"No one has a right to be idle."
"Oh!" groaned Claude; "where did you find that eleventh commandment?"
"I have done with all eleventh commandments; for I find it quite hard work enough to keep the ancient ten. But I find it, Mellot, in the deepest abyss of all; in the very depth from which the commandments sprang. But we will not talk about it here."
"Why not?" asked Valencia, looking up. "Are we so very naughty as to be unworthy to listen?"
"And are these mountains," asked Claude, "so ugly and ill-made, that they are an unfit pulpit for a sermon? No; tell me what you mean. After all, I am half in jest"
"Do not courtesy, pity, chivalry, generosity, self-sacrifice,—in short, being of use,—do not our hearts tell us that they are the most beautiful, noble, lovely things in the world?"
"I suppose it is so," said Valencia.
"Why does one admire a soldier? Not for his epaulettes and red coat, but because one knows that, coxcomb though he be at home here, there is the power in him of that same self-sacrifice; that, when he is called, he will go and die, that he may be of use to his country. And yet—it may seem invidious to say so just now—but there are other sorts of self-sacrifice, less showy, but even more beautiful."
"Oh, Mr. Headley, what can a man do more than die for his countrymen?"
"Live for them. It is a longer work, and therefore a more difficult and a nobler one."