Chapter X. 
ADVERSITY. 
“ Hard times come again no more.” 
IT is a futile prayer, and unwise 
as futile. Hard times are the 
birch rod with which Dame Nature 
disciplines all her children, and 
the discipline is more needful than 
most of us realise. Nor is the need of it confined to us. 
There is an amiable idea, common among people who 
know nothing of the lives which animals lead, that they 
are never in want. Poverty and hunger are artificial 
