life and work and purpose annuls it. Neither is it always annulled,
even in length of days.

But it is a paltry and inglorious mistake to let the shadow have
its disheartening will of us. It is only a shadow, after all! And
if we capitulate after our first disastrous encounter, it does not
mean that we shall be for ever vanquished, though it means perhaps
a long and dreary waste of shame-stained days. That is what we
must try to avoid--any WASTE of time and strength. For if anything
is certain, it is that we have all to fight until we conquer, and
the sooner we take up the dropped sword again the better.

And we have also to learn that no one can help us except ourselves.
Other people can sympathise and console, try to soothe our injured
vanity, try to persuade us that the dangers and disasters ahead are
not so dreadful as they appear to be, and that the mistakes we have
made are not irreparable. But no one can remove danger or regret
from us, or relieve us of the necessity of facing our own troubles;
the most that they can do, indeed, is to encourage us to try again.

But we cannot hope to change the conditions of life; and one of its
conditions is, as I have said, that we cannot foresee dangers. No
matter how vividly they are described to us, no matter how eagerly
those who love us try to warn us of peril, we cannot escape. For
that is the essence of life--experience; and though we cannot
rejoice when we are in the grip of it, and when we cannot see what
the end will be, we can at least say to ourselves again and again,
"this is at all events reality--this is business!" for it is the
moments of endurance and energy and action which after all justify
us in living, and not the pleasant spaces where we saunter among