that the public might have good roads to travel on, and show him what a great satisfaction it should be to know that his labours would confer a lasting benefit on his fellow creatures; that, though it might appear a little hard on him individually, he should raise his thoughts to a higher level, and labour for the good of humanity in general, he would very likely say, “Do you take me for a fool?” But if you gave him three dozen lashes for his laziness he will see, or at least feel, that your argument has some force in it.  As a matter of fact men work for some present or future benefit for themselves.  The saint who sells all he has to give to the poor, does so with the hope of obtaining a reward exceedingly great in the life to come.  And even if there were no life to come, his present life is happier far than that of the man who grabs at all the wealth he can get until he drops into the grave.  The man who works “all for love and nothing for reward” is a being incomprehensible to us ordinary mortals; he is an angel, and if ever he was a candidate for a seat in Parliament he was not elected.  Even love—­“which rules the court, the camp, the grove”—­is given only with the hope of a return of love; for hopeless love is nothing but hopeless misery.

I once hired an old convict as gardener at five shillings a day.  He began to work in the morning with a great show of diligence while I was looking on.  But on my return home in the evening it was wonderful to find how little work he had contrived to get through during the day; so I began to watch him.  His systematic way of doing nothing would have been very amusing if it cost nothing.  He pressed his spade into the ground with his boot as slowly as possible, lifted the sod very gently, and turned it over.  Then he straightened his back, looked at the ground to the right, then to the left, then in front of him, and then cast his eyes along the garden fence.  Having satisfied himself that nothing particular was happening anywhere within view, he gazed awhile at the sod he had turned over, and then shaved the top off with his spade.  Having straightened his back once more, he began a survey of the superficial area of the next sod, and at length proceeded to cut it in the same deliberate manner, performing the same succeeding ceremonies.  If he saw me, or heard me approaching, he became at once very alert and diligent until I spoke to him, then he stopped work at once.  It was quite impossible for him both to labour and to listen; nobody can do two things well at the same time.  But his greatest relief was in talking; he would talk with anybody all day long if possible, and do nothing else; his wages, of course, still running on.  There is very little talk worth paying for.  I would rather give some of my best friends a fee to be silent, than pay for anything they have to tell me.  My gardener was a most unprofitable servant; the only good I got out of him was a clear knowledge