Perhaps on earth you work too much—more than is really necessary. The mass of needless things that you accumulate round you, the artificial wants that you create, the breakneck pace of your lives to provide all these things, seem to us absurd and rather pitiful. Your political economy is mere child’s play, your governments are cumbrous machines for doing the unnecessary, most of your work is useless, and your lives would be nearly futile if you did not suffer so much that your souls learn, though unwillingly, that most of their strivings are vain.
