We are for ever
looking down upon the ground. Maybe, we do avoid a stumble or two
over a stone or a brier, but also we miss the blue of the sky, the
glory of the hills. These books that good men write, telling us
that what they call "success" in life depends on our flinging aside
our youth and wasting our manhood in order that we may have the
means when we are eighty of spending a rollicking old age, annoy me.
We save all our lives to invest in a South Sea Bubble; and in
skimping and scheming, we have grown mean, and narrow, and hard. We
will put off the gathering of the roses till tomorrow, to-day it
shall be all work, all bargain-driving, all plotting. Lo, when to-
morrow comes, the roses are blown; nor do we care for roses, idle
things of small marketable value; cabbages are more to our fancy by
the time to-morrow comes.
Life is a thing to be lived, not spent, to be faced, not ordered.
Life is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is
a game of cards, one's hand by skill to be made the best of. Is it
the wisest who is always the most successful? I think not. The
luckiest whist-player I ever came across was a man who was never
QUITE certain what were trumps, and whose most frequent observation
during the game was "I really beg your pardon," addressed to his
partner; a remark which generally elicited the reply, "Oh, don't
apologize.
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