NATURE HAS HER WAY. 35 



of the brow seemed to claim in vain the privilege of the curse 

 in earning bread, — a desert way where heaven's omens 

 seemed reversed, the fire by day, and the cloud by night ! 



Better times ! What have we in mind when we use this 

 term so freely? We shall put up, doubtless, with what 

 comes : we have a way of doing it. " Was your wife re- 

 signed ? " asked the minister of the bereaved husband. 

 " Ya, dominie, she had to be." But there is a wisdom, and 

 probably some comfort, in fixing it in our minds beforehand. 

 First, are not the times meeting us at least half way ? They 

 will grow better whenever we are willing to adapt ourselves 

 to them ; and herein lies the solution of the problem, not in 

 special defaces of legislation. Do better times mean days 

 when there shall be no need of diligent labor, and strict 

 economy, and actual values ? Is it not true that every one 

 of us has enough for every real comfort, with luxury enough 

 for his own and his children's good? Prices will probably 

 improve, sales become quicker, and exchanges more brisk; 

 but, unless we are in some way independent of laws which 

 human experience everywhere reveals, nine-tenths of the 

 world live and will live plainer lives than we are now lead- 

 ing. Or does it mean that we shall inflate our pockets with 

 promises, and then by mutual prestos become rich ? 



But neither coaxing nor compulsion will make all our sons 

 farmers. Nature does not make the nest to hold the full- 

 fledged birds ; and through the same law come to the minds 

 of the young and strong those feelings of unrest and ambi- 

 tion, 



" Which in part are prophecies, and in part 

 Are longings wild and vain." 



It is the old fact of the fable of the Athenian youth and the 

 labyrinth : some find the thread that guides them safe, 

 others are bewildered and lost. A ratio based on the pro- 

 portion of births and deaths in our large cities terminates in 

 less than a century. In ninety years their life would run 

 out, and busy streets become dumb as churchyards. All this 

 terrible deficit must be made up by blood and bone and 

 muscle bred on country hills. Not one in one hundred who 

 do the business of great cities was born in them. But New 

 England is singularly, wonderfully fortunate in the compen- 

 sations which come back from these very losses to her coun- 



