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

y^s Triplex 167
becomes so engrossing, that all the noises of
the outer world begin to come thin and faint
into the parlour with the regulated tempera-
ture ; and the tin shoes go equably forward
over blood and rain. To be overwise is to
ossify ; and the scruple-monger ends by stand-
ing stockstill. Now the man who has his
heart on his sleeve, and a good whirling
weathercock of a brain, who reckons his life
as a thing to be dashingly used and cheerfully
hazarded, makes a very different acquaintance
of the world, keeps all his pulses going true
and fast, and gathers impetus as he runs,
until, if he be running towards anything
better than wildfire, he may shoot up and
become a constellation in the end. Lord
look after his health, Lord have a care of his
soul, says he ; and he has at the key of the
position, and swashes through incongruity
and peril towards his aim. Death is on all
sides of him with pointed batteries, as he is
on all sides of all of us ; unfortunate sur-
prises gird him round ; mim-mouthed friends
and relations hold up their hands in quite a