been given, in the dead of night and far from help, they would gladly
have taken me unawares with some blow of stone or club, and, having
rendered me senseless, would have robbed me, and considered it a
righteous act. Not that there was any blood-thirstiness or exceptional
evil in their nature more than in that of the thousand-and-one toilers
that are met on the highway, but simply because they worked--such hard
work of hands and stooping backs, and I was idle, for all they knew.
Because they were going from one field of labour to another field of
labour, and I walked slowly and did no visible work. My dress showed no
stain, the weather had not battered it; there was no rent, no rags and
jags. At an hour when they were merely changing one place of work for
another place of work, to them it appeared that I had found idleness
indoors wearisome and had just come forth to exchange it for another
idleness. They saw no end to their labour; they had worked from
childhood, and could see no possible end to labour until limbs failed or
life closed. Why should they be like this? Why should I do nothing? They
were as good as I was, and they hated me. Their indignant glances spoke
it as plain as words, and far more distinctly than I can write it. You
cannot read it with such feeling as I received their looks.

Beautiful golden-brown, superb health, what would I not give for these?
To be the thrice-blessed and chosen of nature, what inestimable fortune!
To be indifferent to any circumstances--to be quite thoughtless as to
draughts and chills, careless of heat, indifferent to the character of
dinners, able to do well on hard, dry bread, capable of sleeping in the
open under a rick, or some slight structure of a hurdle, propped on a few
sticks and roughly thatched with straw, and to sleep sound as an oak, and
wake strong as an oak in the morning-gods, what a glorious life! I envied
them; they fancied I looked askance at their rags and jags. I envied
them, and considered their health and hue ideal. I envied them that