ly every day they give
you trouble or do you some mischief. Now it is a skittish horse that
runs away or lashes out with his heels; then it is a cow, however
good-tempered, that won't keep still to be milked and tramples on
your toes when the flies annoy her. And even if by good fortune they
don't harm you, they are forever finding a way to destroy your
comfort and to vex you..."

"I know how it is; I was brought up on a farm. And you, most of you
farmers, know how it is too. All the morning you have worked hard,
and go to your house for dinner and a little rest. Then, before you
are well seated at table, a child is yelling:--'The cows are over
the fence;' or 'The sheep are in the crop,' and everyone jumps up
and runs, thinking of the oats or the barley it has been such a
trouble to raise, that these miserable fools are ruining. The men
dash about brandishing sticks till they are out of breath; the women
stand screaming in the farm-yard. And when you have managed to drive
the cows or the sheep into their paddock and put up the rails, you
get back to the house nicely 'rested' to find the pea-soup cold and
full of flies, the pork under the table gnawed by dogs and cats, and
you eat what you can lay your hands on, watching for the next trick
the wretched animals are getting ready to play on you."

"You are their slaves; that's what you are. You tend them, you
clean them, you gather up their dung as the poor do the rich man's
crumbs. It is you who must keep them alive by hard work, because the
earth is miserly and the summer so short. That is the way of it, and
there is no help, as you cannot get on without them; but for cattle
there would be no living on the land. But even if you could ...
even if you could ... still would you have other masters: the
summer, beginning too late and ending too soon; the winter, eating
up seven long months of the year and bringing in nothing; drought
and rain which always come just at the wrong moment..."

"In the towns these things do not matter; but here you have no
defence against them and they do you hurt; and I have not taken into
account the extreme cold, the badness of the roads, the loneliness
of being far away from everything, with no amusements. Life is one
kind of hardship on top of another from beginning to end. It is
often said that only those make a real success who are born and
brought up on the land, and of course that is true; as for the
people in the cities, small danger