Anyhow Stories: Moral and otherwise
A collection of stories and poems for children by British novelist, journalist, and playwright Lucy Lane Clifford, better known during her lifetime as Mrs W.K. Clifford.
She was famous with her mathematician husband for Sunday salons which attracted both scientists and literati.
She was born in 1846 and died in 1929.
Excerpt: ...none can hold long?" "Where have you come from that you ask these things?" "I came over the hill this morning from a cottage just outside the world, and so I have no share in the world. I am just a spectator. But what does it all mean--the hate and the love, the joy and sorrow, the for ever seeking for happiness that must for ever turn to woe in the end?" "Surely we should be content to take our share of work, and sorrow, and pain; we that take the world's life, and light, and shelter, and sunshine, shall we bear nothing in return?" the woman said in surprise. "And money? Does money bring you happiness that you seek for it, and bear so much for its sake?" "Seldom enough, dear, unless it finds other things to keep it company. There is nothing so overrated in all the world as money," the woman said. "Why do so many seek it?" "I cannot tell, dear lassie, for I never had it, or desired it; but some is necessary, and all should be willing to work for their share of it, but more than this I cannot understand. Why it is so precious and so difficult to win, where so many are willing to work for it, is one of the strange things one has to think about. There are many better things than money; it is a thousand pities so much good time is wasted in seeking it." "And why do people desire to work; is it for honour?" "The best workers think only of their work," the woman answered, "and whether it will be good for the world and in itself, or of what it will do for others, not of what it will do for themselves." "And love" "Ah," the woman said quickly, "out of good love and good work has the world grown up; from them and through them...
