ormed by a machine. The
occupation of cultivating the earth is the most despised of all. Even an
artisan is held in more estimation than a peasant.

_Paul._--What! do you mean to say that the art which furnishes food for
mankind is despised in Europe? I hardly understand you.

_The Old Man._--Oh! it is impossible for a person educated according to
nature to form an idea of the depraved state of society. It is easy to
form a precise notion of order, but not of disorder. Beauty, virtue,
happiness, have all their defined proportions; deformity, vice, and
misery have none.

_Paul._--The rich then are always very happy! They meet with no
obstacles to the fulfilment of their wishes, and they can lavish
happiness on those whom they love.

_The Old Man._--Far from it, my son! They are, for the most part
satiated with pleasure, for this very reason,--that it costs them no
trouble. Have you never yourself experienced how much the pleasure of
repose is increased by fatigue; that of eating, by hunger; or that of
drinking, by thirst? The pleasure also of loving and being loved is
only to be acquired by innumerable privations and sacrifices. Wealth, by
anticipating all their necessities, deprives its possessors of all these
pleasures. To this ennui, consequent upon satiety, may also be added
the pride which springs from their opulence, and which is wounded by
the most trifling privation, when the greatest enjoyments have ceased to
charm. The perfume of a thousand roses gives pleasure but for a moment;
but the pain occasioned by a single thorn endures long after the
infliction of the wound. A single evil in the midst of their pleasures
is to the rich like a thorn among flowers; to the poor, on the contrary,
one pleasure amidst all their troubles is a flower among a wilderness
of thorns; they have a most lively enjoyment of it. The effect of every
thing is increased by contrast; nature has balanced all things. Which
condition, after all, do you consider preferable,--to have scarcely any
thing to hope, and every thing to fear, or to have every thing to hope
and nothing to fear? The former condition is that of the rich,
the latter, that of the poor. But either of these extremes is with
difficulty supported by man, whose happiness consists in a middle
station of life, in union with virtue.

_Paul._--What do you understand by virtue?

_The Old Man._--To you, my son, who support your family by your labour,
it need hardly be defined.