While sorting my late father-in-law Fred’s papers, in his old office, I found a broadside of this Jack London quote:

“I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

Meanwhile, last week, at his camp on the Yellow Dog Plains, masons repairing his chimney found a message he’d left when he cast the cement for the chimney cap: