And perhaps--I yet further speculate,--the phenomena called "literary genius" and "artistic ability" are vexatious little mishaps, a trifle gone wrong, in the broad working out of a plan which they minutely hamper.... So the contretemps is remedied. The person afflicted with "genius" is removed, be it by his other diseases or by his fellows' natural dislike of him, it hardly matters: either way, there is by ordinary in his removal a smack of haste: and you will note that, whether in polity or mercy, it is somehow provided that his children do not inherit his affliction.... So does life seem to keep her pawns from errancy. So does she seem to restrict them, with now and then some show of pettishness, to the arena and service of her large and dim and patient gaming: and wisdom bids us emulate this patience, in the time that we get bread and children, and strive to die with no more of active discomfort than may be unavoidable. And yet, even so, in the bared teeth of outraged reason, no one of us rests quite content to be a mere transmitter of semen, and to serve as one of many millions of instruments in life's inexplicable labor, used for a little while as such, and then put by, worn out and finished with forever. We appeal against oblivion. And not only does the shatter-pated artist appeal: the Pharaohs have filed pyramidic caveats, the best-thought-of business-men yet enter demurrers in the form of public libraries: there is no tomb-stone however modest but insanely appeals to posterity to keep in mind somebody's dates of birth and death and middle name. For we will to continue here, in the world known to us, to continue if only as syllables. We all will not to be forgotten utterly by those that must so soon inherit our familiar dear estate of tedium and muddle-headedness and fret and failure; and that in our places will get bread and children; and that after our going will in our beds be striving to die with no more of active discomfort than may be unavoidable. Yet here is an odd thing: we can pretend to offer no example worth the following, not even any salutary instance of just what to avoid; nor can we, in any of the limbos which have been divinely revealed, thus far, derive from being so remembered one minim of profit. We are spurred by neither altruism nor self-seeking; the counsellor that persuades to the appeal remains anonymous: and it seems that, here again, some power which mocks at reason, or at least at human reason, is moving us to serve unknown but, one suspects, not unappointed ends. For we do not know, either here or elsewhere, what ends may be appointed: but we do know, I think, that every wise man will avoid too much of guesswork, in the brief while that he gets bread and children, and patiently foreplans to die with no more of active discomfort than is unavoidable. § 93