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The Value of the World and of Oneself
 The Value of the
World and of Oneself
Philosophical Optimism and Pessimism
from Aristotle to Modernity

M O R SE G EV
 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
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by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
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© Oxford University Press 2022

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Segev, Mor, author.
Title: The value of the world and of oneself : philosophical optimism
and pessimism from Aristotle to Modernity/ Mor Segev.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022000740 (print) | LCCN 2022000741 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197634073 (hb) | ISBN 9780197634097 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Optimism. | Pessimism. | Philosophy.
Classification: LCC B829 .S425 2022 (print) | LCC B829 (ebook) |
DDC 149/.5—dc23/eng/20220203
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000740
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000741

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197634073.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
To the memory of Martha Leonhardt,
née Löwenberg (1902–1943).
 Contents

Acknowledgments  ix
Abbreviations  xi

Introduction  1

1. Schopenhauer’s Critique of the Optimism of the

Hebrew Bible and Spinoza  18

2. Self-​Abnegation and Its Reversion to

Optimism: Schopenhauer  43

3. Nihilism and Self-​Deification: Camus’s Critical

Analysis of Nietzsche in The Rebel  78

4. Aristotle’s Critique of Ancient Pessimism  113

5. Optimism and Self-​Devaluation #1: Aristotle  158

6. Optimism and Self-​Devaluation #2: Maimonides on

Aristotle and the Hebrew Bible  194

7. An Aristotelian Response to Schopenhauer’s

Challenge to Optimism  223

References  245
Index  253
 Acknowledgments

This book is a product of years of thinking about and comparing

the philosophical views of Aristotle, Maimonides, Spinoza,
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Camus. Between 2016 and 2021,
parts of this project were presented in Jerusalem, Oxford, Krakow,
Tampa, Newcastle, Milwaukee, and Budapest, and I am thankful to
my audiences on these occasions for many helpful comments and
suggestions. My ideas took shape over the years with the help of
feedback from and conversations with many individuals, including
Audrey Anton, Hanoch Ben-Yami, Anastasia Berg, István Bodnár,
Robert Bolton, Katarzyna Borkowska, Abraham Bos, Ursula
Coope, John Cooper, John Cottingham, Kati Farkas, Maciej Kałuża,
Andrea Kern, Philipp Koralus, Iddo Landau, Oksana Maksymchuk,
Yitzhak Melamed, Angela Mendelovici, Alexander Nehamas, Sarah
Nooter, Ács Pál, Michael Peramatzis, Max Rosochinsky, Anna
Schriefl, Christiane Tewinkel, Andrea Timár, David Weberman,
Robert Wicks, Jessica Williams, and Eric Winsberg.
I am grateful to the Hardt Foundation for the Study of Classical
Antiquity for granting me the Research Scholarship for Young
Researchers in 2018, to the Institute for Advanced Study at the
Central European University for granting me a fellowship in 2020,
which enabled me to complete most of this book and to present and
discuss it with colleagues from a variety of fields, to St. Catherine’s
College, Oxford, for hosting me as a Visiting Fellow in 2021, and to
the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University for allowing me to
present the project at the Workshop in Ancient Philosophy during
my stay. Thanks are also due to Lucy Randall, Hannah Doyle, Sean
Decker, and Leslie Johnson at Oxford University Press, to my anon-
ymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions, and to
x Acknowledgments

Nandhini Thanga Alugu and Dorothy Bauhoff for their assistance

with the production of the book.
Chapter 1 is based on my chapter “Schopenhauer on Spinoza’s
Pantheism, Optimism, and Egoism,” in Y. Y. Melamed (ed.), A
Companion to Spinoza (Hoboken, NJ, 2021), 557–​67. Chapter 4 is
based in part on my “Death, Immortality and the Value of Human
Existence in Aristotle’s Eudemus Fr. 6, Ross,” Classical Philology
(forthcoming). Parts of Chapters 5 and 6 are based on my “Aristotle
on the Proper Attitude Toward Divinity,” American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly (2020). I would like to thank the publishers
for allowing me to make use of these materials.
 Abbreviations

The following are the abbreviations used for the titles of the works
by the main authors discussed in this book.

