Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/34

 and so it must be wrung out, though the heart be crushed into agony in the process. You talk of suffering being pure waste; I tell you it is all pure gain. You talk of self as the motive to exertion; I tell you it is the abnegation of self which has wrought out all that is noble, all that is good, all that is useful, nearly all that is ornamental in the world. Shut the house-door on him, and the man must needs go forth to work in the fields. It is not the dreamer wrapped in his fancied bliss, from whom you are to expect heroic efforts, either of mind or body. You must dig your goad into the ox to make him use his latent strength; you must drive your spurs into the horse to get out of him his utmost speed. Wake the dreamer roughly—drive spurs and goad into his heart. He will wince and writhe, and roll and gnash his teeth, but I defy him to lie still. He must up and be doing, from sheer torture.