"
Yes, it is enough. We accept the verdict of mortality uncomplainingly--nay,
we would not wish it to be reversed, even if that were possible.
Now this question must not be confounded with that other, rather foolish,
question, "Is Life worth living?" The group round the smoking-room fire
would have answered that question--if they had troubled to answer it at
all--with an instant and scornful "Yes." They had all found life a great
and splendid adventure; they had made good and wholesome use of it; they
would not surrender a moment of its term or a fragment of its many-coloured
experience. And that is the case with all healthy-minded people. We may,
like Job, in moments of depression curse the day when we were born; but the
curse dies on our lips. Swift, it is true, kept his birthday as a day of
mourning; but no man who hates humanity can hope to find life endurable,
for the measure of our sympathies is the measure of our joy in living.
Even those who take the most hopeless view of life are careful to keep out
of mischief.
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