28 TEE OPEN AIR. 



for another place of work, to them it appeared that 

 I had found idleness indoors wearisome and had just 

 come forth to exchange it for another idleness. They 

 saw no end to their labour; they had worked from 

 childhood, and could see no possible end to labour 

 until limbs failed or life closed. Why should they be 

 like this? Why should I do nothing? They were 

 as good as I was, and they hated me. Their indignant 

 glances spoke it as plain as words, and far more dis- 

 tinctly than I can write it. You cannot read it with 

 such feeling as I received their looks. 



Beautiful golden-brown, superb health, what would 

 I not give for these? To be the thrice-blessed and 

 chosen of nature, what inestimable fortune ! To be 

 indifferent to any circumstances — to be quite thought- 

 less as to draughts and chills, careless of heat, 

 indifferent to the character of dinners, able to do well 

 on hard, dry bread, capable of sleeping in the open 

 under a rick, or some slight structure of a hurdle, 

 propped on a few sticks and roughly thatched with 

 straw, and to sleep sound as an oak, and wake strong 

 as an oak in the morning — gods, what a glorious life ! 

 I envied them ; they fancied I looked askance at their 

 rags and jags. I envied them, and considered their 

 health and hue ideal. I envied them that unwearied 

 step, that firm uprightness, and measured yet lazy 

 gait, but most of all the power which they possessed, 

 though they did not exercise it intentionally, of being 

 always in the sunlight, the air, and abroad upon the 

 earth. If so they chose, and without stress or strain, 

 they could see the sunrise, they could be with him as 

 it were — unwearied and without distress — the livelong 



