too, from time to time. Still less are we accumulating
its power, and preparing to act with greater energy at
a future time. Shall we not contribute our shares to this
enterprise, then ?
LIFE AVITHOUT PRIXCIPLE.*
At a Ivceura, not lonof since, I felt that the lecturer had
chosen a theme too foreign to iiimself, and so failed to
interest me as much a-s he migfht have done. H-e de-
scribed things not in or near to liis heart, but toward
his extremities and superficies. There was, in this sense,
no truly central or centralizing thought in the lecture.
I would have had him deal with his privatest experience,
as the poet does. The greatest compliment that was
ever paid me was when one asked me what / tJiongJitj
and attended to my answer. I am surprised, as well as
delighted, when this happens, it is such a rare use he
would make of me, as if he were acquainted with the
tool. Commonlv, if men want anvthino: of me, it is
only to know how many acres I make of their land, ā
since I am a surveyor, ā or, at most, what trivial news I
have burdened myself with. They never will go to law
for my meat; they prefer the shell. A man once came
a considerable distance to ask me to lecture on Slavery ;
but on conversing with him, I found that he and his
clique expected seven-eighths of the lecture to be theirs,
and only one-eighth mine ; so I declined. I take it
for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere, ā
* Atlantic Montlihj, Boston, October, 1863.
115
Ii6 Anti- Slavery and Reform Papers.
for I have had a little experience ia that basiness, ā
that there is a desire to hear what / ildnli on some
subject, though I may be the greatest fool in the country,
ā and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or
such as the audience will assent to ; and I resolve,
accordingrlv, that I will si^YQ them a stronof dose of
myself. They have sent for me, and engaged to pay
for me, and I am determined that they shall have me,
though I bore them beyond all precedent.
So now I would say something similar to you, my
readers. Since \jou are my readers, and I have not been
much of a traveller, I will not talk about people a
thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can.
As the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, *
and retain all the criticism.
Let us consider the way in which we spend our liv^es.
This world is a place of business. What an infinite
bustle ! I am awaked almost every night by the panting
of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There
is no Sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind
at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work.
I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in ;
they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents. An
Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took
it for granted that I was calculating my w^ages. If a
man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and
so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits
by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was
thus incapacitated for ā business ! I think that there
is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to
j( philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business.
There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow
Life without Principle. 117
ia the outskirts of our town, wlio is going to build a
bank-wall under the hill along: the edgre of his meadow.
The powers have put this into his head to keep him
out of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks
digging there with him. The result will be that he will
perhaps get some more money to hoard, and leave for
his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do this_, most will
commend me as an industrious and hard-working man ;
but if I choose to devote myself to certain labors which
yield more real profit, though but little money, they
may be inclined to look on me as an idler. Neverthe-
less, as I do not need the police of meaningless labor
to regulate me, and do not see anything absolutely
praiseworthy in this fellow's undertaking, any more than
in many an enterprise of our own or foreign governments,
however amusing it may be to him or them, I prefer to
finish my education at a different school.
If a man walk in the woods for love of them half
of each dav, he is in danofer of beings resfarded as a
loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator,
shearing off those woods and making earth bald before
her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising
citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests bub /
to cut them down !
Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed
to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and
then in throwing them back, merely that they might
earn their wages. But many are no more worthily
employed now. For instance: just after sunrise, one
summer morning, I noticed one of mY neighbors walk-
ing beside his team, which was slowly drawing a heavy
hewn stone swung under the axle, surrounded by an
iiS Anti- Slavery and Reform Papers.
atmosphere of industry, ā liis day's work begun, ā his
brow commenced to sweat, ā a reproach to all sluggards
and idlers, ā pausing abreast the shoulders of his oxen,
and half turning round with a flourish of his merciful
whip, while they gained their length on him. And I
thought. Such is the labor which the American Congress
exists to protect, ā honest, manly toil, ā honest as the
day is long, ā that makes his bread taste sweet, and
keeps society sweet, ā which all men respect and have
consecrated; one of the sacred band, doing the needful
but irksome drudgery. Indeed, I felt a slight reproach,
because I observed this from a window, and was not
abroad and stirring about a similar business. The day
went by, and at evening I passed the yard of another
neighbor, who keeps many servants, and speuds much
money foolishly, while he adds nothmg to the common
stock, and there I saw the stone of the morning lying
beside a whimsical structure intended to adorn this Lord
Timothy Dexter's premises, and the dignity forthwith
departed from the teamster's labor, in my eyes. In
my opinion, the sun was made to light worthier toil
than this. I may add, that his employer has since run
off, in debt to a good part of the town, and, after
passing through Chancery, has settled somewhere else,
there to become once more a patron of the arts.
