56 THE INNER ORGANIZATION OF TREES. 



respectable. Can any position be more false, unnatural, 

 and ruinous in its tendencies, than one founded on the 

 doctrine that labor is degrading? Yet the majority of men 

 are making it the business of their lives to render them-' 

 selves and their children independent! Independent of 

 what ? Not of labor, surely. Riches are very uncertain 

 possessions. Better bring up children to a regular busi- 

 ness, even if you have wealth to leave them. Let them be 

 early taught to work. Then they will be more likely to 

 live long and happily, and to maintain that position in 

 society to which your industry has elevated them. 



Every person in good health ought to employ his powers. 

 Labor is ennobling. It is the sure road to a high and 

 honorable career. All the great men of ancient and modern 

 times have acquired distinction through labor. Demos- 

 thenes and Newton acquired their imperishable renown in 

 this manner. In a letter to one of his friends, Newton 

 says, " If I have done the public any service, it is due to 

 nothing but industry and patient thought." It is the idle 

 man alone who degrades himself. He lives in the habitual 

 violation of a great natural law, and becomes enervated 

 both in body and mind. It may be that he is possessed of 

 all the appliances of wealth and modern civilization, yet he 

 lives wretchedly and is cursed with ennui. Where is the 

 flashing eye, the light elastic footstep attendant on useful, 

 agreeable, and profitable employment ? You might be sur- 

 rounded by the creations of your own genius, with the ad- 

 vantages which you have at your command, if you pos- 

 sessed any nobility or energy of soul. You are miserable, 

 because you are idle a jarring string amid the surround- 

 ing harmonies of industrious nature. Everything about 

 you is a rebuke on your conduct. All nature cries shame 

 on your idleness. You ought to blush to look at the 

 flowers of the field, the blades of grass, or those monu- 

 ments of leaf-industry, the trees, in all their endlessly 

 diversified varieties of architecture. It is impossible for 

 any family to continue pre-eminent in a community, unless, 

 along with the wealth which they receive is transmitted the 

 industry and life-energy of their ancestors. 



