according to measure. I do not say I will attend to this sick person
up to such and such a point, but when that point is reached I shall
have done enough. This would hardly be self-sacrifice. I rather say,
"Here I am. Take me, use me to the full, spend of me whatever you
need. How much that will be, I do not know." So there is an element of
darkness in ourselves.

And possibly I ought to mention a third variety of these
incalculabilities of sacrifice. We do not plan the case. A while ago,
meeting a literary man whose product is of much consequence to the
community and himself, I asked him how his book was coming on.
"Badly," he answered. "Just now an aged relative has fallen ill. There
is no other place where she can be properly disposed, and so she has
been brought to my house. I must care for her, my home will be much
broken up, and my work must be set aside." I said, "Is that your duty?
Have you not a more important obligation to your book?" But he
answered, "One cannot choose a duty." I did not fully agree. I think
we should carefully weigh duties, even if we do not choose them.
Morality would otherwise become the sport of accident. But I perceive
that in the last analysis no duty is made by ourselves. It is given us
by something more authoritative than we, something which we cannot
alter, fully estimate, or without damage evade. Necessity is laid upon
us, sometimes an invading necessity. We are walking our well-ordered
path, pursuing some dear aims, when harsh before us stands a waiting
duty, bidding us lay aside that in which we are engaged and take it. I
have said I believe a degree of scrutiny is needful here. We should
ask, what for? We should correlate the new duty with those already
pledged. And probably an interrupting duty is less often the one it is
well to follow than one which has had something of our time and care.
Few fresh calls can have the weighty claim of loyalty to obligation