knowing where metallic riches are found, and with
bringing them to light; but their dazzling glare has no power over his
simple heart. Untouched by the perilous delirium, he is more pleased in
examining their wonderful formation, and the peculiarities of their
origin and primitive situation, than in calling himself their
possessor. When changed into property, they have no longer any charm
for him, and he prefers to seek them amid a thousand dangers and
travails, in the fastnesses of the earth, rather than to follow their
vocation in the world, or aspire after them on the earth's surface,
with cunning and deceitful arts. These severe labors keep his heart
fresh and his mind strong; he enjoys his scanty pay with inward
thankfulness, and comes forth every day from the dark tombs of his
calling, with new-born enjoyment of life. He now appreciates the
pleasure of light and of rest, the charms of the free air and prospect;
his food and drink are right refreshing to one, who enjoys them as
devoutly as if at the Lord's Supper; and with what a warm and tender
heart he joins his friends, or embraces his wife and children, and
thankfully shares the delights of heart-felt intercourse."

"His lonely occupation cuts off a great part of his life from day and
the society of man. Still he does not harden himself in dull
indifference as to these deep-meaning matters of the upper world; and
he retains a childlike simplicity, which recognises the interior
essence, and the manifold, primitive energies of all things. Nature
will never be the possession of any single individual. In the form of
property it becomes a terrible poison, which destroys rest, excites the
ruinous desire of drawing everything within the reach of its possessor,
and carries with it a train of wild passions and endless sorrows. Thus
it undermines secretly the ground of the owner, buries him in the abyss
which breaks beneath him, and so passes into the hands of another, thus
gradually satisfying its tendency to belong to all.

"How quietly, on the contrary, the poor miner labors in his deep
solitudes, far from the restless turmoil of day, animated solely by a
thirst for knowledge and a love of harmony. In his solitude he tenderly
thinks of his friends and family, and his sense of their value and
relationship is continually renewed. His calling teaches indefatigable
patience, and forbids his attention to be diverted by useless thoughts.
He deals with a strange, hard, and