Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

^s Triplex 165
whether we thunder in a pulpit, or pule in
little atheistic poetry-books, about its vanity
and brevity ; whether we look justly for
years of health and vigour, or are about to
mount into a bath-chair, as a step towards
the hearse ; in each and all of these views
and situations there is but one conclusion
possible : that a man should stop his ears
against paralysing terror, and run the race
that is set before him with a single mind.
No one surely could have recoiled with more
heartache and terror from the thought of
death than our respected lexicographer ; and
yet we know how little it affected his con-
duct, how wisely and boldly he walked, and
in what a fresh and lively vein he spoke of
life. Already an old man, he ventured on
his Highland tour ; and his heart, bound
with triple brass, did not recoil before twenty-
seven individual cups of tea. As courage
and intelligence are the two qualities best
worth a good man's cultivation, so it is the
first part of intelligence to recognise our
precarious estate in life, and the first part of