Whither they sailed, my children, I cannot clearly tell.  It all happened long ago; so long that it has all grown dim, like a dream which you dreamt last year.  And why they went I cannot tell: some say that it was to win gold.  It may be so; but the noblest deeds which have been done on earth have not been done for gold.  It was not for the sake of gold that the Lord came down and died, and the Apostles went out to preach the good news in all lands.  The Spartans² looked for no reward in money when they fought and died at Thermopylæ; and Socrates the wise asked no pay from his countrymen, but lived poor and barefoot all his days, only caring to make men good.  And there are heroes in our days also, who do noble deeds, but not for gold.  Our discoverers did not go to make themselves rich when they sailed out one after another into the dreary³ frozen seas; nor did the ladies who went out last year to drudge⁴ in the hospitals of the East, making themselves poor, that they might be rich in noble works.  And young men, too, whom you know, children, and some of them of your own kin⁵, did they say to themselves, ‘How much money shall I earn?’ when they went out to the war, leaving wealth, and comfort, and a pleasant home, and all that money can give, to face hunger and thirst, and wounds and death, that they might fight for their country and their Queen?  No, children, there is a better thing on earth than wealth, a better thing than life itself; and that is, to have done something before you die, for which good men may honour you, and God your Father smile upon your work.

 

Therefore we will believe—why should we not?—of these same Argonauts of old, that they too were noble men, who planned and did a noble deed; and that therefore their fame has lived, and been told in story and in song, mixed up, no doubt, with dreams and fables

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