... If we clung as devotedly as some
philosophers pretend we do to the abstract idea of life, or
were half as frightened as they make out we are, for the
subversive accident that ends it all, the trumpets might
sound by the hour and no one would follow them into battle--
the blue-peter might fly at the truck, but who would climb
into a sea-going ship? Think (if these philosophers were
right) with what a preparation of spirit we should affront
the daily peril of the dinner-table: a deadlier spot than
any battle-field in history, where the far greater
proportion of our ancestors have miserably left their
bones! What woman would ever be lured into marriage, so
much more dangerous than the wildest sea? And what would
it be to grow old?
*
If a man knows he will sooner or later be robbed upon a
journey, he will have a bottle of the best in every inn,
and look upon all his extravagances as so much gained upon
the thieves. And, above all, where, instead of simply
spending, he makes a profitable investment for some of his
money when it will be out of risk of loss. So every bit of
brisk living, and, above all, when it is healthful, is just
so much gained upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall
have the less in our pockets, the more in our stomachs,
when he cries, 'Stand and deliver.'
*
It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to
waste it like a miser.
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