The ways by which you may get money almost with-
I out exception lead downward. To have done anything
by which you earned money 'inerehj is to have been
truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than
the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated,
he cheats himself. If you would get money as a writer
or lecturer, you must be popular, vv-hich is to go down
Life without Principle. I I-Q
perpeudicularly. Those services which the community will
most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render.
You are paid for being something less than a man. The
State does not commonly reward a genius any more
wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have
to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed
with a pipe of wine ; and perhaps another poet is called
away from his muse to gauge that very pipe. As for
my own business, even that kind of surveying which I
could do with most satisfaction, my employers do not
want. They would prefer that I should do my work
coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When
I observe that there are different ways of surveying,
my employer commonly asks which will give him the
most land, not which is most correct. I once invented
a rule for measuring cord- wood, and tried to introduce
it in Boston ; but the measurer there told me that the
sellers did not wish to have their wood measured correctly,
ā that he was already too accurate for them, and there-
fore they commonly got their wood measured in Charles-
town before crossinj^ the bridgre.
The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his
living, to get "a good job,^' but to perform well a
certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would
be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that
they would not feel that they were working for low ends,
as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even
moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work
for money, but him who does it for love of it.
It is remarkable that there are few men so well
employed, so much to their minds, but that a little
money or fame would commonly buy them off irom their
120 Anti- Slavery and Reforin Papers.
present pursuit. I see advertisements for active young
\ men, as if activity were the whole of a young man's
capital. Yet 1 have been surprised when one has with
confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to embark in
some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing
to do, my life having been a complete failure hitherto.
What a doubtful compliment this is to pay me ! As if
he had met me half-way across the ocean beating up
against the wind, but bound nowhere, and proposed to
me to go along with him ! If I did, what do you think
the underwriters would say ? No, no ! I am not with-
out employment at this stage of the voyage. To tell the
truth, I saw an advertisement for able-bodied seamen,
when I was a boy, sauntering in my native port, and as
soon as I came of age I embarked.
The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise
man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a mountain,
but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is
minding his own business. An efficient and valuable
man does what he can, whether the community pay him
for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to
the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put
into office. One would suppose that they were rarely
disappointed.
Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect
to my freedom. I feel that my connection with and
obligation to society are still very slight and transient.
Those slight labors which aiford me a livelihood, and by
which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable
to my contemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to
me, and I am not often reminded that they are a neces-
sity. So far I am successful. But I foresee, that, if my
Life IV it J tout Principle. 12 1
wants should be much increased^ the labor required to
supply them would become a drudgery. If I should
sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most
appear to do, I am sure, that for me there would be
nothinof left w^orth livinof for. I trust that I shall never
thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to
suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not
spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer
than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting
his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting.
The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his
poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the
shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.
But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in
a hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this
standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely
prophesied.
Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is
not to be born, but to be still-born, rather. To be sup-
ported by the charity of friends, or a government-pension,
ā provided you continue to breathe, ā by whatever fine
synonymes you describe these relations, is to go into the
almshouse. On Sundays the poor debtor goes to church
to take an account of stock, and finds, of course, that his
outgoes have been greater than his income. In the
Catholic Church, especially, they go into Chancery, make
a clean confession, give up all, and think to start again.
Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall
of man, and never make an effort to get up.
As for the comparative demand which men make on
life, it is an important difference between two, that the
one is satisfied with a level success, that his marks can
122 A lit i- Slavery and Reform Papers.
all be hit by point-blank shots, but the other, however
low and unsuccessful his life may be, constantly elevates
his aim, though at a very slight angle to the horizon. I
should much rather be the last mau, ā though, as the
Orientals say, '^ Greatness doth not approach him who is
forever looking down ; and all those who are looking
high are growing poor."
It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be
remembered written on the subject of getting a living :
how to make getting a living not merely honest and
honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious ; for if
X getting a living is not so, then living is not. One would
think, from looking at literature, that this question had
never disturbed a solitary individual's musings. Is it
that men are too much disgusted with their experience to
speak of it ? The lesson of value which money teaches,
which the Author of the Universe has taken so much
pains to teach us, we are inclined to skip altogether. As
for the means of living, it is wonderful how indifferent
men of all classes are about it, even reformers, so-called,
ā whether they inherit, or earn, or steal it. I think that
Society has done nothing for us in this respect, or at
least lias undone what she has done. Cold and hunger
seem more friendly to my nature than those methods
which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.