Works by Aristotle:
Cael. De caelo
DA De anima
De phil. De philosophia
Div. De divinatione per somnum
EE Eudemian Ethics
GA Generation of Animals
GC Generation and Corruption
HA History of Animals
IA Progression of Animals
Metaph. Metaphysics
Meteor. Meteorology
MM Magna Moralia
NE Nicomachean Ethics
PA Parts of Animals
Poet. Poetics
Pol. Politics
Protr. Protrepticus
Rh. Rhetoric
Top. Topics

Works by Maimonides:
EC Eight Chapters
GP The Guide of the Perplexed
MT Mishneh Torah
HD Hilchot Deot (in MT )
xii Abbreviations

Works by Spinoza:
E Ethics
TTP Tractatus Theologico-​Politicus
Works by Schopenhauer:
MR Manuscript Remains
PP Parerga and Paralipomena
FHP Fragments for the History of Philosophy (in PP)
WWR The World as Will and Representation

Works by Nietzsche:
BGE Beyond Good and Evil
BT The Birth of Tragedy
BVN Briefe von Nietzsche (Nietzsche’s letters)
EH Ecce Homo
GM The Genealogy of Morals
GS The Gay Science
HH Human, all too Human
NCW Nietzsche contra Wagner
NF Nachgelassene Fragmente (Posthumous fragments)
Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Works by Camus:
F The Fall
MS The Myth of Sisyphus
R The Rebel
 Introduction

In evaluating the world and one’s life within it, two positions, dia-
metrically opposed to one another, have often been taken by prom-
inent figures in the history of philosophy. The view traditionally
referred to as philosophical optimism may be encapsulated by the
two following propositions:

O1: The world is optimally arranged and is accordingly valuable.

O2: As part of the world, human life is valuable enough to make
one’s own existence preferable over one’s nonexistence.

Philosophical pessimists, by contrast, maintain the following:

P1: The world is in a woeful condition and is ultimately valueless.1

P2: Our nonexistence in the world is, or would have been, pref-
erable over our existence.

The commitment to either of these two corresponding pairs of

propositions—regarding the value of the world and the value of
human life—appears again and again in traditional formulations
and characterizations of philosophical optimism and pessimism.
Arthur Schopenhauer, reacting to optimism, characterizes it

1 Throughout, by “x is valueless” I mean, not that x cannot be evaluated, but rather

that, upon evaluation, it turns out that x is not at all valuable (notice that, in addition,
P1’s evaluation of the condition of the world as woeful in fact attributes disvalue to the
world). The view that one might not appropriately form value judgments concerning the
world, or anything in it, will be considered in Chapter 3.

The Value of the World and of Oneself. Mor Segev, Oxford University Press.
© Oxford University Press 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197634073.003.0001
2 Introduction

as a view countenancing that “the world is what is best” (WWR

II.L: 644), and that “our existence [is] to be gratefully acknowl-
edged as the gift of the highest goodness guided by wisdom” and is
thus “in itself praiseworthy, commendable, and delightful” (WWR
II.XLV: 570).2 Implied in this description is the idea that the world
is valuable, and is ordered rationally and optimally (O1), and that
it is these features that ground the preferability of one’s own ex-
istence as a part of that good whole (O2). Schopenhauer goes on
to characterize (without, however, naming) pessimism as the view
according to which “this [human] existence is a kind of false step
or wrong path” and “is the work of an originally blind will, the
luckiest development of which is that it comes to itself in order
to abolish itself ” (WWR II.XLV: 570). Disregarding the details
of the metaphysical theory underlying this statement (to which
we shall return later), the general point of contrast between this
view and the optimism that Schopenhauer objects to is that pes-
simism rejects the existence of an ultimately valuable, rationally
ordered world, and with it the prospects of viewing human exist-
ence as valuable, worthwhile, or otherwise choice-worthy. Indeed,
Schopenhauer claims, approvingly, that in the Gospels “world
and evil are used almost as synonymous expressions” (WWR
I, §59: 326). He also explicitly speaks of the “wretched condition of
the world” (die jammervolle Beschaffenheit der Welt), associating it
with pessimism (WWR II.XLVIII: 621), and repeatedly attributes
“vanity” (Nichtigkeit) and “valuelessness” (Werthlosigkeit) to all
things (P1),3 which he thinks expresses itself in the suffering of
all that lives (I, §68: 397), and which in turn for him implies that

