Fortunately, however,
there is, in America at least, a pretty widespread sense of shame among
men about such shirking, and the idler has to face a certain amount
of mild contempt. Upon women the pressure of public opinion has not
yet become nothing upper-class ladies who spend their time at cards,
at teas, at the theater, who think of little but dress and gossip,
or of the latest novels and music, who evade their natural duties of
motherhood or give over care of home and children to hired servants,
that they may be freer to live the butterfly life, are still too little
rebuked by their hard-working sisters and by men. We must impress it
upon all that the inheritance of money does not excuse laziness; if
the pressure to earn a living is removed, there are numberless ways
in which the rich can serve, privileged ways, happy ways, which there
is far less pretext for avoiding than the poor have for hating their
grim toil. In Carlyle's words, "If the poor and humble toil that we
have food, must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that
he may have light, have guidance, freedom, immortality?" The rich
commonly point the finger of scorn at the poor who turn away from honest
work; we may well wonder if they would work themselves at such dirty
and dangerous occupations. Many a charity visitor who preaches the
gospel of toil is herself, except for some fitful and ineffective "social
work," a useless ornament to society who hardly knows the meaning of
"toil.
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