It is much so on the railroad of life. How young we would all be at sixty—ay, at eighty—if we would avoid the petty, useless, the unnecessary delays, the unprofitable business at the side-stations along the road. (Text.)—Vyrnwy Morgan, “The Cambro-American Pulpit.”
(725)
A newspaper item has the following:
At an annual dinner of the Architectural League of New York the venerable artist, John La Farge—who certainly belongs among the first half-score of painters that America has produced—was presented with a medal of honor.
Then a singular thing happened.
Mr. La Farge got upon his feet and, in a gentle tone of expostulation, protested that the honors now offered him were a little empty—and very much belated.
He said he had “only three or four more years left to work in,” and that through all the years of his vigorous manhood the great city of New York, with all its vast enterprise of building, had offered little opportunity to his hand.
The kind word should be spoken to the friend and not engraved on his tombstone. The work that is thought of should be performed in the day of opportunity, for it may be so belated as to lose much of its meaning.
(726)