128 I GO A- FISHING. 



upon the products of the soil, and the animal food which 

 our strength or sagacity would enable us to procure. It 

 was intended that each man should, for himself and those 

 dependent on him, receive from the soil of the earth such 

 sustenance and clothing as he could compel it to yield. 

 But we have invented a system of covering miles square 

 of ground with large flat stones, or piles of brick and mor- 

 tar, so as to forbid the product of any article of nourish- 

 ment, forbidding grass or grain or flower to spring up, 

 since we need the space for our inter-communication with 

 each other, in the ways of traffic and accumulating wealth, 

 while we buy for money, in what we call markets, the 

 food and clothing we should have procured for ourselves 

 from our common mother earth. Doubtless all this is a 

 perversion of the original designs of Providence. The 

 perversion is one that sprang from the accumulation of 

 wealth by a few, to the exclusion of the many, which, in 

 time, resulted in the purchase of the land by the few, and 

 the supply of food in return for articles of luxury manu- 

 factured by artisans who were not cultivators of the soil. 

 But who would listen now to an argument in favor of a re- 

 turn to the nomadic style of life ? I am not going to give 

 you one, and I am not at all inclined to think it advisable 

 for every one ; but in a still, delicious evening like that, 

 I might be pardoned for a sigh when I remembered the 

 workman that I was, and bethought me of the lounger that 

 I might be. 



What, man ! Would you join the old cant that "it is 

 great to work ;" that " it is a man's duty to work ;" that 

 " work is prayer ;" that laborare est adorare ? Well, sir, 

 there was a day when I thought so too ; but, by my faith, 

 I don't believe a word of it now. I believe I was made 

 to vegetate, to grow and expand, and do something for 



