ealth, without beholding in his mind that monstrous
flat-fish, blind and deaf with age, rotting at ease upon the Atlantic
slime? Life is not measured by the ticking of a clock, and it is no new
thing to discover eternity in a minute. "I have not time to make money,"
said the naturalist, Agassiz, when his friends advised some pecuniary
advantage; and, in the same way, every really fortunate man says he has
no time to bother about living. So soon as a human being does anything
simply because he thinks it will "do him good," and not for pleasure,
interest, or service, he should withdraw from this present world as
gracefully as he can. Of course, we all want to live, but even in death
there can hardly be anything so very awful, since it is so common.

"The Kingdom of Heaven is not meat and drink." "He that loses his life
shall find it," said one Teacher. "Live dangerously," said another; and
"Try to be killed" is still the best advice for a soldier who would
rise. For life is to be measured by its intensity, and not by the
tapping of a death-watch beetle. "I've lost my appetite. I can't eat!"
groaned the patient whom Carlyle knew. "My dear sir, that is not of the
slightest consequence," replied the good physician; and how wise are
those scientists who deny to invalids the existence of their pain! Sir
George Birdwood recalled the saying of Plato that attention to health is
one of the greatest hindrances to life, and I vaguely remember Plato's
commendation of the working-man, who, in illness, just takes a dose, and
if that doesn't cure him, remarks, "If I must die, I must die," and
dies accordingly. That is how the working-man dies still; though
sometimes he is now buoyed up by the thought of his funeral's grandeur.
"A certain playful devilry of spirit," "a ceaseless militancy"--for life
or death those are the best regulations.

XXXVII

"LIBERTE, LIBERTE, CHERIE!"

Just escaped from the prison-house of Russia, I had reached Marseilles.
The whole city, the bay, and the surrounding hills, bright with villas
and farms, glittered in sunshine. So did the spidery bridge that swings
the ferry across the Old Harbour's mouth. Even the fortifications looked
quite amiable under such a sky. Booming sirens sounded the approach of
great liners, moving slowly to their appointed docks. Little steamers
hurried from point to point along the shores with crowded decks, and the
lighthouses stood white against the Mediterranean blue.