Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Lesley Halamek, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net * * * * * Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 105, September 2nd 1893 _edited by Sir Francis Burnand_ * * * * * LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS. TO FAILURE [Illustration] _Ecce iterum!_ Well, why not? So long as I do not exanimate you with my letters, I remain content. Besides, I have not yet fully-developed all my theories. Let us, therefore, continue to chat together for a little. I cannot proceed for ever by the negative method. No doubt I might in the end, exhaust the list of those who are not your subjects, but the process would be long, and, I fear, tedious. No; I must come to the point and produce my cases. What shall we say of them, then? HOOD declares that-- "There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea." and so forth; doubtless you remember the sonnet. Not there, however, is the true silence-- "But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, Though the dun fox, or wild hyena calls, And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,-- There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone." As with silence, so with failure, say I. The man who has never felt the spur of ambition nor the intoxication of a success, who has travelled always upon the level tracts of an unaspiring satisfaction, on him, surely, failure sets no mark, and disappointment has for him no stings. But the poor souls who soar only to sink, who melt their waxen wings in the fierce heat of the sun, and fall crashing to earth, theirs is the lot for pity. And yet it is not well to be too sure. For in the eyes of the world a man may be cheated of his purpose, and yet gain for himself the peace, the sober, contented joy, which is more to him than the flaunting trophies of open success. And some clasp the goddess in their arms, only to wither and decay in the embrace they sought with so eager a passion. But I tarry, while time creeps on.