do you complain? Have not the weeds as much
right there as the corn? If you encamp in one of the numberless swamps
which surround this settlement, and get assailed by countless millions
of robust mosquitoes, why do you rave and swear (as I know most of you
would do under such circumstances) and want to know 'what in the ----
mosquitoes were made for'? Why, to puncture the skin of blockheads and
blasphemers like you, and suck the last drop of blood from their veins.
Why, let me ask you, did you go out there? That place belonged to the
mosquitoes, not to you; and you knew you were trespassing upon their
land. The mosquitoes exist for themselves, and were created for the
enjoyment of their own mosquito-life. Why was _man_ created? The Bible
does not answer the question directly; the divines in the Catechism say,
'To glorify God.' Now I should like to know if a Westminster Catechism
of the mosquitoes would'nt make as good an answer for them?

"And here I am just in the act of annihilating with a logical stroke
a multitude of grumblers and croakers. If this world does not belong
exclusively to man, and the other races have as much right here as he,
and, consequently, a claim to their proportion of land, water, and sky,
and their share of food for the sustenance of life, what follows?

"A great many men, taking northeast storms, bleak winds,
thunder-showers, flies, mosquitoes, Canada thistles, hot sunshine, cold
snows, weeds, briers, thorns, wild beasts, snakes, alligators, and such
like things, which they don't happen to like, and putting them all
together, attempt to persuade you that this green earth is a complete
failure, a wreck and blasted ruin. Don't you believe that, for it's
wicked infidelity. I tell you the world is not all so bad as Indiana,
and especially that part of the State which you, unfortunately, inhabit.
I have seen, my friends, a large portion of the planet, and if there is
another spot anywhere quite so infernal as Wabashville, why, I solemnly
assure you I never found it.--And now for the point which shall prick
your conscience and penetrate your understanding! Do the bears and
wolves, the coons and foxes, the owls and wild-geese, find this region
unhealthy, and get the chills and fever, and go around grumbling and
cursing? Don't they find this climate especially salubrious and suited
exactly to their constitutions? Well, then, that's because they belong
here, _and you don't_. This region was never inte