_Prevention is better than cure._ You can do far more for the man who is in danger of being sick than for him who is already worn out. Ten days or a fortnight of rest and good living at the sea-side, will restore him to you, a good, sound, solid laborer. His carriage, and the cheap shelter, for so few days! by that recuperating sea-side, I tell you again, will restore him to you, a good sound, honest, and independent laborer. And the man will be saved, and his young family; and such a man as, if you once lose him, you cannot easily replace. No! You cannot replace him, for, as I have already said, every really working man is the slow product, of a long tradition of thought and of labor, and he himself is a work of art; of that so much misunderstood human art in which _Humanity itself becomes a creative Power_. Who shall give me to see that crowd of inventive people, that creating and manufacturing people, who in the world's service are hourly wearing themselves out; who, I ask, will give me to see that People, that true People, enabled to repair their shattered frames at the magnificent sea-side? Let this ability be provided for them, and all classes and conditions will equally share the benefit. And let it not be forgotten that all classes and conditions _owe_ thus much to the worn toilers, for by their toil, their excessive toil, all classes are benefited. It is by their very blood, by their very marrow, that all classes receive their enjoyments, their elegance, and their enlightenment. Let society, then, give to them the repose, the saline air, the restoring waters of the great restoring Sea. In doing thus much, society will benefit itself; while doing the simplest justice to its worn toilers. Have pity upon yourselves, all ye poor men of the West. Consult upon, and act for, the common weal. Earth entreats you to live and offers you that which is her best, the SEA, to repair your own strength and thus secure your children against your weakness. Earth would be ruined if you persist in ruining yourselves, for you are her Genius, her inventive and working Soul. She lives by your life, and if you die she also will die. In the name, then, of Humanity and of Nature, too, Nations! Attention! Mercy for yourselves; Earth supplies you with the means of laboring and living; THE SEA offers you the still better means of living WELL. NOTES. "That vast animal the Earth, which for heart has a magnet, has at its surface a doubtful being, electric and phosphorescent, more sensitive, and infinitely more prolific, than the Earth itself. "That being which we call the Sea,--is it a parasite of the vast animal which we call the Earth? No. It has not a distinct and hostile personality. It vivifies and fecundates the Earth with its vapors; it even appears to be the Earth itself in that which it has of the most productive; in other words, its principal organ of fecundity."