CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SHADOWS WE CAST.
"The smallest bark on life's tumultuous ocean Will leave a track behind for evermore; The slightest wave of influence set in motion Extends and widens to the eternal shore." Every one of us casts a shadow.

There hangs about us a sort of penumbra,--a strange, indefinable something,--which we call personal influence, which has its effect on every other life on which it falls.
It goes with us wherever we go.

It is not something we can have when we want to have it, and then lay aside when we will, as we lay aside a garment.

It is something that always pours out from our life, like light from a lamp, like heat from flame, like perfume from a flower.
No one can live, and not have influence.

Says Elihu Burritt: "No human being can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human happiness, not only of the present, but of every subsequent age of humanity.