Everything Has an End

I mentioned in another post that our family has been reading a children's book called The Railway Children by E. Nesbit. Tonight, as we finished the final chapters, we read the following quote which I enjoyed. It gives you a taste of Nesbit's style and is filled with a practical kind of wisdom. The context is that Peter and his younger sister Phyllis are making their way out of a dark train tunnel...

"There's no end to this tunnel," said Phyllis—and indeed it did seem very, very long.

"Stick to it," said Peter; "everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep on."

Which is quite true, if you come to think of it, and a useful thing to remember in seasons of trouble—such as measles, arithmetic, impositions, and those times when you are in disgrace, and feel as though no one would ever love you again, and you could never—never again—love anybody.

"Hurray," said Peter, suddenly, "there's the end of the tunnel—looks just like a pin-hole in a bit of black paper, doesn't it?"

From The Railway Children by E. Nesbit, chapter 12