Good And Evil I See Is To Be Found In All Societies, And It
Is In Vain To Seek For Any Spot Where Those Ingredients Are Not
Mixed.
I therefore rest satisfied, and thank God that my lot is to
be an American farmer, instead of a Russian boor, or an Hungarian
peasant.
I thank you kindly for the idea, however dreadful, which
you have given me of their lot and condition; your observations have
confirmed me in the justness of my ideas, and I am happier now than
I thought myself before. It is strange that misery, when viewed in
others, should become to us a sort of real good, though I am far
from rejoicing to hear that there are in the world men so thoroughly
wretched; they are no doubt as harmless, industrious, and willing to
work as we are. Hard is their fate to be thus condemned to a slavery
worse than that of our negroes. Yet when young I entertained some
thoughts of selling my farm. I thought it afforded but a dull
repetition of the same labours and pleasures. I thought the former
tedious and heavy, the latter few and insipid; but when I came to
consider myself as divested of my farm, I then found the world so
wide, and every place so full, that I began to fear lest there would
be no room for me. My farm, my house, my barn, presented to my
imagination objects from which I adduced quite new ideas; they were
more forcible than before.
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