The man of leisure comes to the
country in search of a little air and health, then returns to the city
to spend the fruit of his vassal's toil.
The man of toil, for his part, is too crushed, too wretched, and too
frightened concerning the future, to enjoy the beauties of the landscape
and the charms of rustic life. To him also the golden fields, the lovely
meadows, the noble animals, represent bags of crowns, of which he will
have only a paltry share, insufficient for his needs, and yet those
cursed bags must be filled every year to satisfy the master and pay for
the privilege of living sparingly and wretchedly on his domain.
And still nature is always young and beautiful and generous. She sheds
poetry and beauty upon all living things, upon all the plants that are
left to develop in their own way. Nature possesses the secret of
happiness, and no one has ever succeeded in wresting it from her. He
would be the most fortunate of men who, possessing the science of his
craft and working with his hands, deriving happiness and liberty from
the exercise of his intelligent strength, should have time to live in
the heart and the brain, to understand his work, and to love the work of
God. The artist has enjoyment of that sort in contemplating and
reproducing the beauties of Nature; but, when he sees the suffering of
the men who people this paradise called the earth, the just,
kind-hearted artist is grieved in the midst of his enjoyment.
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