But within fourteen years I have acquired a small cottage with a bit of ground, so that I am as well off as though I had always remained a peasant.
And how did I accomplish this? Simply by cultivating the ground. And this is the way in which I labored. When they reaped the grain, where it takes two laborers to bind the sheaves after the reaper, I did it alone, in spite of my sixty-five years of age, and the work was well done, the sheaves strongly bound. God is my witness, reader, that I tell only the truth.
You will thus see that, while with you in the great world the superiority is given to the general, with us it is gained by the good workman.
In strict justice, I should then have the right to be seated by the side of the general. By his side, do I say? He ought to remain standing before me.
And why? asks the alarmed reader. Because the general eats the bread produced by my labor, since the reverse is not true: and this I will presently show in my justification.
The reader now knows who I am.
Have I then no reason to speak and write of labor and of idleness? I have it truly, and will use it.
If, among the developments and reasonings that follow, any be found that seem useless or even hurtful, I desire they shall be ignored. They will not result from an evil intention; it is
