1 80 Autiimn 



as a soldier to the laws that govern life. Nature 

 gave her a jewel to guard, and she watched over it 

 vigilantly and well, like a dog that guards his master's 

 coat as long as a particle of strength remained, and 

 when the Giver asked it back she willingly made the 

 surrender. 



The man who is able to give his cheque for thou- 

 sands has no higher task, though he has so bombasted 

 and inflated it that recognition is hardly possible. 

 Unborn generations are a care to him as though he 

 would fain live the lives of his issue. Like a man 

 that is insane, he has conjured up around him a circle 

 of dark cares that are as fatal to pleasure as the hor- 

 rible menacing shapes that mow at the old woman. 

 It is, I think, in the sober mean, that has extreme 

 wealth on one side and dire poverty on the other, that 

 the most rational form of life is. One would hardly 

 desire to fritter away the small allowance of time in 

 the distracting cares of wealth, and still less in that 

 naked and rude poverty wherein it is a cause for soli- 

 citude lest even the little due of wheat should fail. 

 But of two evils the latter is the more supportable. 



