But there is another and a greater source of consolation. It was Drummond, I think, who originated the expression, _the struggle for the life of others_, making it cover all the activities to which we are prompted by love. Of these activities the most important is home-making, and it is the opportunity that home affords for merging _the struggle for life_ into _the struggle for the life of others_ that takes the sting from the work necessary for self-preservation. Thus, in providing a shelter to protect himself from the elements and to keep him in condition for work, man, if he be a home-maker, performs the same service for those he loves; and in providing for herself food that shall fit her to be an efficient working member of society, woman, if she be a home-maker, performs the same service for those who are bound to her by affection. Herein lies the second source of consolation for the fact that the greater part of our time and energy must be given to securing and caring for the machinery of life. In getting ready to live, and in helping others to get ready to live--in these two ways we spend the greater part of our lives. But there are some activities in life which are simply a part of living. Of these, or of part of them, Browning makes David sing in “Saul”: Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir tree, the cool, silver shock Of the plunge in a pool’s living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair, And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine, And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy! To the pleasures which are here suggested, and which are chiefly those of the senses, should be added, if we are to have anything like a complete list, those pleasures which come from going to the theater, from listening to music, and from looking at works of art, providing, of course, we do not take any of them too seriously; those pleasures which come from social intercourse with friends, and which are not dependent upon “improving conversation,” but which spring from the opportunity to be near and to talk with those we love; and those pleasures which come from meditation on life and its meaning, but which do not involve any effort to straighten out its tangles. “Improving” conversation and efforts to achieve artistic appreciation and to make the world better are parts of life, but they are also parts of its struggle, and therefore must be excluded from “the joys of mere living.”