2 All translations and page numbers of Schopenhauer’s texts are taken from E. F.

J. Payne, unless otherwise noted.

3 WWR II.XXXVII: 434; II.XLVI: 574; Brieftasche 9, pp. 17–18 (Payne, 160–1);

Reisebuch 33, pp. 30–1 (Payne, 13–14). See Chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion
of these texts. Payne translates Werthlosigkeit as “worthlessness”; reasonably, since
Schopenhauer uses the word as an evaluative term (as I use “valuelessness” throughout).
Nichtigkeit, for him, is an evaluative term as well (making Payne’s translation of it as
“vanity” appropriate), as it denotes primarily the futility of all striving and aiming, which
inevitably lead to suffering (WWR I, §68: 385, 394–7; II.XXXVII: 435; II.XLVI: 634–5).
 Introduction 3

“complete nonexistence would be decidedly preferable to” human

life (I, §59: 324) (P2).
This understanding of philosophical optimism and pessimism
is still quite standard. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, for ex-
ample, describes as “the starkest expression of pessimism” the claim
made by the chorus in Sophocles’s Oedipus at Colonus that it is best
not to be born and second best to die as soon as possible (cf. OC
1224–7) (P2), and associates optimism with, e.g., Aristotelian phi-
losophy and its “sense of the harmony of nature and the attaina-
bility of ends,” implying, similarly to optimism as we have just seen
Schopenhauer presents it, that the rational ordering of the world
makes both the world itself and one’s existence within it valuable
and their existence worthwhile (O1–O2).4 However, several other
ideas are often associated, and sometimes conflated, with these two
views. Discussions of optimism and pessimism often refer, respec-
tively, to the ideas that progress is possible or impossible, that this
world is the best or worst one possible,5 and that there is more good
in the world than evil or vice versa.6 For the sake of terminological
clarity, let us distinguish these different ideas from optimism and
pessimism as we have defined them and as they will be discussed in
the rest of this book.7
It is natural enough to associate a view locating value in the
world with the idea that progress is possible or even forthcoming.
But an optimist may well hold the view that progress is unneces-
sary, or even impossible, because the world is already perfectly

4 S. Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 2008), ad “opti-

mism and pessimism.”

5 N. Bunnin and J. Yu, The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy (Maiden, 2004),

ad “optimism” and “pessimism.”

6 L. E. Loemker, “Pessimism and Optimism,” in D. M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of

Philosophy, 2nd ed., vol. 7 (Detroit, 2006), 244–54, at 244–5.

7 P. Prescott, “What Pessimism Is,” Journal of Philosophical Research 37 (2012),

337–56, helpfully distinguishes pessimism from cynicism, fatalism, the affirmation of

decline, nihilism, and despair. Prescott’s own definition of pessimism is as “the belief that
the bad prevails over the good.” He also claims, contrary to my understanding of pessi-
mism in this book, that pessimism essentially involves “personal investment” and hence
also “emotional commitment.”
4 Introduction

good in its current condition. By the same token, a pessimist may

concede the possibility of various kinds of progress—say, in the dis-
tribution of resources and the enactment of human rights—while
maintaining that even at their peak, it would be better if human
beings and the world at large had not existed.8 Similarly, although
one would generally expect an optimist to adhere to the Leibnizian
idea that ours is the best of all possible worlds, committing oneself
to that idea is not enough to count as an optimist. Pessimists may
consistently adhere to that same conception of the world, while
arguing that even the best possible world is not good enough to
justify its existence.9 As James Branch Cabell puts it in The Silver
Stallion: “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all pos-
sible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”10 Furthermore,
both a consistently optimistic view and a consistently pessimistic
one may hold that this world is both the best and worst one pos-
sible, if they maintain in addition that this world is the only one
possible.11 Finally, thinking that the world on balance contains
more good than bad is insufficient for motivating an optimistic
position, since the world in that case may still contain enough evil
pertaining to the human species, e.g., so as to make it preferable for
humans not to exist. Sophocles’s dictum—that it is best not to be
born and second best to die quickly—is clearly not meant to apply
to the gods, who are of course repeatedly appealed to throughout
the play, and the worth of whose life is left unchallenged, and this
fact nevertheless does not detract from the pessimistic tone of that

8 On this point see also Prescott (2012, 341–3), discussing J. F. Dienstag, Pessimism

(Princeton, NJ, 2006).

9 L. E. Loemker (2006, 244–5) and F. C. Beiser, Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German

Philosophy 1860–1900 (Oxford, 2016), 153, associate a similar move with Eduard
von Hartmann. See also S. Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History
of Philosophy (Princeton, NJ, 2015), 22; M. Migotti, “Schopenhauer’s Pessimism in
Context,” in R. Wicks (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Schopenhauer (Oxford, 2020), 284–
98 at 285–6.
10 J. B. Cabell, The Silver Stallion (New York, 1926), 129. Quoted in D. Benatar, The

Human Predicament (Oxford, 2017), 5; Cf. Migotti (2020), 285–6.

