The habit of work is another
necessity in any life worth living, and this is only learnt by
refraining again and again from what is pleasant for the sake of what
is precious. Patience and thoroughness are requirements whose worth
and value never come home to the average mind until they are seen in
startling excellence, and it is apparent what a price must have been
paid to acquire their adamant perfection, a lesson which might be the
study of a lifetime. The value of time is another necessary lesson of
the better life, a hard lesson, but one that makes an incalculable
difference between the expert and the untried. We are apt to be always
in a hurry now, for obvious reasons which hasten the movement of life,
but not many really know how to use time to the full. Our tendency is
to alternate periods of extreme activity with intervals of complete
prostration for recovery. Perhaps our grandparents knew better in a
slower age the use of time. The old Marquise de Gramont, aged 93,
after receiving Extreme Unction, asked for her knitting, for the poor.
"Mais Madame la Marquise a ete administree, elle va mourir!" said the
maid, who thought the occupation of dying sufficient for a lady of her
age. "Ma chere, ce n'est pas une raison pour perdre son temps,"
answered the indomitable Marquise.
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