ll, there is no harm in that; for you do not harm the others, even if
you win. They will have learnt all the more, while trying for the prize;
and so will you, even if you don't get it. But I tell you fairly, trying
for prizes is only fit for a child; and when you become a man, you must
put away childish things--competition among the rest.

But surely I may try to be better and wiser and more learned than
everybody else?

My dearest child, why try for that? Try to be as good, and wise, and
learned as you can, and if you find any man, or ten thousand men,
superior to you, thank God for it. Do you think that there can be too
much wisdom in the world?

Of course not: but I should like to be the wisest man in it.

Then you would only have the heaviest burden of all men on your
shoulders.

Why?

Because you would be responsible for more foolish people than any one
else. Remember what wise old Moses said, when some one came and told him
that certain men in the camp were prophesying--"Would God all the Lord's
people did prophesy!" Yes; it would have saved Moses many a heartache,
and many a sleepless night, if all the Jews had been wise as he was, and
wiser still. So do not you compete with good and wise men, but simply
copy them: and whatever you do, do not compete with the wolves, and the
apes, and the swine of this world; for that is a game at which you are
sure to be beaten.

Why?

Because Lady Why, if she loves you (as I trust she does), will take care
that you are beaten, lest you should fancy it was really profitable to
live like a cunning sort of animal, and not like a true man. And how she
will do that I can tell you. She will take care that you always come
across a worse man than you are trying to be,--a more apish man, who can
tumble and play monkey-tricks for people's amusement better than you can;
or a more swinish man, who can get at more of the pig's-wash than you
can; or a more wolfish man, who will eat you up if you do not get out of
his way; and so she will disappoint and disgust you, my child, with that
greedy, selfish, vain animal life, till you turn round and see your
mistake, and try to live the true human life, which also is divine;--to
be just and honourable, gentle and forgiving, generous and useful--in one
word, to fear God, and keep His commandments: and as you live that life,
you will find that, by the eternal laws of Lady Why, all other things
will be added to you; that people wil