11 Cf. Migotti (2020), 286.
 Introduction 5

dictum. And, conversely, one may think that evil predominates in

the world and still reject the pessimistic conclusion that a human
life is not worth having.
Though the terms “optimism” and “pessimism” are fairly re-
cent,12 their basic tenets date back to the earliest stages of recorded
philosophical discussion, and understandably so, given the basic
questions that they address and their relevance to evaluating one’s
environment and one’s own existence. It is sometimes argued that
tracing optimistic and pessimistic views to pre-modern philos-
ophy is anachronistic. Joshua Foa Dienstag, for instance, claims
that “pessimism is a modern phenomenon” since, “[l]ike opti-
mism, pessimism relies on an underlying linear concept of time, a
concept that only became a force in Western thinking in the early
modern period,” with ancient thought being dominated by a “cy-
clical” conception of time.13 We need not assess Dienstag’s view
of the gradual change in conceptions of time. It suffices for our
purposes to note that optimism and pessimism, as we have de-
fined them, apply on either conception. As we have noted, both
optimism and pessimism may be consistently adhered to whether
or not one even takes a stance on the possibility or likelihood
of historical progress. Given the definitions we have offered, we
seem warranted to look for optimistic and pessimistic views in
any period and culture in which one could ask—as one clearly al-
ready did ask in, say, ancient Israel and classical Greece—whether
the world is perfectly ordered and good, and whether human life
is worth living.
In this book we shall compare the views of several philosophers
who did ask themselves just these questions and have answered
them by constructing views that can appropriately be described
as either optimistic or pessimistic, in entirely different intellec-
tual environments and historical periods ranging from classical

12 Loemker (2006, 244) traces the term “optimism” to 1737 and “pessimism” to 1795.
13 Dienstag (2006), 8–9; cf. ibid., 166.
6 Introduction

Greece to twentieth-century France. It would not be feasible, and

there shall be no attempt, to provide a comprehensive survey of
relevant views during that time frame. Instead, we shall focus
on representative cases—Aristotle, Maimonides, Spinoza,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Camus—which lend themselves
particularly well to mutual comparison, especially since some of
them engage with the others’ views explicitly. Maimonides con-
sciously and openly adopts and develops major parts of Aristotle’s
views concerning the value of the world and of human exist-
ence. Schopenhauer engages with Spinoza and criticizes his view,
which he associates with the optimism that he finds in the Hebrew
Bible. Nietzsche criticizes Schopenhauer’s pessimism, and Camus
in turn criticizes Nietzsche and his attempt at transcending both
optimism and pessimism. Of course, by creating a dialogue be-
tween themselves and their predecessors on these issues, the
philosophers in question could have themselves been guilty of
anachronism to some degree. Even if so, it arguably would still be
worthwhile to examine their understanding and use of previous
views, e.g., in order to analyze the chain of influence leading to
modern theories on relevant issues.14 But I hope to show that, as
I have already argued so far, comparing the views of all of these
philosophers on the issues focused on in this book is both in-
structive and appropriate.
Even on the assumption that ancient, medieval, and modern
optimistic and pessimistic views may be safely compared,
questions may nevertheless arise concerning the potential im-
port of such a comparison. To begin with, it is sometimes
suggested that optimism is a puerile position, upheld unreal-
istically and irrationally by those who have not been properly
exposed to the evils of the world, and rejected and supplanted

14 On the usefulness of anachronism for such purposes, see D. Graham, “Anachronism

in the History of Philosophy,” in P. H. Hare (ed.), Doing Philosophy Historically (Buffalo,

NY, 1988), 137–48, esp. 142–4.
 Introduction 7

by those who have. Discussing ancient Hebrew optimism, one

scholar writes:15

Unclouded skies and perfect happiness are conditions of inno-

cent childhood. But as the child grows older, clouds appear in the
skies and happiness becomes less and less perfect. Thus while the
ancient Hebrews during many centuries seemed wholly satisfied
with the affairs of life, never doubting for one moment that JHVH
had ordered everything for the best, the time came when they
began to ask the why and wherefore of many happenings.

