Since an unfit employment is a mistake, and a source of unhappiness, everyone is free to choose the work that suits his nature. Parents and teachers only help him to discover himself. One is called to his work by a love for it, and the pleasure he takes in doing it easily and well. If his bent is vague or tardy, he is allowed to change, and feel his way to it by trial. Since the work or vocation is not a means of living, there is no compulsion in it. Their aim is to do right in carrying out the true intentions of Nature.
For the same reason everyone is free to choose the partner of his life. They are monogamists, and believe that nothing can justify marriage but love on both sides. The rite is very simple, and consists in the elected pair sipping from the same dish of sacred water. It is called "drinking of the cup."
Most of them die gradually of old age, and they do not seem to share our fear and horror of death, but to regard it with a sad and pleasing melancholy. The body is reduced to ashes on a pyre of fragrant wood, and the songs they sing around it only breathe a tender regret for their loss, mingled with a joyful hope of meeting again. They neither preserve the dust as a memento, nor wear any kind of mourning; but they cherish the memory of the absent in their hearts.
They believe that labour like virtue is a necessity, and its own reward; but it is moderate labour of the right sort, which is a blessing and not a curse. They all seem happy at their work, which is often cheered by music, songs, or tales. Everyone enjoys his task, and tries to attain the perfection of skill and grace. Those who excel are honoured, and sometimes commemorated with statues.
They seem artists in all, and above all. They hold that every beautiful thing has a use, and they never make a useful thing without beauty. Apart from portraits, their pictures and statuary are mostly historical, or else ideal representations. Many of these are typical of life; for example, a boy at play, a pair of lovers, a mother weaning her child, and the parting of friends. The ideal of art is to them not merely a show to please the eye for a while, but a model to be realised in their own lives; and I daresay it has helped to make them such a fine people. They are clever architects and gardeners. Indeed, the whole country may be described as a vast ornamental garden. In the middle zone, which borders on the wilderness, their wonderful art of beautifying natural scenery is at its best. They have a good many simple machines and implements, but I should not call them a scientific people. Gazen, who enquired into the matter, was told by Otāré, himself an artist, by the way, that science in their opinion had a tendency to destroy the illusion of Nature and impair the finer sentiments and spontaneity of the soul; hence they left the systematic study of it to the few who possess a decided bias for it. As a rule they are content to admire.