been thy failures hitherto, "be not afflicted, my child, for who
shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?"
We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for
instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once
a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would
have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I
hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles!
What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the
universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature
and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who
shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater
miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for
an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour;
ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! -- I
know of no reading of another's experience so startling and
informing as this would be.
The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my
soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be
my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?
You may say the wisest thing you can, old man -- you who have lived
seventy years, not without honor of a kind -- I hear an irresistible
voice which invites me away from all that. One generation abandons
the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.
I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow
elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our
strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh
incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance
of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if
we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live