Similarly, as we shall see in Chapter 1, Schopenhauer criticizes op-

timism (in its monotheistic and pantheistic varieties), among other
things, for its naïveté, and for failing to account for the suffering
and misfortune prevalent in the world, having instead to blindly
assert that all phenomena are manifestations of the world’s perfec-
tion, and hence that all human and even animal behavior, e.g., is
“equally divine and excellent” (WWR II.XLVII: 590). Perhaps, then,
optimistic views, as such, are too naïve to merit serious considera-
tion? However, optimism, as we have defined it, need not be naïve
in this way. For one may posit that the world is optimally arranged
and is perfectly valuable without conceding that each and every one
of its parts is equally valuable.
Indeed, as we shall see in Chapters 5 and 6, both Aristotle and
Maimonides offer a complex optimistic theory, on which the world,
though perfectly arranged and valuable (O1), contains an axiological
hierarchy pertaining to its various parts. Since humans are placed
relatively low on that hierarchy, the world’s perfection and absolute
value are not compromised by the imperfections pertaining to and
the pain undergone by them. But, given the world’s perfection, the
existence of such creatures, flawed though they are, is preferable to

15 A. Guttmacher, Optimism and Pessimism in the Old and New Testaments (Baltimore,

MD, 1903), 125.

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 CHAPTER XIII
HOME

It was necessary to stay in Montgomery over night in order to make

railroad connections; so Hazel was able to visit Mr. and Mrs. Jenks
again, while Miss Davis went to a hotel. Mrs. Jenks and her husband
were delighted at the change in Hazel’s appearance. The thin, shy
child had grown almost plump and was full of spirits. She talked gaily
at dinner, she romped with the children, and she gave her host such
a generous good-night hug that he was breathless and disheveled
when it was over.
“Excuse me,” Hazel called as she ran upstairs, “but that is the way
Mr. Perkins likes me to say good-night to him. And, oh,” ecstatically,
“I shall see him next Sunday!”
The following morning Mrs. Jenks put up an enormous box of
luncheons and breakfasts and suppers for Hazel. Such a quantity of
bread and butter sandwiches, such a lot of sliced chicken and hard-
boiled eggs, and a jar of guava jelly with a spoon that didn’t have to
be returned.
“It will be less expensive for you than to get your meals on the train,”
Mrs. Jenks began hesitatingly.
Hazel broke in impetuously, “I know all about it, Mrs. Jenks. I’m not
wanted in the dining car because I’m colored. I’m traveling North as
Miss Davis’s maid, and I’m to do little things for her and to play I
really am a maid. She says her traveling dress hooks up the back
and around the side with about a hundred hooks, and that she could
never wear it except for me. And I must keep her hair smooth for her
because her mother says it is always untidy—it isn’t, it’s beautiful.
And I’m to fan the flies away from her when she takes a nap. As if I
thought flies were on trains! But we are going to play that I am her
maid, to make a game of it, because it is better to do that than to
keep feeling angry. How many meals do I eat? One, two, three, four,
five? This is plenty, for I can get milk and cocoa. I’m going to sleep in
an upper berth, think, and climb up on a ladder! It will be great fun.”
Mrs. Jenks smiled and sighed and put some cakes in the box.
Miss Davis called for Hazel in a carriage, and the little girl felt very
proud as she drove away with her new friend. The station was an
exciting place. Hazel saw a check marked “Boston” put on her trunk
and knew that home was near. She entered the Pullman car with
Miss Davis and held her hand tightly as the porter showed them their
seats. All her safety from insult, she knew, lay in the presence of her
white companion. They sat down together and at length the train
drew out of the station, headed for the North and home.
The little girl looked up at her friend. “I’m trying to think all the time of
Mother,” she said, “but I can’t forget Granny and Scip.”
“You’ll visit them again,” Miss Davis said consolingly. “When people
once begin to travel they never stop.”
The journey was full of interest to Hazel, and not an unkind word was
said to her during the trip. Indeed, an old lady in the seat across the
aisle took a fancy to her, and sent her a big plate of ice-cream from
the dining car. “Two portions, I’m sure,” Miss Davis said when she
heard about it. New York was reached, a din of trolleys and
elevateds and a big, beautiful station with a restaurant where
everyone could sit and eat, and then Boston and home.
It was night when they got off the train at the South Station, and
Hazel trembled as she walked by Miss Davis’s side. If Mother should
miss her! Then she saw a big black man and she rushed toward and
past him and into her mother’s arms.
“I waited a long time for my greeting,” said Mr. Perkins, smoothing
his coat collar, “but it was satisfactory when I got it.”
