to lay the blame on others; to be discontented with their circumstances—­the things which stand around them; and to cry, “Oh that I had this!” “Oh that I had that!” But that way no deliverance lies.  That discontent only ends in revolt and rebellion, social or political; and that, again, still in the same worship of circumstances—­but this time desperate—­which ends, let it disguise itself under what fine names it will, in what the old Greeks called a tyranny; in which—­as in the Spanish republics of America, and in France more than once—­all have become the voluntary slaves of one man, because each man fancies that the one man can improve his circumstances for him.

But the wise man will learn, like Epictetus the heroic slave, the slave of Epaphroditus, Nero’s minion—­and in what baser and uglier circumstances could human being find himself?—­to find out the secret of being truly free; namely, to be discontented with no man and no thing save himself.  To say not—­“Oh that I had this and that!” but “Oh that I were this and that!” Then, by God’s help—­and that heroic slave, heathen though he was, believed and trusted in God’s help—­“I will make myself that which God has shown me that I ought to be and can be.”

Ten thousand a-year, or ten million a-year, as Epictetus saw full well, cannot mend that vulgar discontent with circumstances, which he had felt—­and who with more right?—­and conquered, and despised.  For that is the discontent of children, wanting always more holidays and more sweets.  But I wish my readers to have, and to cherish, the discontent of men and women.

Therefore I would make men and women discontented, with the divine and wholesome discontent, at their own physical frame, and at that of their children.  I would accustom their eyes to those precious heirlooms of the human race, the statues of the old Greeks; to their tender grandeur, their chaste healthfulness, their unconscious, because perfect, might:  and say—­There; these are tokens to you, and to all generations yet unborn, of what man could be once; of what he can be again if he will obey those laws of nature which are the voice of God.  I would make them discontented with the ugliness and closeness of their dwellings; I would make the men discontented with the fashion of their garments, and still more just now the women, of all ranks, with the fashion of theirs; and with everything around them which they have the power of improving, if it be at all ungraceful, superfluous, tawdry, ridiculous, unwholesome.  I would make them discontented with what they call their education, and say to them—­You call the three Royal R’s education?  They are not education:  no more is the knowledge which would enable you to take the highest prizes given by the Society of Arts, or any other body.  They are not education:  they are only instruction; a necessary groundwork, in an age like this, for making practical use of your education:  but not the education itself.