A SHADOW 233 
ence, could we have joy like such as these, 
and ask no more. This is the hearty physical 
basis of animated life, and as step by step the 
savage creeps up to the possession of intellec- 
tual manhood, each advance brings with it new 
_ sorrow and new joy, with the joy always in 
excess. 
There are many who will utterly disavow this 
creed that life is desirable in itself. A fair 
woman in a ball-room, exquisitely dressed, and 
possessed of all that wealth could give, once 
declared to me her belief —and I think hon- 
estly —that no person over thirty was. con- 
sciously happy, or would wish to live, but for 
the fear of death. There could not even be 
pleasure in contemplating one’s children, she 
asserted, since they were living in such a world 
of sorrow. Asking the opinion, within half an 
hour, of another woman as fair and as favored 
by fortune, I found directly the opposite ver- 
dict. “For my part I can truly say,” she an- 
swered, “that I enjoy every moment I live.” 
The varieties of temperament and of physical 
condition will always afford us these extremes ; 
but the truth lies between them, and most per- 
sons will endure many sorrows and still find 
life sweet. 
And the mother’s kiss welcomes the child 
into a world where good predominates as well 
