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 to honour
useful labour. A spirit goes out of the man who means
execution, which outlives the most untimely ending. All
who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done
good work, although they may die before they have the time
to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and
cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the
world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.
*
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.
*
When the time comes that he should go, there need be few
illusions left about himself. Here lies one who meant
well, tried a little, failed much:-surely that may be his
epitaph, of which he need not be ashamed, nor will he
complain at the summons which calls a defeated soldier from
the field; defeated, ay, if he were Paul or Marcus
Aurelius!--but if there is still one inch of fight in his
old spirit, undishonoured.
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