, their central flame
brighter, their power of endurance larger. This inequality of gift may
be a religious difficulty, but it fits in with the whole economy of
Nature, who is a Mother at once bountiful and prodigal, and while
careful of the type, careless of the individual life; bidding one soul
but open unconscious eyes upon the world and close them again, while
another moves through the slow changes of ninety years. But it is easier
to understand when we remember that a just God asks account only of what
He has given. Within the narrowest fate is yet room to round off the
perfect sphere. Of the lily that blooms to-day and fades to-morrow, He
demands only that it shall be sweet and beautiful in its season.

Energy is largely, though perhaps not wholly, a physical quality. It
comes of a certain superb vitality, a power of unconscious living,
well-strung nerves, a quickly-working brain. I know the wonders which an
eager will and a keen conscience can work, with no better instrument
than a frail body, always full of languors, always accessible to pain;
and I bow before them in glad reverence, as tokens of the spirit's
victory over the flesh. But this, though undoubtedly from a moral point
of view not inferior, is not the same thing as the easy swing of mind
and body which is not only always equal to its work, but finds its
keenest delight in strenuous efforts and long-drawn toils, which would
hopelessly overtax weaker men. And there is an obvious connection
between this kind of vitality and that which shows itself in life
prolonged far beyond the usual limits. Men and women do not live the
longer for sparing themselves, even were long life under such
conditions worth having. I admit the wearing power of fretting anxiety,
of sorrow that saps the springs of life, of labour pushed to contempt of
the physical and moral conditions of existence; but honest work for an
honest purpose, the full exercise of all the powers from day to day, the
steady strain of faculties that were meant for strain and which rust in
disuse, never hurt any one yet. But the temptations of exuberant
vitality are all, if not to over-strain, yet to a certain hardness, and
arrogance, and disregard of eternal law. It is not complimentary to
human nature to note that perfectly healthy people, whom nothing tries
and who are ignorant of pain, are seldom tolerant, tender, sympathetic,
with lives that in one important constituent of happiness are far
beneath th