For life is marred by little infelicities and ruined by little errors.

The broken columns and marble heaps in lands where once were cities represent destructions not so much through tornadoes and earthquakes as through small vices and unnoticed sins.

In modern life also, journeying through city and forest and field, the economist returns to tell us that life's chief wastes are through little enemies and foes.

It is a minute bug that steals the golden berry from the wheat; it is a tiny germ upon the leaf that blights the budding peach and pear, it is a rough spot upon the potato that fills all Ireland with fear of famine; it is a worm that bores through the planks of the ship's hull and alarms old seacaptains as approaching battleships could not.
The enemies of human life are not enemies that fill man's streets with banners and charging cannon.

We wage war against the dust mote ambushed in the sunbeam; we fight against weapons hurled from those battleships called drops of impure water; we wrestle with those hosts whose broadsides invisible rise from streets foul, or fall from poisoned clouds.