And founded on Belief: ’tis—Doubt.
But best of all is that quatrain in which he exonerates Providence:
What! doubt the Master Workman’s hand
Because my fleshly ills increase?
No; for there still remains one chance
That I am not His Masterpiece.
If a cleverer bit of humor than that has been put into four lines, I have not seen it, nor a
more delightful epitome than this of the inconsistent moralizing of youth: