"Meaning me—I'm in a vile temper, I daresay you think."
"How hot it runs, master—how cold it comes and how little the profit of it."
Percival said heavily: "What is the use of it, then?"
Japhra bent forward to him and Percival saw the little man's tight-lipped, firm-lined countenance with the tranquil strength of mind that abode in the steady aspect of the bright eyes, deep beneath their strong brows.
"The use?" Japhra said. "Nay, that is the wrong way of estimate. For thee in thy mood, for all men when life presses them, inquire rather what is the hurt of it. How shall so small a thing as life, a thing so profitless, that soon becomes so cold, returneth to earth and is nothing remembered nor required—how shall so small a thing offend thee and make shipwreck of thy content? Thus shouldst thou judge of it."
"Some men are not soon forgotten, Japhra."
"Ay, master, and what men? They that have seen how small a thing is life and have recked nothing of it."
"How have they done great things, then?—fought battles, written books?"
"Why, master, how wrote Bunyan in chains or Milton in blindness?"
"They didn't mind."