This tendency, unconquerable though it may appear
to be, can to a great extent at any rate, be overcome by strenuous
discipline. I tried to blind myself to the future, and many and many
a time, as I walked along that dreary New Road or Old St. Pancras
Road, have I striven to compel myself not to look at the image of
Hampstead Heath or Regent's Park, as yet six days in front of me, but
to get what I could out of what was then with me.
The instinct which leads us perpetually to compare what we are with
what we might be is no doubt of enormous value, and is the spring
which prompts all action, but, like every instinct, it is the source
of greatest danger. I remember the day and the very spot on which it
flashed into me, like a sudden burst of the sun's rays, that I had no
right to this or that--to so much happiness, or even so much virtue.
What title-deeds could I show for such a right? Straightway it
seemed as if the centre of a whole system of dissatisfaction were
removed, and as if the system collapsed. God, creating from His
infinite resources a whole infinitude of beings, had created me with
a definite position on the scale, and that position only could I
claim. Cease the trick of contrast.
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