124 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



Faire " is after all one of the most difficult of 

 arts. Nature and the animals flourish in idle- 

 ness. But man is supposed to deteriorate when 

 not engaged in producing things, or robbing his 

 neighbors in the finesses of trade. If, because 

 of the vicious warp inherited from ancestors 

 who deified work for its own sake, we feel un- 

 comfortable at the idea that we are sailing the 

 Great South Bay from morning till night with 

 no dollars in view, we may perhaps quiet our 

 utilitarian instincts by this pretext of fishing. 

 We are trying to obtain food for the family ; 

 we may not have hoed any corn or dug any 

 potatoes, or written any articles which editors 

 may be willing to pay for, but we have tried to 

 provide food for the household, and our con- 

 science is clear. It may be said that this is but 

 a subterfuge, for if I had stayed at my desk 

 cudgelling my brains for ideas of merchantable 

 value, I should have earned enough money to 

 buy bluefish for the whole summer. This may 

 be true, and yet I do not admit the force of 

 any such reasoning. The mere ability to earn 

 enough money to keep one's family decently 

 sheltered, fed, and clothed is the most ordinary 

 ability in the world ; the man who fails to do it 



