Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow | Page 9

soldiers being deserters from both armies.) What are women but
men's playthings! Shall there be no more cakes and ale for me because
thou art virtuous! What are men but hungry dogs, contending each

against each for a limited supply of bones! Do others lest thou be done.
What is the Truth but an unexploded lie!
I am a lover of all living things. You, my poor sister, struggling with
your heavy burden on your lonely way, I would kiss the tears from your
worn cheeks, lighten with my love the darkness around your feet. You,
my patient brother, breathing hard as round and round you tramp the
trodden path, like some poor half-blind gin-horse, stripes your only
encouragement, scanty store of dry chaff in your manger! I would jog
beside you, taking the strain a little from your aching shoulders; and we
would walk nodding, our heads side by side, and you, remembering,
should tell me of the fields where long ago you played, of the gallant
races that you ran and won. And you, little pinched brats, with
wondering eyes, looking from dirt-encrusted faces, I would take you in
my arms and tell you fairy stories. Into the sweet land of make-believe
we would wander, leaving the sad old world behind us for a time, and
you should be Princes and Princesses, and know Love.
But again, a selfish, greedy man comes often, and sits in my clothes. A
man who frets away his life, planning how to get more money--more
food, more clothes, more pleasures for himself; a man so busy thinking
of the many things he needs he has no time to dwell upon the needs of
others. He deems himself the centre of the universe. You would
imagine, hearing him grumbling, that the world had been created and
got ready against the time when he should come to take his pleasure in
it. He would push and trample, heedless, reaching towards these many
desires of his; and when, grabbing, he misses, he curses Heaven for its
injustice, and men and women for getting in his path. He is not a nice
man, in any way. I wish, as I say, he would not come so often and sit in
my clothes. He persists that he is I, and that I am only a sentimental
fool, spoiling his chances. Sometimes, for a while, I get rid of him, but
he always comes back; and then he gets rid of me and I become him. It
is very confusing. Sometimes I wonder if I really am myself.

ON THE DISADVANTAGE OF NOT GETTING WHAT ONE
WANTS

Long, long ago, when you and I, dear Reader, were young, when the
fairies dwelt in the hearts of the roses, when the moonbeams bent each
night beneath the weight of angels' feet, there lived a good, wise man.
Or rather, I should say, there had lived, for at the time of which I speak
the poor old gentleman lay dying. Waiting each moment the dread
summons, he fell a-musing on the life that stretched far back behind
him. How full it seemed to him at that moment of follies and mistakes,
bringing bitter tears not to himself alone but to others also. How much
brighter a road might it have been, had he been wiser, had he known!
"Ah, me!" said the good old gentleman, "if only I could live my life
again in the light of experience."
Now as he spoke these words he felt the drawing near to him of a
Presence, and thinking it was the One whom he expected, raising
himself a little from his bed, he feebly cried,
"I am ready."
But a hand forced him gently back, a voice saying, "Not yet; I bring life,
not death. Your wish shall be granted. You shall live your life again,
and the knowledge of the past shall be with you to guide you. See you
use it. I will come again."
Then a sleep fell upon the good man, and when he awoke, he was again
a little child, lying in his mother's arms; but, locked within his brain
was the knowledge of the life that he had lived already.
So once more he lived and loved and laboured. So a second time he lay
an old, worn man with life behind him. And the angel stood again
beside his bed; and the voice said,
"Well, are you content now?"
"I am well content," said the old gentleman. "Let Death come."
"And have you understood?" asked the angel.

"I think so," was the answer; "that experience is but as of the memory
of the pathways he has trod to a traveller journeying ever onward into
an unknown land. I have been wise only to reap the reward of