easure with her eye the depth of the ravine, or its width. A
step back, another forward, an almost superhuman leap, and she has
cleared the awful chasm.... 'Look before you leap,' is one of caution's
maxims. We may stand looking till it is too late to leap. There are
times when we _must_ put our 'fate to the touch, to win or lose it all;'
there are times when doubt, hesitation, caution is certain destruction.
You are crossing a frozen pond, firm by the shore, but as you near the
centre, the ice beneath your feet begins to crack; hesitate, attempt to
retrace your steps, and you are gone. Did you ever cross a rapid stream
on an unhewn foot-log? You looked down at the swift current, stopped,
turned back, and over you went. You would climb a steep mountain-side.
Half-way up, look not from the dizzy hight, but press on, grasping every
tough laurel and bare root; but hasten, the laurel may break, and you
lose your footing. 'If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all;' but once
resolved to climb, leave thy caution at the foot. Before you give battle
to the enemy, be cautious, reckon well your chances of winning or
losing; above all, be sure of the justice of your cause; but once flung
into the fierce fight, then with _'Dieu et mon droit!'_ for your
battle-cry, let not 'discretion' be _any_ 'part of' your 'valor.'

Then your careful, hesitating people are cautious where there is no need
of caution, they feel their way on the highways and by-ways of life, as
you have seen a person when fording a stream with whose bed he was
unacquainted. I'd rather fall down and pick myself up a dozen times a
day, than thus grope my way along.

There is Nancy Primrose. I have good reason to remember her. She was, in
my childhood, always held up to me as a pattern. She used to come to
school with such smooth, clean pantalets, while mine were splashed with
mud, drabbled by the wet grass, or all wrinkles from having been rolled
up. She would go around a rod to avoid a mud-puddle, or if she availed
herself of the board laid down for the benefit of pedestrians, she
never, as I was sure to do, stepped on one end, so the other came down
with a splash. The starch never was taken out of her sun-bonnet by the
rain, for if there was 'a cloud as big as a man's hand,' she took an
umbrella. It was well that she never climbed the mountain-side, for she
would have surely fallen. It was well that she never crossed a foot-log,
unless it was hewn and had a railing,