We have long since emerged from the heroic childhood of our race, when
good and evil could be met with the same "frolic welcome"; the attempts
to escape from evil, whether Indian or Greek, have ended in flight
from the battle-field; it remains to us to throw aside the youthful
over-confidence and the no less youthful discouragement of nonage. We
are grown men, and must play the man
strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,
cherishing the good that falls in our way, and bearing the evil, in and
around us, with stout hearts set on diminishing it. So far, we all may
strive in one faith towards one hope:
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
.... but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note may yet be done.