Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/74

 camping-places of the soul, for a night's stay on the march of life, to refresh the straining muscles, but the business of life—is the March.

Difficulties are God's errands.' Didn't Beecher used to say that?" The man watched a distant solitary climber, who had turned himself away from the rough main trail, in an attempt to scale up an almost sheer cliff. "Why does that lad attempt that? Well—just life! Characteristic. An illustration."

But tackling those difficulties of the climb makes sure the muscles and trains the eye to take advantage of every opportunity and teaches the foot to respond almost before the conscious brain has given its command to take this step or to avoid that loose stone, till at last one moves with an ease and sureness and precision that is bewildering for the untried to watch. The Mountain-Lover recalled a sentence that he had heard William James say over and over: "Into our instant decisions go all our past selves;