One of the bees asked him how he had spent his time all the summer, and why he had not laid up a store of food like them.
"Truly." said he, "I spent my time very merrily, in drinking, dancing, and singing, and never once thought of winter."
"Our plan is very different," said the bee; "we work hard in the summer, to lay by a store of food against the season when we foresee we shall want it; but those who do nothing but drink, and dance, and sing in the summer, must expect to starve in the winter."
THRIFT.
CHAPTER I.
INDUSTRY.
"Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom."—Carlyle.
"Productive industry is the only capital which enriches a people, and spreads national prosperity and well-being. In all labour there is profit, says Solomon. What is the science of Political Economy, but a dull sermon on this text?"—Samuel Laing.
"God provides the good things of the world to serve the needs of nature, by the labours of the ploughman, the skill and pains of the artizan, and the dangers and traffic of the merchant…. The idle person is like one that is dead, unconcerned in the changes and necessities of the world; and he only lives to spend his time, and eat the fruits of the earth: like a vermin or a wolf, when their time comes they die and perish, and in the meantime do no good."—Jeremy Taylor.
"For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build."—Longfellow.