Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/161

extent of the latter. With more happiness there would be less sin; example and starvation often leading one to seek temporary refuge from despair and hunger. The poor are willing to work, and look upon it as their rightful lot; but they claim that capital should be so adjusted in its relation to the laborer that even those who are farthest removed from wealth should receive enough of its benefits to prevent the agonized suffering of extreme want. When that pressure is removed, they acknowledge that happiness, as their right, must depend upon their own powers of creation, endurance, or capacity for looking on the bright side of things. Many, among the immense number of women who vainly endeavor to support themselves by the needle, succumb at last to a temporary but easier method of livelihood, though despising themselves for preferring the transient alleviations of food and warmth to the continued struggle for an honest life. There is no confession