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

1 68 ^s Triplex
little elegiacal synod about his path : and
what cares he for all this ? Being a true
lover of living, a fellow with something
pushing and spontaneous in his inside, he
must, like any other soldier, in any other
stirring, deadly warfare, push on at his best
pace until he touch the goal, "A peerage
or Westminster Abbey!" cried Nelson in
his bright, boyish, heroic manner. These
are great incentives ; not for any of these,
but for the plain satisfaction of living, of
being about their business in some sort or
other, do the brave, serviceable men of every
nation tread down the nettle danger, and
pass flyingly over all the stumbling-blocks of
prudence. Think of the heroism of Johnson,
think of that superb indifference to mortal
limitation that set him upon his dictionary,
and carried him through triumphantly until
the end ! Who, if he were wisely considerate
of things at large, would ever embark upon
any work much more considerable than a
halfpenny post card ? Who would project a
serial novel, after Thackeray and Dickens