living in your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird
on the wing.

The joy, the duty, and, I venture to add, the end of life. I speak only
of this world, of course, and of the teachings of this world. I do not
seek to trench upon the province of spiritual guides. But from the point
of view of the world the end of life is life. Life is action, the use of
one's powers. As to use them to their height is our joy and duty, so it
is the one end that justifies itself. Until lately the best thing that I
was able to think of in favor of civilization, apart from blind
acceptance of the order of the universe, was that it made possible the
artist, the poet, the philosopher, and the man of science. But I think
that is not the greatest thing. Now I believe that the greatest thing is
a matter that comes directly home to us all. When it is said that we are
too much occupied with the means of living to live, I answer that the
chief work of civilization is just that it makes the means of living
more complex; that it calls for great and combined intellectual
efforts, instead of simple, uncoordinated ones, in order that the crowd
may be fed and clothed and housed and moved from place to place. Because
more complex and intense intellectual efforts mean a fuller and richer
life. They mean more life. Life is an end in itself, and the only
question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have enough of
it.

I will add but a word. We are all very near despair. The sheathing that
floats us over its waves is compounded of hope, faith in the
unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort, and the deep,
sub-conscious content which comes from the exercise of our powers. In
the words of a touching negro song: "sometimes I's up, sometimes I's
down, sometimes I's almost to the groun'," but these thoughts have
carried me, as I hope they will carry the young men who hear me, through
long years of doubt, self-distrust and solitude. They do now, for,
although it might seem that the day of trial was over, in fact it is
renewed each day. The kindness which you have shown me makes me bold in
happy moments to believe that the long and passionate struggle has not
been quite in vain. [Applause.]

LORD HOUGHTON

(RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES)

YOUR SPEECH AND OURS

[Speech of Lord Houghton, in response to William Cullen Bryant, at a
breakfast given in his honor at the Century Club, New York, October
17, 1875. William Cullen Bryant, P