The goddess has commanded the work of the girls to be done by the Nymphs; and now these skip lightly over the wheels, so that the shaken axles revolve with the spokes, and pull around the load of the revolving stones. Let us live the life of our fathers, and let us rest from work and enjoy the gifts that the goddess has sent us! BY JOHN STUART MILL (English philosopher, 1806-1873) Hitherto, it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. The Man Under the Stone (_From "The Man with the Hoe and other Poems"_) BY EDWIN MARKHAM (See page 27) When I see a workingman with mouths to feed, Up, day after day, in the dark before the dawn, And coming home, night after night, thro' the dusk, Swinging forward like some fierce silent animal, I see a man doomed to roll a huge stone up an endless steep. He strains it onward inch by stubborn inch, Crouched always in the shadow of the rock.... See where he crouches, twisted, cramped, misshapen! He lifts for their life; The veins knot and darken-- Blood surges into his face.... Now he loses--now he wins-- Now he loses--loses--(God of my soul!) He digs his feet into the earth-- There's a movement of terrified effort.... It stirs--it moves! Will the huge stone break his hold And crush him as it plunges to the Gulf? The silent struggle goes on and on, Like two contending in a dream. BY BOETHIUS (Roman philosopher, 470-524) Though the goddess of riches should bestow as much as the sand rolled by the wind-tossed sea, or as many as the stars that shine, the human race will not cease to wail. [Illustration: COLD ROGER BLOCHE (_French sculptor; from the Luxembourg Museum_)] [Illustration: THE PEOPLE MOURN JULES PIERRE VAN BIESBROECK (_Sculptor of the Belgian Socialist and co-operative movements; born 1873_)] The Wolf at the Door BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN (America's most brilliant woman poet and critic; born 1860) There's a haunting horror near us That nothing drives away; Fierce lamping eyes at nightfall, A crouching shade by day; There's a whining at the threshold, There's a scratching at the floor. To work! To work! In Heaven's name! The wolf is at the door! The day was long, the night was short, The bed was hard and cold; Still weary are the little ones, Still weary are the old. We are weary in our cradles From our mother's toil untold; We are born to hoarded weariness As some to hoarded gold. We will not rise! We will not work! Nothing the day can give Is half so sweet as an hour of sleep; Better to sleep than live! What power can stir these heavy limbs? What hope these dull hearts swell? What fear more cold, what pain more sharp Than the life we know so well?...