“I would recommend the philosophic view of things,” I said. “Why not take the good the gods provide? As a soldier, you would be in fetters—whatever your rank—to say nothing of the bullet that might cut short your career. And yet this life of the brain is wearing too,—”
“But my health is all the better for it,” he said. “A friend was here to see me the other day, and I startled him by the observation ‘I shall live to eat the goose that eats the grass over your grave.‘{1} When he inquired my meaning, I replied, ‘For two reasons—I come of a long-lived race, and have an infallible sign of longevity; I never dream, and my sleep is always sound and refreshing.’”{2}
{Footnote 1: His words.}
{Footnote 2: His words.}
“Do you believe in that dictum?” I said.
“Thoroughly,” he replied, laughing. “I shall live long, in spite of the enmities which would destroy me in an instant, if the secret foes I have could only accomplish their end without danger to themselves.”
“You do not really believe, surely, that you have such foes?”
“Not believe it? I know it. You have them, colonel, too. How long do you think you would live, if your enemies had their way with you? Perhaps you think you have no enemies who hate you enough to kill you. You are greatly mistaken—every man has his enemies. I have them by the thousand, and I have no doubt you, too, have them, though they are probably not so numerous as mine."{1}
{Footnote 1: His words.}
“But their enmity comes to nothing.”