im. Think of the
happiness with which he would then contemplate that endowment of a
Deferred Annuity. And the endowment will not prevent or interfere with
any work the girls may wish to do. It will even help them in their
work. My brothers, let our girls work if they wish; perhaps they will
be happier if they work let them work at whatever kind of work they
may desire; but not--oh not--because they must.

[1888.]

FROM THIRTEEN TO SEVENTEEN

In the history of every measure designed for the amelioration of the
people there may be observed four distinct and clearly marked stages.
First, there is the original project, fresh from the brain of the
dreamer, glowing with the colours of his imagination, a figure fair
and strong as the newly born Athene. By its single-handed power
mankind are to be regenerated, and the millennium is to be at once
taken in hand. There are no difficulties which it will not at once
clear away; there are no obstacles which will not vanish at its
approach as the morning mist is burned up by the newly risen sun. The
dreamer creates a school, and presently among his disciples there
arises one who is practical enough to reduce the dream to a possible
and working scheme. The advocates of the Cause are still, however, a
good way from getting the scheme established. The battle with the
opposition follows, in which one has to contend--first with those who
cannot be touched by any generous aims, always a pretty large body;
next with those who are afraid of the people; and lastly with those
who have private interests of their own to defend. The triumph which
presently arrives by no means concludes the history of the agitation,
because there is certain to follow at no distant day the discovery
that the measure has somehow failed to achieve those glorious results
which were so freely promised. It has, in fact, gone to swell the
pages of that chronicle, not yet written, which may be called the
'History of the Well-intentioned.'

The emancipation of the West Indian slaves, for instance, has not been
accompanied by the burning desire for progress--industrial, artistic,
or educational--which was confidently anticipated. Quite the contrary.
Yet--which is a point which continually recurs in the History of the
Well-intentioned--one would not, if it were possible, go back to the
former conditions. It is better that the negro should lie idle, and
sleep in the sun all his days, than that he should work u