“Bah!” he said, “I am sick of all the affairs of life. Each hour wounds, but happily, the last kills us. Forget your troubles. Arm your heart against the malignant influences that mar the peace of brutes and men. Why the devil should you be happy? (he was a profane bird). What have you done to merit happiness? How fared you in your journey? Have you seen enough of the world—sinned too much? Hah! hah! Is your punishment greater than you can bear? Poor deluded Penguin! you have been the football of our old enemy, fate. It must have been great fun for the old rascal, to mark your abortive attempts at heavenward flight with these half-formed wings. Hah! hah! what a capital joke!”
“You seem merry, my friend,” said I, “your levity wounds me deeply.”
“Listen, my child,” he replied. “You have spent the best of your days in vain pursuit of the unattainable. Depend upon it, the nearest approach to happiness is found in paths obscure and humble. Paths of duty along which kind Providence will ever act as our guide.”
“You puzzle me,” I remarked, “your language is as changeable as English weather. At one moment you are a wicked bird, at another a moral philosopher.”
“Nay, friend,” he said, “these are but the passing moods of the mind. I am told that men as well as birds have their moods. Even some most religious men, they tell me, wear a sombre cloak to conceal the sinful thoughts that are always present with them. They resemble the shells they employ in warfare; harmless enough, until thrown to the ground by some sudden shock of passion which fires the fuse and destroys them. It seems to me, in order to succeed in the pursuit of happiness you must prefer clouds to sunshine, rain to fair weather, grief to joy. You must possess nothing, and yet find yourself too rich, take all that is done as well done, all that is said as well said, believe nothing, and yet know everything. Dream while you are living, live in your dreams. After all when you feel really happy, have patience, and time will surely destroy the illusion.”
Here the philosopher paused for breath.
Reader, if you are unhappy, let me counsel you to take warning from the life of a poor Penguin, who blighted his hopes by worshipping at the shrine of a false goddess.
THE LAST WORDS OF AN EPHEMERA.
IT was the opinion of the savants of our race who lived in ancient times, many minutes, indeed, before we came into being, that this vast world would dissolve and disappear within eighteen hours. That this hypothesis is not without foundation, and at the same time worthy of the erudition of the ancients, I hope to be able to prove. The great luminary travelling through space has, during my own time, sensibly declined towards the ocean which bounds the earth on all sides. If, therefore, we base our calculation on the space traversed by the sun per second, it will be found that, before eighteen hours have elapsed, his fire will be quenched in the ocean, and the world given up to darkness and death. He has already passed the zenith. For all that, the moment when the bright disc will dip beneath the waves seems distant as eternity, when measured by the span of our lives. I myself have enjoyed several moments of existence, and feel age creeping on apace. I see children and grandchildren around me dancing in the joyous light. I may live a few seconds longer, and witness many changes; yet my life has been so full of sad experiences, as to convince me that, in the course of nature, I must soon follow those who have gone before. In reviewing my past existence, while clearly discerning its failures and follies, I venture to hope that it has not been altogether misspent. My researches have contributed not a little to solve some of the problems connected with the most curious phenomena of hedge-rows and ditches, keeping altogether out of account the facts which I have established connected with the duration of the earth. I have applied the most refined analysis to discover the true constituents of the atmosphere, and the meteorological conditions which promote or destroy insect life. I could reveal secrets to mankind, to which their microscopes and spectroscopes can never afford the faintest clue. These are certain elements necessary to our existence only known to ourselves, as also the important functions we perform in carrying out the wise economy of nature.