Life is a book in which we read a page a day. We can’t read a page ahead; we cannot turn clear over to the last chapter to see how it ends, because we write the story ourselves, setting the type, as a good compositor can do, from the copy of our own thoughts and actions, till the evening of each day runs off the edition. The best compositor is he who sets each day’s page with the fewest errors, and wastes the least time correcting a “dirty proof.” Even with the best of us, much of each day’s page is an “errata” correcting the mistakes of yesterday. Unsinkable ships--the bottom of the sea is covered with them. Invulnerable armor--it cumbers the reefs, full of holes. Incontrovertible arguments and incontestable theories--they lie dusting in the scrap-heaps of history and philosophy, answered, contradicted, disproved and thrown away. But the pages are--or should be--growing cleaner every day. The compositor learns. The child is fearless, knowing nothing. So he grasps the flaming candle. The old man is cautious, knowing too much. He knows that ice burns like fire. And another thing to be remembered about this book of life which every one of us is writing, each for himself. The pages are all the same size--twenty-four hours, brevier measure. “The evening and the morning was the first day.” That established the standard. And every morning the inexorable office boy with the intolerable name stands at your door shouting “copy!” And you’ve got to furnish it. Got to. Got to. Got to. Kill your grandmother once a week to get to the ball game if you will--that goes into your “story” and fills up that day’s page. That’s life.