Selected Essays Of Robert Louis Stevenson

PULVIS ET UMBRA . 119

man treads them by thousands in the dust, the yelping
hounds burst upon their trail, the bullet speeds, the
knives are heating in the den of the vivisectionist; or
the dew falls, and the generation of a day is blotted out.
For these are creatures, compared with whom our weakness
is strength, our ignorance wisdom, our brief span eternity.
And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror
and under the imminent hand of death, God forbid it
should be man the erected, the reasoner, the wise in his
own eyes—God forbid it should be man that wearies in
well-doing, that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters
the language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith,
r,that the whole creation groans in mortal frailty, strives
with unconquerable constancy : Surely not all in vain.