Allan and the Ice Gods

Had I the slightest qualification for the task, I, Allan Quatermain, would like to write an essay on Temptation. This, of course, comes to all, in one shape or another, or at any rate to most, for there are some people so colourless, so invertebrate that they cannot be tempted--or perhaps the subtle powers which surround and direct, or misdirect, us do not think them worth an effort. These cling to any conditions, moral or material, in which they may find themselves, like limpets to a rock; or perhaps float along the stream of circumstance like jellyfish, making no effort to find a path for themselves in either case, and therefore die as they have lived--quite good because nothing has ever moved them to be otherwise--the objects of the approbation of the world, and, let us hope, of Heaven also.