It took no long time to make up my mind. Gladly came the determination to
abandon the enterprise rather than do violence to the birds. Fortunately
a kindly friend took the entire plant and the hives off my hands. We are
the worse off in respect of honey; but we have the birds, and the thought
comes that there are now hundreds of colonies of bees from the original
stock, here and on the mainland, working out their own destinies. Had the
enterprise been allowed to flourish, it would have been at the cost of
the lives of hundreds of graceful birds; and hundreds of others that now
merrily make so free would have been scared away. The money that would
have been spent in cartridges is applied to the purchase of honey from
foreign parts. No one is much the worse off. Indeed, my friend who
purchased the stock is the richer by my abandonment of the calling, and
am not I conscious of consistency?
So, these my vocations drift into the gentle and devious stream of
inconsequence. It would be vain-glorious, no doubt, to assert that there
is placid indifference to vain-glory, which Carlyle declares to be, with
neediness and greediness, one of the besetting sins of mankind; but am I
not free from the cares that obtrude on those of tougher texture of mind
who find joy in the opposite to this peace and unconcern for the rewards
and honours of the world? Better this isolation and moderation in all
things than, racked with worries, to moan and fret because of non-success
in the ceaseless struggle for riches, or the increase thereof; better
than to bow down to and worship in the "soiled temple of Commercialism"
that haughty and supercilious old idol Mammon; better than to offer
continual sacrifices of rest, health, and the immediate good of life to
appease the exacting and silly deities of fashion and society.
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