hen they come, that they forget to ask if the curve they have been
carried through on its circumference was circular or cycloidal; whether
they have been bound to the ups and downs of a mill-wheel or of a
chariot-wheel.

That phrase, of "getting on," so perpetually on our lips (as indeed it
should be), do any of us take it to our hearts, and seriously ask where
we can get on _to_? That instinct of hurry has surely good grounds. It
is all very well for lazy and nervous people (like myself for instance)
to retreat into tubs, and holes, and corners, anywhere out of the dust,
and wonder within ourselves, "what all the fuss can be about?" The fussy
people might have the best of it, if they know their end. Suppose they
were to answer this March or May morning thus:--"Not bestir ourselves,
indeed! and the spring sun up these four hours!--and this first of May,
1865, never to come back again; and of Firsts of May in perspective,
supposing ourselves to be 'nel mezzo del cammin,' perhaps some twenty or
twenty-five to be, not without presumption, hoped for, and by no means
calculated upon. Say, twenty of them, with their following groups of
summer days; and though they may be long, one cannot make much more than
sixteen hours apiece out of them, poor sleepy wretches that we are; for
even if we get up at four, we must go to bed while the red yet stays
from the sunset: and half the time we are awake, we must be lying among
haycocks, or playing at something, if we are wise; not to speak of
eating, and previously earning whereof to eat, which takes time: and
then, how much of us and of our day will be left for getting on? Shall
we have a seventh, or even a tithe, of our twenty-four hours?--two hours
and twenty-four minutes clear, a day, or, roughly, a thousand hours a
year, and (violently presuming on fortune, as we said) twenty years of
working life: twenty thousand hours to get on in, altogether? Many men
would think it hard to be limited to an utmost twenty thousand pounds
for their fortunes, but here is a sterner limitation; the Pactolus of
time, sand, and gold together, would, with such a fortune, count us a
pound an hour, through our real and serviceable life. If this time
capital would reproduce itself! and for our twenty thousand hours we
could get some rate of interest, if well spent? At all events, we will
do something with them; not lie moping out of the way of the dust, as
you do."

62. A sufficient answer, indeed; yet, f