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158
Adventures in Contentment
·
David Grayson
135
How
the
great
one-book
men
remain
with
us!
I
can
see
Marcus
Aurelius
sitting
in
his
camps
among
the
far
barbarians
writing
out
the
reflections
of
a
busy
life.
I
see
William
Penn
engaged
in
great
undertakings,
setting
down
"Some
of
the
Fruits
of
Solitude,"
and
Abraham
Lincoln
striking,
in
the
hasty
paragraphs
written
for
his
speeches,
one
of
the
highest
notes
in
our
American
literature.
"David?"
"Yes,
Harriet."
"I
am
going
up
now;
it
is
very
late."
"Yes."
"You
will
bank
the
fire
and
see
that
the
doors
are
locked?"
"Yes."
After
a
pause:
"And,
David,
I
didn't
mean--about
the
story
you
read.
Did
the
Knight
finally
kill
the
lions?"
"No,"
I
said
with
sobriety,
"it
was
not
finally
necessary."
"But
I
thought
he
set
out
to
kill
them."
"He
did;
but
he
proved
his
valour
without
doing
it."
Harriet
paused,
made
as
if
to
speak
again,
but
did
not
do
so.
"Valour"--I
began
in
my
hortatory
tone,
seeing
a
fair
opening,
but
at
the
look
in
her
eye
I
immediately
desisted.
"You
won't
stay
up
late?"
she
warned.
"N-o,"
I
said.
Take
John
Bunyan
as
a
pattern
of
the
man
who
forgot
himself
into
immortality.
How
seriously
he
wrote
sermons
and
pamphlets,
now
happily
forgotten!
But
it
was
not
until
he
was
shut
up
in
jail
(some
writers
I
know
might
profit
by
his
example)
that
he
"put
aside,"
as
he
said,
"a
more
serious
and
important
work"
and
wrote
"Pilgrim's
Progress."
It
is
the
strangest
thing
in
the
world--the
judgment
of
men
as
to
what
is
important
and
serious!
Bunyan
says
in
his
rhymed
introduction:
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
