Gazette Of The United States

THE
TABLET.
No. CIV.

"It is an infallible consequence of all industrious professions, to
beget frugality, and make the love of gain prevail over the love of
pleasure."

ACTIVE property usually centers in those
places, which art rather than nature has
made rich. There is scarce any thing more ri-
diculous than for an indolent man to boast of na-
tural advantages as a source of wealth. The most
fertile soil and mildest climate will never con-
fer opulence on an indolent people; nor can
any defect of natural resources hold an indus-
trious people in poverty. That superiority which
one nation maintains over another in point of
useful wealth, and operative strength, is the re-
sult of art and industry. Men will not subject
themselves, in the first instance, to severe labor,
unless their situation renders it unavoidable.
Prompted by necessity, they become industrious;
and when they are accustomed to it, they will
choose to be so from habit. When industry cea-
ses to be irksome, men begin to grow rich. As
soon as the love of gain obtains an ascendency o-
ver the love of idleness, men will acquire more
than they have occasion to consume. Property
collected in this way will seldom be expended in
folly and extravagance; because if a man had
been disposed to be foolish and extravagant, he
would not probably have been industrious. While
any one is in the habit of industry he will of
course be frugal, and by this means frugality will
likewise become a habit. The skill and con tri-
vance that grow out of experience will render
labor more productive; but the increase of ad-
vantage will not abate the ardor of exertion.
We must therefore look to that part of a nation
where industry is most prevalent, for active
wealth, and for the best accommodations of living.

In those parts of a country, to which nature has
been liberal, people content themselves with few
improvements of art, because they have never been
compelled by necessity to rise above that indolence
of character which makes men naturally prefer
an easy life to a useful one.