THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
65 
ings than we should have carried away had we 
departed with nothing but the remembrance 
of our night’s floundering among its bogs and 
mud-holes. But then, the sum-total of the ex¬ 
perience is only as a flash of light in the dark¬ 
ness; the moment’s illumination leaves the 
gloom more intense than it was before. We 
cannot always thus dally along the pathway of 
life, and its brief resting-places are too few and 
far between, and only serve to make the thoughts 
of journeying from one to the other more pain¬ 
ful ; indeed, every new indulgence only makes 
me shrink with a greater reluctance from mak¬ 
ing another effort.” 
“ Well, I am sorry,” replied his companion, 
“ and I much fear that the cold chicken and 
sandwiches have not set well, or that Miss Min¬ 
nie has somehow disturbed your equanimity, so 
that you have not quite got the true intent of 
Doctor Dean’s instructions. If I have correctly 
understood him, he is trying to show us that 
the bright spots in life’s progress are neither so 
few nor far between as we often imagine; nay, 
rather, that there is really no gap at all, except 
as we make one ourselves, the pathway being 
one of continued radiance if we will only open 
Q* E 
