PSEUDO-PESSIMISM. 365 



things as the journey drew to a close, I could not 

 help feeling how great are the rewards that a traveller 

 reaps, even irrespective of anything he may learn, or 

 of the suggestions to thought that a voyage of this 

 kind cannot fail to bear with it How much is life 

 made fuller and richer by the stock of images laid 

 up in the marvellous storehouse of the brain, to be 

 summoned, one knows not when or how, by some 

 hidden train of association — shifting scenes that serve 

 to beautify many a common and prosaic moment of 

 life! 



Often during this return voyage my thoughts 

 recurred to an article in some periodical lent to me 

 by my kind friends at Petropolis, wherein the writer, 

 with seeming gravity, discussed the question whether 

 life is worth living. My first impression, as I well 

 remember, was somewhat contemptuous pity for the 

 man whose mind could be so profoundly diseased as 

 even to ask such a question, as for a soldier who, with 

 the trumpet-call sounding in his ear, should stop to 

 inquire whether the battle was worth fighting. When 

 one remembers how full life is of appeals to the active 

 faculties of man, and how the exertion of each of 

 these brings its correlative satisfaction ; how the world, 

 in the first place, needs the daily labour of the majority 

 of our race ; how much there is yet to be learned, and 

 how much to be taught to the ignorant ; what constant 

 demand there is for the spirit "of sympathy to alleviate 

 suffering in our fellows ; how much beauty exists to 

 be enjoyed, and, it may be, to be brought home to 

 others ; — one is tempted to ask if the man who halts 

 to discuss whether life is worth living can have a 



