You must, by some kind of usefulness, _pay_ for all this. Our
race was the last thing created,--the birds and fishes on the fourth
day, the cattle and lizards on the fifth day, and man on the sixth
day. If geologists are right, the earth was a million of years in the
possession of the insects, beasts, and birds, before our race came
upon it. In one sense, we were innovators. The cattle, the lizards,
and the hawks had pre-emption right. The question is not what we are
to do with the lizards and summer insects, but what the lizards and
summer insects are to do with us.
If we want a place in this world we must _earn_ it. The partridge
makes its own nest before it occupies it. The lark, by its morning
song, earns its breakfast before it eats it; and the Bible gives an
intimation that the first duty of an idler is to starve, when it
says if he "will not work, neither shall he eat." Idleness ruins the
health; and very soon Nature says, "This man has refused to pay his
rent; out with him!"
Society is to be reconstructed on the subject of woman's toil.
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