We admire still more the tortoise’s determination to right itself.  By way of experiment, turn it upside down, and then go off a piece to see it regain its position.  Now, there is nothing when put upon its back which has such little prospect of getting to its feet again as this animal.  It has no hands to push with and nothing against which to brace its feet, and one would think that a turtle once upside down would be upside down for ever.  But put on its back, it keeps on scrabbling till it is right side up.  We would like to pick up this animal from the dust and put it down on Broadway, if men passing by would learn from it never to stop exertion, even when overthrown.  You cannot by commercial disasters be more thoroughly flat on your back than five minutes ago was this poor thing; but see it yonder nimbly making for the bushes.  Vanderbilt or Jay Gould may treat you as we did the tortoise a few moments ago.  But do not lie still, discouraged.  Make an effort to get up.  Throw your feet out, first in one direction and then in another.  Scrabble!

We find from this day’s roadside observation that the turtle uses its head before it does its feet:  in other words, it looks around before it moves.  You never catch a turtle doing anything without previous careful inspection.  We would, all of us, do better if we always looked before we leaped.  It is easier to get into trouble than to get out.  Better have goods weighed before we buy them.  Better know where a road comes out before we start on it.  We caught one hundred flies in our sitting-room yesterday because they sacrificed all their caution to a love of molasses.  Better use your brain before you do your hands and feet.  Before starting, the turtle always sticks its head out of its shell.

But tortoises die.  They sometimes last two hundred years.  We read that one of them outlived seven bishops.  They have a quiet life and no wear and tear upon their nervous system.  Yet they, after a while, notwithstanding all their glow travel, reach the end of their journey.  For the last time they draw their head inside their shell and shut out the world for ever.  But notwithstanding the useful thoughts they suggest while living, they are of still more worth when dead.  We fashion their bodies into soup and their carapace into combs for the hair, and tinged drops for the ear, and bracelets for the wrist.  One of Delmonico’s soup tureens is waiting for the hero we celebrate, and Tiffany for his eight plates of bone.  Will we be as useful after we are dead?  Some men are thrown aside like a turtle-shell crushed by a cart-wheel; but others, by deeds done or words spoken, are useful long after they quit life, their example an encouragement, their memory a banquet.  He who helps build an asylum or gives healthful and cultured starting to a young man may twenty years after his decease be doing more for the world than during his residence upon it.  Stephen Girard and George Peabody are of more use to the race than when Philadelphia and London saw them.