It was such uplifting vistas that inspired the human imagination, in the
days of its youth, to breathe a soul into the universe and make it a
living thing, palpitant with love and hope; it was an outlook that would
have moved the narrowest, the smallest, to think in the wide and the
large. Wherever the hills were not based close to the water's edge or
rose less abruptly, there were cultivated fields; and in each field, far
or near, men were at work. These broad-hatted, blue-shirted toilers in
the ardent sun determined the turn of Adelaide's thoughts.

"It doesn't seem right, does it," said she, "that so many--almost
everybody--should have to work so hard just to get enough to eat and to
wear and a place to sleep, when there's so much of everything in the
world--and when a few like us don't have to work at all and have much
more than they need, simply because one happened to be born in such or
such conditions. I suppose it's got to be so, but it certainly looks
unjust--and silly."

"I'm not sure the workers haven't the best of it," replied Arthur. "They
have the dinner; we have only the dessert; and I guess one gets tired of
only desserts, no matter how great the variety."

"It's a stupid world in lots of ways, isn't it?"

"Not so stupid as it used to be, when everybody said and thought it was
as good as possible," replied he. "You see, it's the people in the world
that make it stupid. For instance, do you suppose you and I, or anybody,
would care for idling about and doing all sorts of things our better
judgment tells us are inane, if it weren't that most of our fellow-beings
are stupid enough to admire and envy that sort of thing, and that we are
stupid enough to want to be admired and envied by stupid people?"