Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/31

 been a mistake? The food he ate, the clothes he wore, the house he lived in—were not these simply wasted? His efforts were waste, his wear-and-tear of body and mind were waste, above all, his sorrows and his sufferings were sheer, unpardonable waste. Yes, here I take my stand. I leave you every enjoyment to be found in creation, physical, moral, and intellectual. I make you a present of the elephant wallowing in his mud-bath, and the midge wheeling in the sun; I give you Juliet at her window, and Archimedes in his study; but I reserve the whale in her death-flurry, and the worm on its hook. I appeal to Jephthah sorrowing for his darling, and Rachel weeping for her children. I repeat, if that self-care, which indeed constitutes our very identity, be the object of existence, then all those tearful eyes that blur the light of every rising sun—all those aching hearts that long only for