That is the trouble with communism, those who dig are apt to dig their feet.  It is easier to call a spade a spade than to use one.  Men may be born free and equal, but if they are, they do not show it.  From his first breath man is oppressed by the conditions of his existence, and life is a struggle with environment.  Freedom and liberty are terms of relative not absolute value.  The absolutism of the commune is oppression refined, each man must dig even if he digs his own foot.  The plea of the anarchist for liberty is more consistent than the plea of the communist,—­the one does demand a wild, lawless freedom for individual initiative; the other demands the very refinement of interference with liberty of mind and body.

The evolutionist looks on with philosophic indifference, knowing that what is to be will be, that the stream of tendency is not to be checked or swerved by vaporings, but moves irresistibly onward, though every thought, every utterance, every experiment, however wild, however visionary, has its effect.

We of the practical world sojourning in the Shaker village may commiserate the disciples of theory, but they are happy in their own way,—­possibly happier in their seclusion and routine than we are in our hurly-burly and endless strife for social, commercial, and political advantages.  Life is as settled and certain for them as it is unsettled and uncertain for us.  No problems confront them; the everlasting query, “What shall we do to-morrow?” is never asked; plans for the coming summer do not disturb them; the seashore is far off; Paris and Monte Carlo are but places, vague and indistinct, the fairy tales of travellers; their city is the four walls of their home; their world the one long, silent, street of the village; their end the little graveyard beyond; it is all planned out, foreseen, and arranged.

Such a life is not without its charms, and it is small wonder that in all ages men of intellect have sought in some form of communistic association relief from the pressure of strenuous individualism.  We may smile with condescension upon the busy sisters in their caps and gingham gowns, but, who knows, theirs may be the better lot.

Life with us is a good deal of an automobile race,—­a lot of dust, dirt, and noise; explosions, accidents, and delays; something wrong most of the time; now a burst of headlong speed, then a jolt and sudden stop; or a creeping pace with disordered mechanism; no time to think of much except the machine; less time to see anything except the road immediately ahead; strife to pass others; reckless indifference to life and limb; one long, mad contest for success and notoriety, ending for the most part in some sort of disaster,—­possibly a sea of flame.

If we possessed any sense of grim, sardonic humor, we would appreciate how ridiculous is the life we lead, how utterly absurd is our waste of time, our dissipation of the few days and hours vouchsafed us.  We are just so many cicadas drumming out the hours and disappearing.  We have abundance of wit, and a good deal of humor of a superficial kind, but the penetrating vision of a Socrates, a Voltaire, a Carlyle is denied the most of us, and we take ourselves and our accustomed pursuits most seriously.