d against me that I have squandered my life, that
with all my learning, such as it is, I have achieved nothing. I once
thought so. I boasted of it in my diary when I complacently styled
myself a waster in Earth's factory. Oh, that diary! Let me here solemnly
retract and abjure every crude and idiot opinion and reflection of life
set forth in that frenetic record! I regard myself not as a waster--I
remember a passage in Epictetus treating of the ways of Providence:

"For what else can I do, a lame old man, than sing hymns to God? If then
I were a nightingale I would do the part of a nightingale: if I were
a swan, I would do like a swan. But now I am a rational creature and I
ought to praise God; this is my work, I do it, nor will I desert this
post so long as I am allowed to keep it; and I exhort you to join in
this same song."

No, I am neither nightingale nor swan, and cannot add, as they do,
to the beauty of the earth. The lame old man has his limitations; but
within them, he can, by cleaving to his post and praising God, fulfil
his destiny.

Carlotta coming onto the housetop to summon me to lunch looks over my
shoulder as I write these words.

"But you are not a lame old man!" she cries in indignation. "You are the
youngest and strongest and cleverest man in the world!"

"What am I to do with these miraculous gifts?" I ask, laughing.

"You are to become famous," she says, with conviction.

"Very well, my dear. We will have to go to some new land where attaining
fame is easier for a beginner than in London; and we'll send for
Antoinette and Stenson to help us."

"That will be very nice," she observes.

So I am to become famous. _Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut_. And
Carlotta has got a soul of her own now and means to make the most of
it. It will lead me upward somewhere. But whether I am to be king of
New Babylon or Prime Minister of New Zealand or lawgiver to a Polynesian
tribe is a secret as yet hidden in the lap of the gods, whence Carlotta
doubtless will snatch it in her own good time.

"You are writing a lot of rubbish," says Carlotta.

"And a little truth. The mixture is Life," I answer.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, by William J. Locke

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