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  ...cheeks. But they offered no sweet homes; from that mire they never sought to drag them out; they open threw no orchard; and intermitted not the mandates that condemned their drudges to a life of deaths. Sad sight! to see those round-shouldered Helots, stooping in their trenches: artificial, three in number, and concentric: the isle well nigh surrounding. And herein, fed by oozy loam, and kindly dew from heaven, and bitter sweat from men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious Taro. Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.   But when man toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he gives to them--then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks. So with these poor serfs. And few of them could choose but be the brutes they seemed.
Now needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed, and plenty without a pause?--Odo, in whose lurking-places infants turned from breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.--Odo, in whose inmost haunts, dark groves were brooding, passing which...   Melville, Herman

Excerpt from Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) · This quote is about work · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

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