“Where is Miss Davis?” asked Hazel when she could look about her
again.
“She left her good-bye,” said Mr. Perkins; “she was hurrying to meet
someone, too; perhaps it was her brother, and perhaps it wasn’t.
Come, Little Frog, give me your check. I’ll look after your trunk when
I’ve put you and your mother on the car. You’re coming to dine with
us Sunday.”
How beautiful home looked with its three dear little rooms! The table
was set for supper. There was a big dish of strawberries, white bread
and butter, and a spider on the fire with a lamb chop in it ready to
cook! In a moment Charity came in.
The two little girls flew into one another’s arms.
“My, ain’t you fat, Hazel!” said Charity.
Hazel laughed delightedly. “I like to be fat,” she said.
“I am going to cook your chop,” said Charity, and Mrs. Tyler let her.
“Mother,” said Hazel as she ate her supper, “you don’t know, for you
haven’t been South, how good this chop tastes. There are two things
I don’t want to see again for a long time; one is bacon and the other
is corn bread.” Then, feeling that this might seem ungrateful to
Granny, “they are both good, but I’ve had enough of them.”
“There’s a moving-picture show around the corner,” said Charity,
when Hazel had finished her supper, “want to go? I’ve got two
dimes.”
“Oh, not to-night, Charity.”
“Well, whenever you want, the price is on me.”
Hazel was not allowed to help with the dishes, for she was a visitor
this evening. To-morrow she would slip back into the routine of
home. She and her mother talked and talked far into the night, there
was so much to tell about, and both were so happy. At length Hazel
dropped off to sleep, but her mother lay awake until the dawn
showed her her child’s face again. “How well she looks,” Mrs. Tyler
said again and again to herself. “I did right to send her away.”
“Here is a wash-cloth that I spun and wove for you, Charity,” Hazel
said the next morning and handed it triumphantly to her friend.
Charity looked it over carefully. “I can buy ’em like that for five cents
at Jordan, Marsh’s.”
“Can you?” answered Hazel, trying not to be hurt. “And it took me
days and days to make it.”
“Sure,” said Charity loftily, “didn’t I tell you it was slow down South?”
When Hazel took the same gift to her school-teacher, however, she
heard a very different comment.
“You’ve done a wonderful thing, Hazel,” Miss Grey said. “You’ve
followed an industry from its beginning to the finished product. Next
year, if it is possible, we will get a spinning-wheel and loom and you
can demonstrate the spinning and weaving to the school.”
Hazel repeated this to Charity.
“Bet you’d break your thread,” Charity declared, “when you had to
spin before all the boys and girls.”
The homecoming was very exciting. There was the first Sunday at
church, and the Sunday school service, when they wanted to hear
about their song-books down in Alabama, and the good time at the
Perkins’s and the trolley rides with Charity. Mr. Perkins gave Hazel a
dollar for trolley rides, telling her that she must not forget the city and
its delights.
June came, and one late afternoon Mrs. Tyler returned from her work
looking so happy that Hazel accused her of having a secret.
Mrs. Tyler nodded assent. “You shall hear it after supper,” she said.
So when the dishes were washed they sat down together, and Hazel
heard the secret.
“We are going away for the summer,” said her mother. “I find I can
make more money at my shampooing in the country than here.
Some of my customers go to a beautiful place by the sea and they
promise me plenty of business there.”
“Is it at Revere Beach?” asked Hazel.
“No indeed, goosey, much further than that, ’way down in Maine.”
“More traveling?”
“Yes, more traveling, but not so far as Alabama.”
“I shall miss Charity,” mused Hazel, “but I believe wherever you go
you have to miss somebody. Are there pines in Maine?”
“Pines?”
“Yes, pine trees. Do they grow there?”
“I think so, dear.”
“Then, if there are pine trees, I shall like it very much!”
Just before they left town letters came from Granny and Scip.
“Mother,” said Hazel after reading them, “my heart is content. Scipio
is living with Granny; at least, he is staying there at night. She never
did like living alone, the least bit, and so she got Scip’s father to let
the boy stay with her. She gives him supper and breakfast and
Granny says he was half starved before, and at night they both read
out of the books I left. Granny says they think of me.”
Scipio’s letter was plainly printed and showed constant consultation
with the dictionary.
Dear Sister:
Aunt Ellen has took me in.
I am going to help her pick cotton when it ripes.
The cat is playing by the fire.
Scipio Lee.
“I’m so glad you trimmed my summer hat with the feathers Scip gave
me, Mother,” Hazel said, “I shall tell him about it the next time I
write.”
THE END.
 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been
standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained from the
original.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAZEL ***

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