“They lie on beds of roses, and spread their gauze wings to the sun and summer gale, and cannot bear to put their tender feet to the ground, much less to encounter the thorns and briars of the world.”

I sat in a drawing room at Richmond, the fire low and the afternoon grey, watching a lady fiddle with her fan while her husband talked of debts we could not pay. She would not lift her eyes from the lace upon her sleeve, nor shift her weight when the chair creaked under her. The air was still, heavy with that quiet desperation of those who fear the world more than they love it.

I ask you now, look past your own comfort and see what lies beyond the garden gate. Do not wait for a summons to feel the cold wind or the rough stone beneath your sole. If you shrink from the thorns because they scratch your skin, you have already lost the only thing that makes life worth living: the courage to stand where others fall.