e.
But what I object to is this economic chance-world in which we live, and
which we men seem to have created. It ought to be law as inflexible in
human affairs as the order of day and night in the physical world that
if a man will work he shall both rest and eat, and shall not be harassed
with any question as to how his repose and his provision shall come.
Nothing less ideal than this satisfies the reason. But in our state of
things no one is secure of this. No one is sure of finding work; no one
is sure of not losing it. I may have my work taken away from me at any
moment by the caprice, the mood, the indigestion of a man who has not
the qualification for knowing whether I do it well, or ill. At my time
of life--at every time of life--a man ought to feel that if he will keep
on doing his duty he shall not suffer in himself or in those who are
dear to him, except through natural causes. But no man can feel this
as things are now; and so we go on, pushing and pulling, climbing and
crawling, thrusting aside and trampling underfoot; lying, cheating,
stealing; and then we get to the end, covered with blood and dirt and
sin and shame, and look back over the way we've come to a palace of our
own, or the poor-house, which is about the only possession we can claim
in common with our brother-men, I don't think the retrospect can be
pleasing."

"I know, I know!" said his wife. "I think of those things, too, Basil.
Life isn't what it seems when you look forward to it. But I think people
would suffer less, and wouldn't have to work so hard, and could make all
reasonable provision for the future, if they were not so greedy and so
foolish."

"Oh, without doubt! We can't put it all on the conditions; we must
put some of the blame on character. But conditions make character; and
people are greedy and foolish, and wish to have and to shine, because
having and shining are held up to them by civilization as the chief good
of life. We all know they are not the chief good, perhaps not good at
all; but if some one ventures to say so, all the rest of us call him a
fraud and a crank, and go moiling and toiling on to the palace or the
poor-house. We can't help it. If one were less greedy or less foolish,
some one else would have and would shine at his expense. We don't moil
and toil to ourselves alone; the palace or the poor-house is not merely
for ourselves, but for our children, whom we've brought up in the
superstition that having and shi