"It sounds all right to your ears I dare say. But if you looked underneath, perhaps you'd find a different story. Don't much matter how good people are if they ain't good to you? Nobody knows where the shoe pinches except the wearer, and you've no right to say I'm one of the lucky ones, because you don't know nothing about it."
"Don't meet trouble half-way, Joe, and keep your eye on the bright side."
"Time's past for silly sayings. Life's broke me and I know it; but why it's broke me, and how it's broke me, be my own business."
"Rubbish and stuff! Get some physic for your bad digestion and you'll soon feel hopefuller. It ain't life's broke you, but your own low-spirited outlook on life. Life don't break us. It's the canker inside spoils all when it works through. You can't help being a melancholy sort of man, I suppose. That's your nature. But you've got brains in your head and reasoning powers, and you ought to fight yourself and have it out, and balance your good against your bad; and look round with seeing eyes and count how many can't hold a candle to you for fortune."
"A canker inside is a very good figure of speech—a very clever thought," admitted Mr. Elvin. "And I'll tell you another thing: it's not much use for them as haven't got cankers to preach to them as have. Us ban't born with cankers most times. They grow, and I'm not grumbling against my lot in particular. I know there's many things might be worse. Only I've got in a state when I don't much like my fellow-creatures, and I don't like myself no more than the rest."
"A foolish thing to feel. We have our faults and our virtues also. You ought to see the faults in yourself and the virtues in other people. At your gait, you'll end by thinking life isn't worth while at all."
"I've thought that a powerful long time."
"Well, set about to make it worth while then—and if you can't make it worth while for yourself—then make it worth while for your wife and children. Do that, and you'll mighty soon find it worth while for yourself too."
"Sounds all right," admitted Joe. "You wise blades always do sound all right; but against a canker wise words be vain. A canker was a very true word, Jacob."
Bullstone preached a little longer, asked Joe to come and see him at Red House and shook his hand in friendly fashion when they parted.