Page:Stevenson - Virginibus Puerisque (1881).djvu/290

 and haunted, even at night, by flaming dial-plates. For we are all so busy, and have so many far-off projects to realise, and castles in the fire to turn into solid habitable mansions on a gravel soil, that we can find no time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among the Hills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we must sit all night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed world for most of us, when we find we can pass the hours without discontent and be happy thinking. We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts namely, to live. We fall in love, we drink hard, we run to and fro upon the earth like frightened sheep.

And now you are to ask yourself if, when all is done, you would not have been better to sit by the fire at home, and be happy think-