"Looking Back Downhill"
Photo from: Wild Oak Trail, VA, September 29, 2002 Taken by: tjd PERSEVERANCE, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success. "Persevere, persevere!" cry the homilists all, Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl. "Remember the fable of tortoise and hare -- The one at the goal while the other is -- where?" Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace, The goal and the rival forgotten alike, And the long fatigue of the needless hike. His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew, He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place, A winner of all that is good in a race. -Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary |