ies
of the country as you advance, which will be found invaluable in the
case of a hurried or a disastrous return. And thus, when some months
have passed by, you will look back with surprise on the great distance
travelled over; for if you average only three miles a day, at the end of
the year you will have advanced 1000, which is a very considerable
exploration. The fable of the hare and the tortoise seems expressly
intended for travellers over wide and unknown tracts."

Yes, we ought to interest ourselves chiefly in the progress of our work,
and not to look forward to its end with eagerness. That eagerness of
which Mr. Galton speaks has spoiled many a piece of work besides a
geographical exploration, and it not only spoils work, but it does
worse, it spoils life also. How am I to enjoy this year as I ought, if I
am continually wishing it were over? A truly intellectual philosophy
must begin by recognizing the fact that the intellectual paths are
infinitely long, that there will always be new horizons behind the
horizon that is before us, and that we must accept a gradual advance as
the law of our intellectual life. It is our business to move forwards,
but we ought to do so without any greater feeling of hurry than that
which affects the most stationary of minds. Not a bad example for us is
a bargeman's wife in a canal-boat. She moves; movement is the law of her
life; yet she is as tranquil in her little cabin as any goodwife on
shore, brewing her tea and preparing her buttered toast without ever
thinking about getting to the end of her journey. For if that voyage
were ended, another would always succeed to it, and another! In striking
contrast to the unhurried bargeman's wife in her cabin is an irritable
Frenchman in the corner of a diligence, looking at his watch every
half-hour, and wishing that the dust and rattle were over, and he were
in his own easy-chair at home. Those who really lead the intellectual
life, and have embraced it for better and for worse, are like the
bargeman's wife; but those who live the life from time to time only, for
some special purpose, wishing to be rid of it as soon as that purpose is
accomplished, are like the sufferer in the purgatory of the diligence.
Is there indeed really any true intellectual life at all when every hour
of labor is spoiled by a feverish eagerness to be at the end of the
projected task? You cannot take a bit out of another man's life and live
it, without having liv