WE do our little stunt on earth, and when it’s time to die, “The ice we
cut has little worth—we wasted time,” we sigh. When one has snow above
his ears, and age has chilled his veins, he looks back on the vanished
years, his spirit racked with pains. However well he may have done, it
all seems trifling then; alas, if he could only run his little course
again! He would not then so greatly prize the sordid silver plunk; for
when a man grows old and wise, he knows that coin is junk. One kindly
action of the past, if such you can recall, will soothe you greatly at
the last when memory is All. If you have helped some pilgrim climb from
darkness and despair, that action, in your twilight time, will ease your
weight of care. The triumphs of your business day, by stealth or
sharpness gained, will seem, when you are tired and gray, to leave your
record stained. Ah, comrade, in the dusk of life, when you have ceased
your grind, when all your strategy and strife are left for aye behind,
when you await the curtain’s fall, the setting of the sun, how you will
struggle to recall the good that you have done!
------------------------------------------------------------------------