" If idleness is a mote in the eyes of the poor, it is a beam
in the eyes of the rich. Neither blood nor rank nor sex excuses from
the universal duty. "We must all toil or steal (howsoever we name our
stealing), which is worse." [Footnote: Carlyle's writings are full
of such wholesome declarations. And cf. W. Dew. Hyde: "An able-bodied
man who does not contribute to the world at least as much as he takes
out of it is a beggar and a thief; whether he shirks the duty of work
under the pretext of poverty or riches." Cf. also Tolstoy, in What
to Do? For example (from chap. XXVI), "How can a man who considers
himself to be, we will not say a Christian, or an educated and humane
man, but simply a man not entirely devoid of reason and of conscience,
how can he, I say, live in such a way that, not taking part in the
struggle of all mankind for life, he only swallows up the labor of
others, struggling for existence, and by his own claims increases the
labor of those who struggle, and the number of those who perish in
struggle?"] relieved from the necessity of earning a living" (unless
one intends to use that freedom for unpaid service), an ideal dangerous
to social welfare, and shortsighted for the individual. Work makes
up a large part of the worth of life. Drudgery it may be at the time,
a weary round, with no compensation apparent; but it is of just such
stuff that real life is made. What ennobles it, what gives it meaning,
is the courageous attack, the putting of heart into work, the facing
of monotony, the finding of the zest of accomplishment.
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