LEAF AND TENDRIL 



We should not be here blustering around and 

 sitting in judgment upon the ways of the Eternal, 

 had not the ways of the Eternal been without vari- 

 ableness, or shadow of turning. If we or our for- 

 tunes go down prematurely beneath the currents, 

 it is because the currents are vital, and do never 

 and can never cease nor turn aside. The weakest 

 force must give way, and the rotten timber break 

 before the sound. We may fancy that there might 

 be a better universe, but we cannot conceive of a 

 better because our minds are the outcome of things 

 as they are, and all our ideas of value are based 

 upon the lessons we learn in this world. 



Nature is as regardless of a planet or a sun as 

 of a bubble upon the river, has one no more at 

 heart than the other. How many suns have gone 

 out? How many planets have perished?- If the 

 earth should collide with some heavenly body to- 

 day and all its life be extinguished, would it not 

 be just like spendthrift Nature ? She has infinite 

 worlds left, and out of old she makes new. You 

 cannot lose or destroy heat or force, nor add to 

 them, though you seem to do so. Nature wins in 

 every game because she bets on both sides. If her 

 suns or systems fail, it is, after all, her laws that 

 succeed. A burnt-out sun vindicates the constancy 

 of her forces. 



As individuals we sufiPer defeat, injustice, pain, 

 sorrow, premature death; multitudes perish to 

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