lions of bubbles like us and shall pour."

Why not? Should life stop with you? What have you done that you should
mark the end of time? If you have played your part in the procession of
bubbles, all is well, though the best you can do is to leave the world a
little better for the next that follows.

If you have not made life a little richer and its conditions a little
more just by your living you have not touched the world. You are indeed
a bubble. If some kind friend somewhere "turn down an empty glass," it
will be the best monument you deserve. But to have had a friend is to
leave the glass not wholly empty, for life is justified in love as well
as in action.

The words of Omar need to be read with the rising inflection, and they
become the expression of exultant hopefulness.

"The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured
Millions of bubbles and shall pour!"

Small though we are the story is not all told when we are dead. The huge
procession goes on and shall go on, till the secret of the grand
symphony of life is reached.

"A single note in the Eternal Song
A perfect Singer hath had need for me."

* * *

"I do rejoice that when of Thee and Me
Men speak no longer, yet not less but more
The Eternal Saki still that bowl shall fill
And ever fairer, clearer bubbles pour."

In the same way we must read with the rising inflection the lines of
Tennyson:

"I falter when I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares,
Upon the World's great altar-stairs
That slope through darkness, up to god!"

Read these words with courage, and with the upward turn of the voice at
the end. It is no longer in the darkness that we falter. The great
altar-stairs of which no man knows the beginning nor the end, do not
spring from the mire nor end in the mists. They "slope through darkness
up to God," and no one could ask a stronger expression of that robust
optimism which must be the mainspring of successful life.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of Despair, by David Starr Jordan

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR ***

***** This file should be named 4754.txt or 4754.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/5/4754/

Produced by David A. Schwan. HTML version by Al Haines.

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the