Some people achieve the same mastery over mood by an intensity of
religious conviction. But the worst of that particular triumph is
that an attitude of chastened religious patience is, not unusually,
a rather depressing thing. It is so restrained, so pious, that it
tends to deprive life of natural and unaffected joy. If it is
patient and submissive in affliction, it is also tame and mild in
cheerful surroundings. It issues too frequently in a kind of holy
tolerance of youthful ebullience and vivid emotions. It results in
the kind of character that is known as saintly, and is generally
accompanied by a strong deficiency in the matter of humour. Life is
regarded as too serious a business to be played with, and the
delight in trifles, which is one of the surest signs of healthy
energy, becomes ashamed and abashed in its presence. The atmosphere
that it creates is oppressive, remote, ungenial. "I declare that
Uncle John is intolerable, except when there is a death in the
family--and then he is insupportable," said a youthful nephew of a
virtuous clergyman of this type in my presence the other day,
adding, after reflection, "He seems to think that to die is the
only really satisfactory thing that any one ever does.
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