All Laborers Must
Have Their Nooning, And At This Season Of The Day, We Are All,
More Or Less, Asiatics, And Give Over All Work And Reform.
While
lying thus on our oars by the side of the stream, in the heat of
the day, our
Boat held by an osier put through the staple in its
prow, and slicing the melons, which are a fruit of the East, our
thoughts reverted to Arabia, Persia, and Hindostan, the lands of
contemplation and dwelling-places of the ruminant nations. In
the experience of this noontide we could find some apology even
for the instinct of the opium, betel, and tobacco chewers. Mount
Saber, according to the French traveller and naturalist, Botta,
is celebrated for producing the Kat-tree, of which "the soft tops
of the twigs and tender leaves are eaten," says his reviewer,
"and produce an agreeable soothing excitement, restoring from
fatigue, banishing sleep, and disposing to the enjoyment of
conversation." We thought that we might lead a dignified
Oriental life along this stream as well, and the maple and alders
would be our Kat-trees.
It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the restless
class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? So do you
and I. Think you that sitting hens are troubled with ennui these
long summer days, sitting on and on in the crevice of a hay-loft,
without active employment? By the faint cackling in distant
barns, I judge that dame Nature is interested still to know how
many eggs her hens lay. The Universal Soul, as it is called, has
an interest in the stacking of hay, the foddering of cattle, and
the draining of peat-meadows. Away in Scythia, away in India, it
makes butter and cheese. Suppose that all farms _are_ run out,
and we youths must buy old land and bring it to, still everywhere
the relentless opponents of reform bear a strange resemblance to
ourselves; or, perchance, they are a few old maids and bachelors,
who sit round the kitchen hearth and listen to the singing of the
kettle. "The oracles often give victory to our choice, and not
to the order alone of the mundane periods. As, for instance,
when they say that our voluntary sorrows germinate in us as the
growth of the particular life we lead." The reform which you talk
about can be undertaken any morning before unbarring our doors.
We need not call any convention. When two neighbors begin to eat
corn bread, who before ate wheat, then the gods smile from ear to
ear, for it is very pleasant to them. Why do you not try it?
Don't let me hinder you.
There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world
over, living on anticipation. Wolff, travelling in the deserts
of Bokhara, says, "Another party of derveeshes came to me and
observed, `The time will come when there shall be no difference
between rich and poor, between high and low, when property will
be in common, even wives and children.'" But forever I ask of
such, What then?
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