'A very great grind, as you call it. And there may be the grind
and not the success. But--' He had now got up from his seat at the
table and was standing with his back against the chimney-piece,
and as he went on with his lecture,--as the word 'But' came from
his lips--he struck the fingers of one hand lightly on the palm of
the other as he had been known to do at some happy flight of
oratory in the House of Commons. 'But it is the grind that makes
the happiness. To feel that your hours are filled to overflowing,
that you can hardly barely steal minutes enough for sleep, that
the welfare of many is entrusted to you, that the world looks on
and approves, that some good is always being done to others,--above
all things some good to your country;--that is happiness. For
myself I can conceive none other.'
'Books,' suggested Gerald, as he put the last morsel of the last
kidney into his mouth.
'Yes, books! Cicero and Ovid have told us that to literature only
could they look for consolation in their banishment. But then they
speak of a remedy for sorrow, not of a source for joy.
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