demoralized
state of the Irish, their utter want of faithfulness and moral
principle! How dreadful that there are no people who enjoy the
self-denials and the cares which they dislike, that there are no
people who rejoice in carrying that burden of duties which they do
not wish to touch with one of their fingers! The outcry about the
badness of servants means just this: that everybody is tired of
self-helpfulness,--the servants as thoroughly as the masters and
mistresses. All want the cream of life, without even the trouble of
skimming; and the great fight now is, who shall drink the skim-milk,
which nobody wants. _Work_,--honorable toil,--manly, womanly
endeavor,--is just what nobody likes; and this is as much a fact in
the free North as in the slave South.

"What are all the young girls looking for in marriage? Some man with
money enough to save them from taking any care or having any trouble
in domestic life, enabling them, like the lilies of the field, to
rival Solomon in all his glory, while they toil not, neither do they
spin; and when they find that even money cannot purchase freedom from
care in family life, because their servants are exactly of the same
mind with themselves, and hate to do their duties as cordially as they
themselves do, then are they in anguish of spirit, and wish for
slavery, or aristocracy, or anything that would give them power over
the lower classes."

"But surely, Mr. Theophilus," said Jenny, "there is no sin in
disliking trouble, and wanting to live easily and have a good time in
one's life,--it's so very natural."

"No sin, my dear, I admit; but there is a certain amount of work and
trouble that somebody must take to carry on the family and the world;
and the mischief is, that all are agreed in wanting to get rid of it.
Human nature is above all things lazy. I am lazy myself. Everybody is.
The whole struggle of society is as to who shall eat the hard
bread-and-cheese of labor, which must be eaten by somebody. Nobody
wants it,--neither you in the parlor, nor Biddy in the kitchen.

"'The mass ought to labor, and we lie on sofas,' is a sentence that
would unite more subscribers than any confession of faith that ever
was presented, whether religious or political; and its subscribers
would be as numerous and sincere in the free States as in the slave
States, or I am much mistaken in my judgment. The negroes are men and
women, like any of the rest of us, and particularly apt in the
imi