religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same all
the world over, whether the building be an Egyptian temple or the
United States Bank. It costs more than it comes to. The mainspring
is vanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter. Mr.
Balcom, a promising young architect, designs it on the back of his
Vitruvius, with hard pencil and ruler, and the job is let out to
Dobson & Sons, stonecutters. When the thirty centuries begin to
look down on it, mankind begin to look up at it. As for your high
towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who
undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he
said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle; but I think that
I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made. Many
are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East -- to
know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in
those days did not build them -- who were above such trifling. But
to proceed with my statistics.
By surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in
the village in the meanwhile, for I have as many trades as fingers,
I had earned $13.34. The expense of food for eight months, namely,
from July 4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates were made,
though I lived there more than two years -- not counting potatoes, a
little green corn, and some peas, which I had raised, nor
considering the value of what was on hand at the last date -- was

Rice .................... $ 1.73 1/2
Molasses ................. 1.73 Cheapest form of the
saccharine.
Rye meal ................. 1.04 3/4
Indian meal .............. 0.99 3/4 Cheaper than rye.
Pork ..................... 0.22