foot-paths from the Atlantic to the Pacific for future civilization to
take an evening stroll along to see the sun set,--that is converting
black wool into white cotton, to clothe the inhabitants of
Borrioboolagha,--that is trading, farming, electing, governing,
fighting, annexing, destroying, building, puffing, blowing, steaming,
racing, as our young two-hundred-year-old is,--we must work, we must
act, and think afterwards. Whatsoever thy _hand_ findeth to do, do it
with thy might."

"And what," I said, "when hand-and-foot-action shall have ceased? will
you then allow some play for thought-action?"

"We have no time to think of that," he returned, walking away, and thus
stopping our conversation.

The man was consistent in his theory, at least. Having exalted physical
motion (or action) to the place he did, he refused to see that the
action he prized was more valuable through the thought it developed;
consequently he reduced all actions to the same level, and prided
himself upon stripping a deed of all its marvellousness or majesty. He
did uncommon things in such a matter-of-fact way that he made them
common by the performance. The faint spiritual double which I found
lurking behind his steel and iron he either solidified with his
metallic touch or pertinaciously denied its existence.

"Plato was a fool," he said, "to talk of an ideal table; for, supposing
he could see it, and prove its existence, what good could it do? You
can neither eat off it, nor iron on it, nor do anything else with it;
so, for all practical purposes, a pine table serves perfectly well
without hunting after the ideal. I want something that I can go up to,