introduced as the sole attendant at the pauper's burial! He whom they
were preparing to commit to the earth was going to the tomb, as he had
lived, alone; doubtless no one would be aware of his end. In this battle
of society, what signifies a soldier the less?

But what, then, is this human society, if one of its members can thus
disappear like a leaf carried away by the wind?

The hospital was near a barrack, at the entrance of which old men,
women, and children were quarrelling for the remains of the coarse
bread which the soldiers had given them in charity! Thus, beings like
ourselves daily wait in destitution on our compassion till we give
them leave to live! Whole troops of outcasts, in addition to the trials
imposed on all God's children, have to endure the pangs of cold, hunger,
and humiliation. Unhappy human commonwealth! Where man is in a worse
condition than the bee in its hive, or the ant in its subterranean city!

Ah! what then avails our reason? What is the use of so many high
faculties, if we are neither the wiser nor the happier for them? Which
of us would not exchange his life of labor and trouble with that of the
birds of the air, to whom the whole world is a life of joy?

How well I understand the complaint of Mao, in the popular tales of the
'Foyer Breton' who, when dying of hunger and thirst, says, as he looks
at the bullfinches rifling the fruit-trees:

"Alas! those birds are happier than Christians; they have no need of
inns, or butchers, or bakers, or gardeners. God's heaven belongs to
them, and earth spreads a continual feast before them! The tiny flies
are their game, ripe grass their cornfields, and hips and haws their
store of fruit. They have the right of taking everywhere, without paying
or asking leave: thus comes it that the little birds are happy, and sing
all the livelong day!"

But the life of man in a natural state is like that of the birds; he
equally enjoys nature. "The earth spreads a continual feast before him."
What, then, has he gained by that selfish and imperfect association
which forms a nation? Would it not be better for every one to turn again
to the fertile bosom of nature, and live there upon her bounty in peace
and liberty?

August 20th, four o'clock A.M.--The dawn casts a red glow on my
bed-curtains; the breeze brings in the fragrance of the gardens below.
Here I am again leaning on my elbows by the windows, inhaling the
freshness and gladness of this first waken