a man who determines that he will NOT make up his mind to the
continuance of some great evil: who determines that he will give his
life to battling with that evil to the last: who determines that either
that evil shall extinguish him, or he shall extinguish it. I reverence
the strong, sanguine mind, that resolves to work a revolution to better
things, and that is not afraid to hope it _can_ work a revolution. And
perhaps, my reader, we should both reverence it all the more that we
find in ourselves very little like it. It is a curious thing, and a sad
thing, to remark in how many people there is too much resignation. It
kills out energy. It is a weak, fretful, unhappy thing. People are
reconciled, in a sad sort of way, to the fashion in which things go on.
You have seen a poor, slatternly mother, in a way-side cottage, who has
observed her little children playing in the road before it, in the way
of passing carriages, angrily ordering the little things to come away
from their dangerous and dirty play; yet, when the children disobey
her, and remain where they were, just saying no more, making no farther
effort. You have known a master tell his man-servant to do something
about stable or garden, yet, when the servant does not do it, taking no
notice: seeing that he has been disobeyed, yet wearily resigned, feeling
that there is no use in always fighting. And I do not speak of the not
unfrequent cases in which the master, after giving his orders, comes to
discover that it is best they should not be carried out, and is very
glad to see them disregarded: I mean when he is dissatisfied that what
he has directed is not done, and wishes that it were done, and feels
worried by the whole affair, yet is so devoid of energy as to rest in a
fretful resignation. Sometimes there is a sort of sense as if one had
discharged his conscience by making a weak effort in the direction of
doing a thing, an effort which had not the slightest chance of being
successful. When I was a little boy, many years since, I used to
think this; and I was led to thinking it by remarking a singular
characteristic in the conduct of a school-companion. In those days, if
you were chasing some other boy who had injured or offended you, with
the design of retaliation, if you found you could not catch him, by
reason of his superior speed, you would have recourse to the following
expedient. If your companion was within a little space of you, though a
space you felt