You must pay honestly and fairly for everything you receive,
and for all you become. What we procure for nothing is not worth while.
We are only cheating ourselves miserably when we attempt to get what is
best through bribes and pass through the gates on false pretences.
Whatever we have been told, we feel that we cannot follow the newspaper
advertisements in these things and buy redemption at closing-out bargain
sales. No one can grow for another, no one can acquire, no one can
become for another, no one can be saved by proxy or buy salvation. Each
must work and suffer and struggle his way up.
"I see that you are a little incredulous about these things," he said,
after a short silence. "Do you find it hard to follow me? I know exactly
what I mean, only the difficulty lies in making you see it as I do. No;
don't be in haste. Let's walk a little more. I am afraid your education
is being sadly neglected; I haven't talked at you for some time. No; I
never hasten. Whenever I am in a great hurry to get to a place of the
most urgent necessity I walk into a second-hand book store, like those
on Fourth avenue, and look at the titles and read the prefaces of old
and odd volumes. Never mind the swarming, surging, scurrying crowds.
They are attending to the world's business, and make it possible for me
to be idle and look on.
"But what I was driving at is this: That there is one life and many
theories of it, that most of these theories are a disgrace even to
Sunday schools, that it's all hitting the nail on the finger. While
these theories would have us go by various little walks and byways and
lanes and alleys, life prompts us to take to the open road that leads to
strength and happiness. While these theories would have us thwart and
stifle and starve our desires, life forces us to give them full play in
spite of all conventions and creeds, and the result is civilization and
all its blessings. Way down into the recesses of our souls we are so
deeply religious that we all do better than we believe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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