Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/210

174 lacking neither character, nor talent, nor industry, but they have never been allowed sufficient leisure to choose their own course; on the contrary, they have been accustomed from childhood to some one's guidance. At the time when they were ripe to “be sent into the desert," something else was done with them—they were employed, they were estranged from themselves, they were trained to being worn out with the daily toil; this was imposed as a duty upon them—and now they are neither able nor willing to do without it. The only thing that cannot be denied these poor beasts of burden is their "vacation," as they call it, this ideal of leisure amid an overstrained century, where we may for once be idle, idiotic, and childish to our heart's content. —All the political and economic affairs do not deserve being and having to be dealt with by the most gifted; such a waste of intellect is really worse than a deficiency of it. They are and will ever be departments of work for lesser heads, and others than the lesser ones should not be at the service of this workshop, it would be better to let the machinery go to pieces again. But as matters now stand, when not only all believe that every day they have to know all about it, but everybody at all times wishes to be engaged in its service, and, in so doing, neglects his own work, it is a great and ridiculous mania. The price which we thus have to pay