reason what peat is to
coal; the outcry of the living and the dead perverts judgment, closes the
ear to proof; and our wisest fear the scorn of fools. So we walk cramped
and strangely under the tragic tyranny of reiteration: whatever is right;
whatever is repeated often enough is true; and logic is a device for
evading the self-evident. Moreover, Carthage should be destroyed.

Such sage reflections present themselves automatically, contrasting the
blithesome knee action of prosperous Mr. Mitchell with the stiffened
joints of other men who had climbed those hard stairs on occasion with
shambling step, bent backs and sagging shoulders; with faces lined and
interlined; with eyes dulled and dim, and sunken cheeks; with hands
misshapen, knotted and bent by toil: if image indeed of God, strangely
distorted--or a strange God.

Consider now, in a world yielding enough and to spare for all, the
endless succession of wise men, from the Contributing Editor of
Proverbs unto this day, who have hymned the praise of diligence and
docility, the scorn of sloth. Yet not one sage of the bountiful bunch
has ever ventured to denounce the twin vices of industry and obedience.
True, there is the story of blind Samson at the mill; perhaps a parable.

Underfed and overworked for generations, starved from birth, starved
before birth, we drive and harry and crush them, the weakling and his
weaker sons; we exploit them, gull them, poison them, lie to them, filch
from them. We crowd them into our money mills; we deny them youth, we
deny them rest, we deny them opportunity, we deny them hope, or any hope
of hope; and we provide for age--the poorhouse. So that charity is become
of all words the most feared, most hated, most loathed and loathsome;
worse than crime or shame or death. We have left them from the work of
their hands enough, scantly enough, to keep breath within their stunted
bodies. "All the traffic can bear!"--a brazen rule. Of such sage policy
the result can be seen in the wizened and undersized submerged of London;
of nearer than London. Man, by not taking thought, has taken a cubit from
his stature.

Meantime we prate comfortable blasphemies, scientific or other; natural
selection or the inscrutable decrees of God. Whereas this was manifestly
a Hobson's selection, most unnatural and forced, to choose want of all
that makes life sweet and dear; to choose gaunt babes, with pinched and
livid lips--unlovely, not unloved; and these iniq