objects, and hopes, and plans. To the ambitious man life is a
brilliant game--a game that calls forth all his tact and energy and
nerve--a game to be won, in the long run, by the quick eye and the
steady hand, and yet having sufficient chance about its working out to
give it all the glorious zest of uncertainty. He exults in it as the
strong swimmer in the heaving billows, as the athlete in the wrestle,
the soldier in the battle.

And if he be defeated he wins the grim joy of fighting; if he lose the
race, he, at least, has had a run. Better to work and fail than to
sleep one's life away.

So, walk up, walk up, walk up. Walk up, ladies and gentlemen! walk
up, boys and girls! Show your skill and try your strength; brave your
luck and prove your pluck. Walk up! The show is never closed and the
game is always going. The only genuine sport in all the fair,
gentlemen--highly respectable and strictly moral--patronized by the
nobility, clergy, and gentry. Established in the year one, gentlemen,
and been flourishing ever since--walk up! Walk up, ladies and
gentlemen, and take a hand. There are prizes for all and all can
play. There is gold for the man and fame for the boy; rank for the
maiden and pleasure for the fool. So walk up, ladies and gentlemen,
walk up!--all prizes and no blanks; for some few win, and as to the
rest, why--

"The rapture of pursuing
Is the prize the vanquished gain."


ON THE WEATHER.