on through the heat and the crowd and the dust--on, or they will
be trampled down and lost--on, with throbbing brain and tottering
limbs--on, till the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow blurred, and a
gurgling groan tells those behind they may close up another space.

And yet, in spite of the killing pace and the stony track, who but
the sluggard or the dolt can hold aloof from the course? Who--like the
belated traveler that stands watching fairy revels till he snatches and
drains the goblin cup and springs into the whirling circle--can view the
mad tumult and not be drawn into its midst? Not I, for one. I confess to
the wayside arbor, the pipe of contentment, and the lotus-leaves
being altogether unsuitable metaphors. They sounded very nice and
philosophical, but I'm afraid I am not the sort of person to sit in
arbors smoking pipes when there is any fun going on outside. I think
I more resemble the Irishman who, seeing a crowd collecting, sent his
little girl out to ask if there was going to be a row--"'Cos, if so,
father would like to be in it."

I love the fierce strife. I like to watch it. I like to hear of people
getting on in it--battling their way bravely and fairly--that is, not
slipping through by luck or trickery. It stirs one's old Saxon fighting
blood like the tales of "knights who fought 'gainst fearful odds" that
thrilled us in our school-boy days.

And fighting the battle of life is fighting against fearful odds, too.
There are giants and dragons in this nineteenth century, and the golden
casket that they guard is not so easy to win as it appears in the
story-books. There, Algernon takes one long, last look at the ancestral
hall, dashes the tear-drop from his eye, and goes off--to return in
three years' time, rolling in riches. The authors do not tell us "how
it's done," which is a pity, for it would surely prove exciting.

But then not one novelist in a thousand ever does tell us the real story
of their hero. They linger for a dozen pages over a tea-party, but sum
up a life's history with "he had become one of our merchant princes," or
"he was now a great artist, with the world at his feet." Why, there
is more real life in one of Gilbert's patter-songs than in half the
biographical novels ever written. He relates to us all the various steps
by which his office-boy rose to be the "ruler of the queen's navee," and
explains to us how the briefless barrister managed to become a great and
good judge, "rea