That is why I say, lift a man, give him life, let him work eight hours a day, give him the school, develop his taste for music, give him a garden, give him beautiful things to see, and good books to read, and you will starve out those lower appetites. Give a man a chance to earn a good living, and you may save his life.
If you want power in this country; if you want to make yourselves felt; if you do not want your children to wait long years before they have the bread on the table they ought to have, the leisure in their lives they ought to have, the opportunities in life they ought to have; if you don’t want to wait yourselves,—write on your banner, so that every political trimmer can read it, so that every politician, no matter how short-sighted he may be, can read it, “We never forget! If you launch the arrow of sarcasm at labor, we never forget; if there is a division in Congress, and you throw your vote in the wrong scale, we never forget. You may go down on your knees, and say, ‘I am sorry I did the act;’ and we will say, ‘It will avail you in heaven, but on this side of the grave never.’” So that a man, in taking up the labor question, will know he is dealing with a hair-trigger pistol, and will say, “I am to be true to justice and to man: otherwise I am a dead duck.”
Wendell Phillips.
LOVE AND PHILOSOPHY.
’Twas a maiden full of knowledge, Though she’d scarcely passed eighteen; She was lovely as an angel, Though of grave and sober mien;
A sweet encyclopædia Of every kind of lore; And love looked coyly from behind The glasses that she wore.
She sat beside her lover, With her elbow on his knee, And dreamily she gazed upon The slumbering summer sea.
Until he broke the silence, Saying, “Pray inform me, dear, What people mean when speaking Of the Thingness of the Here.
“I know you’re just from Concord, Where the lights of wisdom be; Your head crammed full to bursting, love, With their philosophy,—