They were not men of milk and
water type, with little good and less bad. Neither their virtues nor
their vices were lukewarm; but _they did things_, these men; added to
the sum total of human effort, human knowledge, human progress. Sordid
their motives may have been, sordid as the blacksmith's when he smashes
his sledge on the anvil; but from the anvil of their hardships, from
the clash of the {338} primordial warfare between the Spirit of the
Elements and the Spirit of Man, struck out some sparks of the Divine.
There was the courage as dauntless in the teeth of the gale as in the
face of death. There was the yearning to know More, to seek it, to
follow it over earth's ends, though the quest led to the abyss of a
watery grave. What did they want, these fool fellows, following the
rushlight of their own desires? That is just it. They didn't know
what they sought, but they knew there was something just beyond to be
sought, something new to be known; and because Man is Man, they set out
on the quest of the unknown, chancing life and death for the sake of a
little gain to human progress.
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