Читать книгу Rubble and Roseleaves and Things of That Kind - Frank William Boreham - Страница 19

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But it was Goldilocks that, on that snowy afternoon at Silverstream, hit the nail on the head.

'I think I'd like a little of both,' she said. 'I'd like to be a lion like the one and alive like the other!'

Precisely! With her feminine facility for putting her finger on the very heart of things, Goldilocks has brushed away all irrelevancies and got to bedrock. For, after all, the question of life and death does not really concern us. A dog, living or dead, can be nothing other than a dog; a lion, living or dead, can be nothing other than a lion. The dead lion, as Alec Crosby says, was a living lion once; the living dog will be a dead dog some day. Goldilocks helps us to clear the issue. The real alternative is not between life and death; for life and death come in turn to dog and lion alike. The real question is between the canine and the leonine. Shall I live contemptibly or shall I live courageously?

'And I looked,' says the last of the Biblical writers, 'and behold, a lion—the Lion of the tribe of Juda!'

Like a lion He lived! With the courage of a lion He died! And in leonine splendor He moves through all the world above. Goldilocks had evidently made up her mind, in life and in death, to model her character and experience upon His!