rui?
Cela meme est un fruit qui je goute aujourd'hui;
J'en puis jouir demain, et quelques jours encore.

And all I would add is that, although it was very nice of the old man
to enjoy his planting because of the unborn generations who would eat
the fruits, he might have been less nice and quite as pleased if, as
is probable, he liked gardening for its own sake.

But people seem--on account of that horrid philosophical and
moralising twist--to cast about for an excuse whenever they are doing
what is, after all, neither wicked nor silly--to wit, making the best
of such days and such powers as a merciful Providence or an
indifferent trio of Fates has allowed them. But I should like to turn
the tables on these persons, and suggest that all this worrying about
whether life is or is not worth living, and hunting for answers for
and against, may itself be an excuse, unconscious like all the most
mischievous excuses, and hide not finer demands and highbred
discontents, but rather a certain feebleness, lack of grip and
adaptation, and an indolent acquiescence in what my godchild stoutly
refused, a greater or lesser going to bits.

This much is certain, that we all of us have to make a stand against
such demoralisation whenever our plans are upset, or we are impatient to
do something else, or we are feeling worried and ill. We most of us have
to struggle against leaving our portmanteau gaping on a sofa or throwing
our boot-trees into corners when we are in a place only for a few hours;
and struggle against allowing the flowers on the table to wither, and
the fire to go out, when we are setting out on a journey next day, or a
dear one is about to say goodbye. "See to that fire being kept up, and
bring fresh roses," said a certain friend of mine on a similar occasion.
That was laying out a little hanging garden on the narrow ledge of two
or three poor hours; and, behold! the garden has continued to be sweet
and bright in the wide safe places of memory.

In saying all these things, I am aware that many wise men, or men
reputed wise, are against me; and that pretty hard words have been
applied in the literature of all countries and ages to persons who are
of my way of thinking, as, for instance, _gross, thoughtless, without
soul_, and _Epicurean Swine_. And some of the people I like most to
read about, the heroes of Tolstoi, Andre, Levine, Pierre, and, of
course, Tolstoi himself, are for ever repeating that they can not