anchored to a house or farm,
but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one,
every moment. Beside being better off than they already, if my house had
been burned or my crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well
off as before.

I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as
herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer. Men and
oxen exchange work; but if we consider necessary work only, the oxen
will be seen to have greatly the advantage, their farm is so much the
larger. Man does some of his part of the exchange work in his six weeks
of haying, and it is no boy's play. Certainly no nation that lived
simply in all respects, that is, no nation of philosophers, would commit
so great a blunder as to use the labor of animals. True, there never was
and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain
it is desirable that there should be. However, I should never have
broken a horse or bull and taken him to board for any work he might do
for me, for fear I should become a horseman or a herdsman merely; and if
society seems to be the gainer by so doing, are we certain that what is
one man's gain is not another's loss, and that the stable-boy has equal
cause with his master to be satisfied? Granted that some public works
would not have been constructed without this aid, and let man share the
glory of such with the ox and horse; does it follow that he could not
have accomplished works yet more worthy of himself in that case? When
men begin to do, not merely unnecessary or artistic, but luxurious and
idle work, with their assistance, it is inevitable that a few do all the
exchange work with the oxen, or, in other words, become the slaves of
the strongest. Man thus not only works for the animal within him, but,
for a symbol of this, he works for the animal without him. Though we
have many substantial houses of brick or stone, the prosperity of the
farmer is still measured by the degree to which the barn overshadows the
house. This town is said to have the largest houses for oxen, cows, and
horses hereabouts, and it is not behindhand in its public buildings; but
there are very few halls for free worship or free speech in this county.
It should not be by their architecture, but why not even by their power
of abstract thought, that nations should seek to commemorate themselves?
How much more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta than all the ruins of the
East