' described actually °courted at one than and another ;- but the framework is Imaginary,
All the same, there is nothing so foolish as to make life in a small way an imitation of life in a large way. Books and people whom we only half understand, or who are not worth under. standing, are not a necessity to any one. Still, it is pleasant just to see their frontispieces and turn over their leaves, and there is a good deal to be gained by it.
Another thing which must be accommodated to the size of our house is our manners. They should be—as a rule they are= less spontaneous among those who are "cooped up together." A great many people who quarrel in small quarters would have got on very well in large ones. There is much that we all think which it is better not to say ; there is very much, if we are to be shut up closely with the person to whom we should like to speak our minds. Marriage is a very different thing in s. palace and in a small fiat; so are parental relationships ; BO is friendship. Small quarters do in a measure make spontaneity impossible. The discipline is perhaps wholesome. Probably the most unselfish manners—though not the most natural—and the most controlled, if not the most noble, tempers are produced under this system of intensive culture. At its best, however, life in a small way, life, we mean, lived in a narrow space, may be a more admirable thing than it often becomes under freer conditions, only we must make up our minds that for those who have what we call the highest standards it is not free.
Conceit is not a very common vice. It is very difficult to judge of, and turns up where we least expect to find it, and so we get suspicious about it and think it is almost universal. Most men and women do not, when they think soberly, exag- gerate their own mental capacity. They criticize what they could not mend, no doubt. The man who at the present moment would not give advice to a Cabinet Minister, or even to the War Council, is not really interested in the war. But advioe, whether offered to an individual or corporation, or even to Providence, is often only a way of displaying a keen interest. It does not mean that we seriously think we know best. If we were sud- denly put in a position to act, we should not take our own advice, or not without thinking the question out again. For instance, it is a sheer impossibility to be much interested in any young person and not offer him or her advice ; but for all that a sense of inferiority in the presence of the younger genera- tion is one of the commonest signs of age. It is a warning that we are losing our youth, which often precedes grey hairs, and which is recognized and accepted by the majority of men and women.
Very few of us think ourselves very wise or exaggerate in any way our mental capacity ; but we do forget how necessary it is to keep any but a very great mind tidy. We let the whole place be littered up with our fads, though we very well know that our mental premises are not large enough to permit that these useless articles should lie about without ells- order. It is true that we value them. We may even think that they are the chips and sawdust of pure truth. All the more should we remember to keep them in a cupboard where the unwary visitor cannot put his foot into them. Again, we will not fold up our more eccentric convictions and show them only to those who ask to see them. Even those rickety con- clusions which we know rest upon next to nothing we will not throw away. Then our jokes—those, we mean, which we have in general use—surely they might have a neat corner assigned to them, so as to be less en evidence. And some of our treasured experiences which are getting the worse for wear - might as well be shelved. We might make a clearance among the flat contradictions which are always clashing against one another, the hard-and-fast rules which act as stumbling-blocks, and the theories which won't hold water. In great minds there is space for all these things—they hardly show—but in a small one they oust what is really valuable, and make a man unable to lay his hand at a moment's notice upon what he wants. If only we would do this, we should add to our reputation among our friends, for the apparent size of a room—or a mind—is immeasurably increased by order and arrangement. Sometimes we think that some great experience has enlarged a man's mind All things are possible, and spiritual miracles, though they happen, are rare. As a rule, however, we might as well think that his new coat has added a cubit to his stature. A great experience takes a, great place in a man's thoughts. It may: have very likely forced him to elear away the rubbish that choked his mind—that is all.
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