The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied.
How can one be a wise man, if he does not know any
better how to live than other men ? ā if he is only more
cunning and intellectually subtle? Does wisdom work
in a tread-mill ? or does she teach how to succeed hg her
example ? Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied
to life ? Is she merely the miller who grinds the finest
Life zvitJiout Principle. 123
logic ? Ifc is pertiaeut to ask if Plato got his livlwj in a
better way or more successfully than his contemporaries,
ā or did he succumb to the difficulties of life like other
meu ? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely
by iudiffereuce, or by assumiug grand airs ? or find ic
easier to live, because his aunt remembered him in her
will ? The ways in which most men get their living,
that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking of the
real business of life, ā chiefly because they do not know,
but partly because they do not mean, auy better.
The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude,
not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and pro-
phets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest
disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by
luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of
others less lucky, without contributing any value to
society ! And that is called enterprise ! I know of no
more startling development of the immorality of trade,
and all the common modes of tj^ettina- a livingr. The
philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are
not worth the dust of a pufl'-ball. The hog that gets his
living by rooting, stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed
of such company. If I could command the wealth of all
the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such a
price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did npt
make this world in jest. It makes God to be a moneyed
gentlemen who scatters a handful of pennies in order to
see mankind scramble for them. The world's raffle ! A
subsistence iii the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled
for ! What a comment, what a satire, on our institutions!
The conclusion will be, that mankind will hancr itself
upon a tree. And have all the precepts in all the Bibles
124 A uti- Slavery and Re form Papers.
tanglit !nen only this ? and is the last and most admir-
able invention of the human race only an improved muck-
rake ? Is this the ground on which Orientals and Occi-
dentals meet ? Did God direct us so to get our living,
digging where we never planted, ā and He would, per-
chance, reward us with lumps of gold ?
God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him
to food and raiment, but the unrighteous man found a
facsimile of the same in God's coffers, and appropriated
it, and obtained food and raiment like the former. It is
one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting that
the world has seen. I did not know that mankind were
sufferinor for want of grold. I have seen a little of it. I
know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as
wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so
much as a grain of wisdom.
The gold-digger in the ravines of the mountains is as
much a gambler as his fellow in the saloons of San Fran-
cisco. What difference does it make, whether you shake
dirt or shake dice ? If you win, society is the loser.
The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, what-
ever checks and compensations there may be. It is not
enough to tell me that you worked hard to get your gold.
So does the devil work hard. The way of transgressors
may be hard in many respects. The humblest observer
who goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is
of the character of a lottery ; the gold thus obtained is
not the same thingf with the wajjes of honest toil. But,
practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen
only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there,
that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another
lottery, where the fact is not so obvious.
Life ivitJioiit Principle. 125
After reading Howitt's account of the Australian gold-
dioro-inofs one evening: I bad in mv mind^s eve, all nio^lit,
the numerous valleys, with their streams, all cut up with
foul pitSj from ten to one hundred feet deep, and half a
dozen feet across, as close as they can be dug, and partly
filled with water, ā the locality to which men furiouslv
rush to probe for their fortunes, ā uncertain where they
shall break ground, ā not knowing but the gold is under
their camp itself, ā sometimes digging one hundred and
sixty feet before they strike the vein, or then missing it
by a foot, ā turned into demons, and regardless of each
other's rights, in their thirst for riches, ā whole valleys,
for thirty miles, suddenly honeycombed by the pits of
the miners, so that even hundreds are drowned in them,
ā standing in water, and covered with mud and clay, they
work niorht and dav, dviuof of exposure and disease.
Having read this, and partly forgotten it, I was thinking,
accidentally, of my own unsatisfactor}' life, doing as others
do ; and with that vision of the diggings still before me,
I asked myself, why 1 might not be washing some gold
daily, though it were only the finest particles, ā why J
might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and
work that mine. T]iere is a Ballarat, a Bendigo, for you,
ā what though it were a sulky-gully ? At any rate, I
might pursue some path, however solitary and narrow
and crooked, in which I could walk with love and rever-
ence. Wherever a man separates from the multitude,
and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a
fork in the road, though ordinary travellers may see
only a gap in the paling. His solitary path across-lots
will turn out the Jiiijltcr ivay of the two.
Men rush to California and Australia as if the true
126 Anti-Slavery and Refo7nn Papers.
gold were to be found in that direction; but that is to ofo
to the very opposite extreme to wliere it lies. They go
prospecting farther and farther away from the true lead,
and are most unfortunate when they think themselves
most successful. Is not our native soil auriferous ?
