rt again. Thus men
will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make
an effort to get up.

As for the comparative demand which men make on life, it is an important
difference between two, that the one is satisfied with a level success,
that his marks can all be hit by point-blank shots, but the other,
however low and unsuccessful his life may be, constantly elevates his
aim, though at a very slight angle to the horizon. I should much rather
be the last man,--though, as the Orientals say, "Greatness doth not
approach him who is forever looking down; and all those who are looking
high are growing poor."

It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be remembered
written on the subject of getting a living: how to make getting a living
not merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious;
for if _getting_ a living is not so, then living is not. One would
think, from looking at literature, that this question had never
disturbed a solitary individual's musings. Is it that men are too much
disgusted with their experience to speak of it? The lesson of value
which money teaches, which the Author of the Universe has taken so much
pains to teach us, we are inclined to skip altogether. As for the means
of living, it is wonderful how indifferent men of all classes are about
it, even reformers, so called,--whether they inherit, or earn, or steal
it. I think that society has done nothing for us in this respect, or at
least has undone what she has done. Cold and hunger seem more friendly
to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to
ward them off.

The title _wise_ is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be
a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other
men?--if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? Does Wisdom
work in a tread-mill? or does she teach how to succeed _by her example_?
Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life? Is she merely the
miller who grinds the finest logic? It is pertinent to ask if Plato got
his _living_ in a better way or more successfully than his
contemporaries,--or did he succumb to the difficulties of life like
other men? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely by
indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live,
because his aunt remembered him in her will? The ways in which most men
get their living, that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking of
th