through a personal bereavement is like
a grain of sand on the seashore complaining that the tide has washed
a neighboring grain out of reach. He is worse, for the bereaved grain
cannot help itself; it has to be a grain of sand and play the game of
tide, win or lose; whereas he can quit--by watching his opportunity
can "quit a winner." For sometimes we do beat "the man who keeps the
table"--never in the long run, but infrequently and out of small stakes.
But this is no time to "cash in" and go, for you can not take your
little winning with you. The time to quit is when you have lost a big
stake, your fool hope of eventual success, your fortitude and your love
of the game. If you stay in the game, which you are not compelled to do,
take your losses in good temper and do not whine about them. They are
hard to bear, but that is no reason why you should be.

But we are told with tiresome iteration that we are "put here" for some
purpose (not disclosed) and have no right to retire until summoned--it
may be by small-pox, it may be by the bludgeon of a blackguard, it may
be by the kick of a cow; the "summoning" Power (said to be the same as
the "putting" Power) has not a nice taste in the choice of messengers.
That "argument" is not worth attention, for it is unsupported by either
evidence or anything remotely resembling evidence. "Put here." Indeed!
And by the keeper of the table who "runs" the "skin game." We were put
here by our parents--that is all anybody knows about it; and they had no
more authority than we, and probably no more intention.

The notion that we have not the right to take our own lives comes of
our consciousness that we have not the courage. It is the plea of the
coward--his excuse for continuing to live when he has nothing to live
for--or his provision against such a time in the future. If he were not
egotist as well as coward he would need no excuse. To one who does not
regard himself as the center of creation and his sorrow as the throes of
the universe, life, if not worth living, is also not worth leaving. The
ancient philosopher who was asked why he did not the if, as he taught,
life was no better than death, replied: "Because death is no better than
life." We do not know that either proposition is true, but the matter is
not worth bothering about, for both states are supportable--life despite
its pleasures and death despite its repose.

It was Robert G. Ingersoll's opinion that there is rather too l