PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 107 



upon comfort, nor yet upon safety. The essen- 

 tial matter is that the heart be engaged. Then, 

 though we be toiling up the Matterliorn, or 

 swept along in the rush of a bayonet charge, 

 we may still find existence not only endurable, 

 but in the highest degree exhilarating. On 

 the other hand, if there is no longer anything 

 we care for ; if enthusiasm is dead, and hope 

 also, then, though we have all that money can 

 buy, suicide is perhaps the only fitting action 

 that is left for us, unless, perchance, we are 

 still able to pass the time in writing treatises to 

 prove that everybody else oughtx to be as un- 

 happy as ourselves. 



Birds have many enemies and their full share 

 of privation, but I do not believe that they of- 

 ten suffer from ennui. Having " neither store- 

 house nor barn," l they are never in want of 

 something to do. From sunrise till noon there 

 is the getting of breakfast, then from noon till 

 sunset the getting of dinner, both out-of- 

 doors, and without any trouble of cookery or 

 dishes, a kind of perpetual picnic. What 



1 The shrike lays up grasshoppers and sparrows, and the Cali- 

 fornia woodpecker hoards great numbers of acorns, but it is still 

 in dispute, I believe, whether thrift is the motive with either of 

 them. Considering what has often been done in similar cases, we 

 may think it surprising that the Scripture text above quoted (to- 

 gether with its exegetical parallel, Matthew vi. 26) has never been 

 brought into court to settle the controversy ; but to the best of my 

 knowledge it never has been. 



