Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1881 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

i8o y^s Triplex.
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 pru-
dence. 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