Caleb's eyes followed Grace to the door; then he said:—
"Been workin' about four hours, harder'n I ever see a Sunday-school librarian work, looked tired almost to death, an' yet full to the eyes with the fun she's goin' to have. Ah, that's what health can do for human nature. I wonder if you two ever know how to thank Heaven that you are as you are—both well-built an' healthy? 'Pears to me that if I was either of you, I'd be wicked enough, about a hundred times a day, to put up the Pharisee's prayer an' thank Heaven that I was not like other men."
"No man can be everything, Caleb," said Philip. "I don't doubt that there are thousands of men who'd gladly exchange their health for your abilities."
"Well, I s'pose it's human nature, an' p'r'aps divine purpose too, that folks should hanker most for what they haven't got; if it wa'n't so, ev'rybody'd be a stick-in-the-mud all his life, an' nobody'd amount to much; but I do tell you that for a man to spend most of his grown-up years in makin' of himself as useful a machine as he can, an' not especially with a view to Number One either, an' all the time bein' reminded that he hain't got enough steam in his b'iler to work the machine except by fits an' starts, an' there don't seem to be any way of gettin' up more steam except by gettin' a new b'iler, which ain't possible in the circumstances, why, it's powerful tough, an' that's a fact."
"We can't all run thousand-horse-power engines, Caleb," said Philip, hoping to console his friend. "If we could, I'm afraid a great lot of the world's necessary work would go undone. Watches, worked with what might be called half-mouse-power, are quite as necessary and useful in their way as big clocks run by ton weights; and a sewing machine, worked by a woman's foot, can earn quite as much, over running expenses, as a plough with a big horse in front and a big man behind it."
"Like enough. But the trouble with me is that the machine I've been makin' o' myself is the kind that needs an awful lot o' power, an' the power ain't there an' can't be put there."
"There are plenty more machines with exactly the same defect, old chap," said Philip, with a sigh, "so you've no end of company in your trouble. I could tell you of a machine of my own that lacks the proper power—sufficient steam, as you've expressed it."
"I want to know! An' you the pictur' of health!"
"Oh, yes. Health is invaluable, so far as it goes, but 'tisn't everything. Going back to steam for the sake of illustration, you know it comes of several other things—water, a boiler, some fuel, and draught, each in proper proportion to all the others. I don't doubt there's a similar combination necessary to human force, and its application, and that I haven't the secret of it, for I know I've failed at work I've most wanted to do, and succeeded best at what I liked least."