In a Canadian Canoe by Barry Pain

I have just been lunching with a man. He is either a Socialist or a Vegetarian -- I forget which. On second thoughts, he cannot have been a Vegetarian, because he ate cutlets. He may have been a Philatelist; but I doubt it, and I do not fancy that it really matters. He was something -- one of those things that make a man want to lead a higher life, and collar most of the conversation. He told me a good deal about it, and I know that at the time I thought it was a fine thing and an interesting thing; and I wondered why more of us did not do it; and yet I've forgotten what it was. The main point, however, is not what he was, but the fact that he was something. He had a Cause, an Enthusiasm; something that lifted him above the common ruck, something he could brag about, something that made it necessary for him to fill up papers, and sign declarations, and feel as if the nation had purchased him at his own price.

The jilted are bitter on the subject of women; the fox was malicious about the grapes that he could not reach; Tantalus was often heard to remark that undiluted water was not worth drinking. If a man sneer at Causes, it is because he himself has not any Cause; and the sneer is idle, because he might have many Causes if he liked. A man may be so poor that he has no effects; but he may still have a Cause. Some of them require a subscription of one shilling; but with more it suffices that a man shall bother half a crown out of his friend. So, as the sneer is not required for the consolation of the sneerer, it must therefore be quite pointless and unprejudiced.