Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/35

 flying to one remedy after another till he gets to work, and so finds distraction, solace, presently comfort, and, after a while, looking yet higher, hope, happiness, and reward.

"Self, indeed! He is fain to forget self, because that therewith is bound up so much, it would drive him mad to remember; and thus sorrow-taught, he merges his own identity in the community of which he is but an atom, taking his first step, though at a humble and immeasurable distance, in the sacred track of self-sacrifice, on which, after more than eighteen hundred years, the foot-prints are still fresh, still ineffaceable. Waste, forsooth! Let him weep his heart out if he will! I tell you that the deeper the furrows are scored, the heavier shall be the harvest, the richer the garnered grain. I tell you, not a tear falls but it fertilizes some barren spot, from which hereafter shall come up the