bread. The spirit was harmless enough, for its cage and its chain
were not to be escaped or forced, strengthened as they were by the
usage of a whole life. Ozias Lamb would deliver himself of riotous
sentiments, but on that bench he would sit and peg shoes till his
dying day. He would have pegged there through a revolution.

Jerome's eyes would gleam with responsive fire when his uncle, his
splendid forehead flushing and swelling with turbid veins, said, in
that dry voice of his, which seemed to gain in force without being
raised into clamor: "What right has one man with the whole purse,
while another has not a penny in his pocket? What right has one with
the whole loaf, while another has a crumb? What right has one man
with half the land in the village, while another can hardly make
shift to earn his grave?"

Ozias would pause a second, then launch out with new ardor, as if
Jerome had advanced an opposite argument. "Born with property, are
they--inherited property? One man comes into the world with the gold
all earned, or stolen--don't matter which--waiting for him. Shoes all
made for him, no peggin' for other folks; carpets to walk on, sofas
to lay on, china dishes to eat off of. Everything is all complete;
don't make no odds if he's a fool, don't make no odds if he 'ain't no
more sense of duty to his fellow-beings than a pig, it's all just as
it should be. Everybody is cringin' an' bowin' an' offerin' a little
more to the one that's got more than anybody else. It's 'Take a seat
here, sir--do; this is more comfortable,' when he's set on feather
cushions all day. There'll be a poor man standin' alongside that
'ain't had a chance to set down since he got out of bed before
daylight, every bone in him achin'--stiff. There ain't no extra
comfortable chairs pointed out to him. Lord, no! If there happens to
be the soft side of a rock or a plank handy, he's welcome to take it;
if there ain't, why let him keep his standin'; he's used to it. I
tell ye, it's them that need to whom it should be given, and not them
that's got it already. I tell ye, the need should always regulate the
supply.

"I tell ye, J'rome, balance-wheels an' seesaws an' pendulums wa'n't
give us for nothin' besides runnin' machinery and clocks. Everything
on this earth means somethin' more'n itself, if we could only see it.
They're symbols, that's what they be, an' we've got to work up from a
symbol that we see to the higher thing that we don't see. Most