30 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
and materials—wood, ivory, steel, and gutta-percha. 
These painful moments over, with no result except 
the re-opening of a wound that wished to heal, 
there would be nothing more for me to do but to 
lie watching the flies, as I have said, and dreaming. 
To conclude this vari-coloured chapter, I may here 
remark that some of the happiest moments of my life 
have been occasioned by those very circumstances 
which one would imagine would have made me most 
unhappy—by grave accidents, and sickness, which 
have disabled and cast me a burden upon strangers ; 
and by adversity,— 
Which, like a toad, ugly and venomous, 
Yet wears a precious jewel in its head. 
Familiar words, but here newly interpreted ; for 
this jewel which I have found—man’s love for man, 
and the law of helpful kindness written in the heart 
—is worthy to be prized above all our possessions, 
and is most beautiful, outshining the lapidary’s 
gems, and of so sovereign a virtue that cynicism 
itself grows mute and ashamed in its light. 
