A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille
A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille
A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
111<br />
fear of death. This desire for death is, then, a master-passion, and<br />
is the key to all their words and acts. They rejoice over the death of<br />
friends, s<strong>in</strong>ce those friends have ga<strong>in</strong>ed the greatest of bless<strong>in</strong>gs;<br />
they rejoice also at the birth of children, s<strong>in</strong>ce those who are born<br />
will one day ga<strong>in</strong> the bliss of death.<br />
For a couple to fall <strong>in</strong> love is the signal for mutual self-surrender.<br />
Each <strong>in</strong>sists on giv<strong>in</strong>g up the loved one; and the more passionate the<br />
love is, the more eager is the desire to have the loved one married to<br />
someone else. Lovers have died broken-hearted from be<strong>in</strong>g compelled to<br />
marry one another. Poets here among the Kosek<strong>in</strong> celebrate unhappy love<br />
which has met with this end. These poets also celebrate defeats<br />
<strong>in</strong>stead of victories, s<strong>in</strong>ce it is considered glorious for one nation<br />
to sacrifice itself to another; but to this there are important<br />
limitations, as we shall see. Poets also celebrate street-sweepers,<br />
scavengers, lamp-lighters, laborers, and above all, paupers, and pass<br />
by as unworthy of notice the authors, Meleks, and Kohens of the land.<br />
The paupers here form the most honorable class. Next to these are the<br />
laborers. These have strikes as with us; but it is always for harder<br />
work, longer hours, or smaller pay. The contest between capital and<br />
labor rages, but the conditions are reversed; for the grumbl<strong>in</strong>g<br />
capitalist compla<strong>in</strong>s that the laborer will not take as much pay as he<br />
ought to while the laborer th<strong>in</strong>ks the capitalist too persistent <strong>in</strong> his<br />
efforts to force money upon him.<br />
Here among the Kosek<strong>in</strong> the wealthy class forms the mass of the people,<br />
while the aristocratic few consist of the paupers. These are greatly<br />
envied by the others, and have many advantages. The cares and burdens<br />
of wealth, as well as wealth itself, are here considered a curse, and<br />
from all these the paupers are exempt. There is a perpetual effort on<br />
the part of the wealthy to <strong>in</strong>duce the paupers to accept gifts, just<br />
as among us the poor try to rob the rich. Among the wealthy there is<br />
a great and <strong>in</strong>cessant murmur at the obst<strong>in</strong>acy of the paupers. Secret<br />
movements are sometimes set on foot which aim at a redistribution of<br />
property and a levell<strong>in</strong>g of all classes, so as to reduce the haughty<br />
paupers to the same condition as the mass of the nation. More than<br />
once there has been a violent attempt at a revolution, so as to force<br />
wealth on the paupers; but as a general th<strong>in</strong>g these movements have<br />
been put down and their leaders severely punished. The paupers have<br />
shown no mercy <strong>in</strong> their hour of triumph; they have not conceded one