'...Anyhow, he has made an escape. He has got out of reach, for the day, of that besetting malady of intricate civilisations - the want of a stirring visible relation between effort and result. A typical modern figure is the municipal Medical Officer who half thinks that his preservative work for the frail may only be compromising the future of the race. Matthew Arnold described it all, wailfully well, in his plaint about the way that we "each half-live a hundred different lives," strive without quite knowing what we strive for, and doubt and fluctuate and make fresh starts and then have fresh misgivings and nag and chatter and rant about ideals we do not live up to, until we "falter life away" with little done. At least for some eager and absorbed hours your true rambler has washed all that futilitarianism out of his soul and has started fair again in a heaven of simple effort and clear aim; a career in life opens before him at breakfast; success in life warms him at bedtime...'
from The Right Place by CE Montague (Chapter X, Part VI)
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