Does not a stream from the golden mountains flow
throuofh our native vallev ? and has not this for more
than geologic ages been bringing down the shining
particles and forming the nuggets for us ? Yet, strange
to tell, if a digger steal away, prospecting for this true
gold, into the unexplored solitudes around us, there is no
danger that any will dog his steps, and endeavor to sup-
plant him. He may claim and undermine the whole
vallev even, both the cultivated and the uncultivated
portions, his whole life long in peace, for no one will ever
dispute his claim. They will not mind his cradles or his
toms. He is not confined to a claim twelve feet square,
as at Ballarat, but may mine anywhere, and wash the
whole wide world in his tom.
Howitt says of the man who found the great nugget
which weighed twenty-eight pounds, at the Bendigo
diggings in Australia: ''He soon began to drink; got
a liorse, and rode all about, generally at full gallop, and,
when he met people, called out to inquire if they knew
who he was, and then kindly informed them that he
was 'the bloody wretch that had found the nugget.'
At last he rode full speed against a tree, and nearly
knocked his brains out." I think, however, there was
no danger of that, for he had already knocked his brains
out against the nngget. Howitt adds, " He is a hope-
lessly ruined man." But he is a type of the class. They
are all fast men. Hear some of the names of the places
Life zvitJioiit Principle. 127
where they dig : ^^ Jackass Flat/^ ā '^ Sheep's-Head
Gallv/^ ā ^^ Murderer's Bar/' etc. Is there no satire in
these names ? Let them carry their ill-gotten wealth
where they will, I am thinking^ it will still be ^^ Jackass
Flat/' if not *ā ' Murderer^s Bar/' where they live.
The last resource of our enerofv has been the robbinof
of graveyards on the Istlimus of Darien, an enterprise
which appears to be but in its infancy; for, according
to late accounts, an act has passed its second reading
in the legislature of Xew Granada, regulating this kind
of mining ; and a correspondent of the '^ Tribune " writes :
"In the dry season, when the weather will permit of
the country being properly prospected, no doubt other
rich guacas [that is, graveyards] will be found. ^^ To
emisri'ants he savs : " Do not come before December ;
take the Isthmus route in preference to the Boca del
Toro one ; bring no useless baggage, and do not cumber
yourself with a tent ; but a good pair of blankets will
be necessary ; a pick, shovel, and axe of good material
will be almost all that is required " : advice which might
have been taken from the '^Burker^s Guide/' And he
concludes with this line in Italics and small capitals :
'^ If you are doing well at Jtome, stay there,'' which may
fairly be interpreted to mean, " If you are getting a
good living by robbing graveyards at home, stay there."
But why go to California for a text ? She is the child
of New England, bred at her own school and church.
It is remarkable that among all the preachers there
are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed
in excusing the ways of men. Most reverend seniors,
the illuminati of the age, tell me, with a gracious, remi-
niscent smile, betwixt an aspiration and a shudder, not
128 An ti- Slavery and Reform Papers.
to be too tender about these things, ā to lump all that,
that is^ make a lump of gold of it. The highest advice
I have heard on these subjects was grovelling. The
burden of it was, ā It is not worth your while to under-
take to reform the world in this particular. Do not ask
how your bread is buttered ; it will make you sick, if
you do, ā and the like. A man had better starve at
once than lose his innocence in the process of getting
his bread. If within the sophisticated man there is not
an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the deviFs
angels. As we grow old, we live more coarsely, we re-
lax a little in our disciplines, and, to some extent, cease
to obey our finest instincts. But we should be fastidious
to the extreme of sanity, disregarding the gibes of those
who are more unfortunate than ourselves.
In our science and philosophy, even, there is com-
monly no true and absolute account of things. The
spirit of sect and bigotry has planted its hoof amid the
stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether
the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it.
AVhy must we daub the heavens as well as the earth?
It was an unfortunate discovery that Dr. Kane was a
Mason, and that Sir John Franklin was another. But
it was a more cruel suggestion that possibly that was
the reason why the former went in search of the latter.
There is not a popular magazine in this country that
would dare to print a child^s thought on important
subjects without comment. It must be submitted to the
D. D.s. I would it were the chickadee-dees.
You come from attending the funeral of mankind to
attend to a natural phenomenon. A little thought is
sexton to all the world.
Life tvithojit Principle. 129
I hardly know an intellectual man^ even^ avIio is so