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

^s Triplex 169
had each fallen in mid-course? Who would
find heart enough to begin to live, if he
dallied with the consideration of death ?
And, after all, what sorry and pitiful quib-
bling all this is ! To forego all the issues of
living in a parlour with a regulated tempera-
ture — as if that were not to die a hundred
times over, and for ten years at a stretch !
As if it were not to die in one's own lifetime,
and without even the sad immunities of death!
As if it were not to die, and yet be the
patient spectators of our own pitiable change !
The Permanent Possibility is preserved, but
the sensations carefully held at arm's length,
as if one kept a photographic plate in a dark
chamber. It is better to lose health like a
spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It
is better to live and be done with it, than to
die daily in the sickroom. By all means
begin your folio ; even if the doctor does not
give you a year, even if he hesitates about a
month, make one brave push and see what
can be accomplished in a week. It is not
only in finished undertakings that we ought