without avail. It was like using common nostrums on a disease which could
be treated by none but a special physician.

I was treated to a great deal of harping on that tiresome old string,
"Whatsoever your hand findeth to do, do it with all your might." It was
daily dinned into my cars that the little things of life were the
noblest, and that all the great people I mooned about said the same. I
usually retorted to the effect that I was well aware that it was noble,
and that I could write as good an essay on it as any philosopher. It was
all very well for great people to point out the greatness of the little,
empty, humdrum life. Why didn't they adopt it themselves?


The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to the toad.

I wasn't anxious to patronize the dull kind of tame nobility of the toad;
I longed for a few of the triumphs of the butterfly, decried though they
are as hollow bubbles. I desired life while young enough to live, and
quoted as my motto:


Though the pitcher that goes to the sparkling rill
Too oft gets broken at last,
There are scores of others its place to fill
When its earth to the earth is cast.
Keep that pitcher at home, let it never roam,
But lie like a useless clod;