What now avail all my toil
and labor in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to
enjoy!--what the political struggles I have been engaged in for the good
of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies
for the benefit of our race in general! for in politics what can laws
do without morals? Our present race of ephemera will, in a course of
minutes, become corrupt, like those of other and older bushes, and
consequently as wretched. And in philosophy how small our progress!
Alas! art is long, and life is short. My friends would comfort me with
the idea of a name they say I shall leave behind me.... But what will
fame be to an ephemeron who no longer exists? and what will become of
all history, in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the
whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end, and be buried in universal
ruin?"
* * * * *
LATER RELIGIOUS WRITERS AND DIVINES.
=_John Woolman,[5] 1720-1772._=
From his "Life and Travels."
=_17._= REMARKS ON SLAVERY AND LABOR.
A people used to labor moderately for their living, training up their
children in frugality and business, have a happier life than those who
live on the labor of slaves. Freemen find satisfaction in improving and
providing for their families; but negroes, laboring to support others
who claim them as their property, and expecting nothing but slavery
during life, have not the like inducement to be industrious.
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