menu_book Chapter 6

this is section six of happy homes and the hearts that make them by samuel smiles this librivox recording is in the public domain happy homes and the hearts that make them chapter six work read by john greenman lost yesterday somewhere between sunrise and sunset two golden hours each set with sixty diamond minutes no reward is offered for they are gone for ever horace man let every man be occupied and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable and die with the consciousness that he has done his best sydney smith Work is one of the best educators of practical character. It evokes and disciplines obedience, self-control, attention, application, and perseverance,

giving a man deftness and skill in his special calling, and aptitude and dexterity in dealing with affairs of ordinary life. Work is the law of our being, the living principle that carries men and nations onward. The greater number of men have to work with their hands,

as a matter of necessity, in order to live. But all must work in one way or another, if they would enjoy life as it ought to be enjoyed. Labor may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honor and a glory.

Without it, nothing can be accomplished. All that is great in man comes through work, and civilization is its product. Were labor abolished, the race of Adam would be at once stricken by moral death. It is idleness that is the curse of man, not labor. Idleness eats the heart out of men as of nations, and consumes them as rust does iron. In describing the earlier social condition of Italy, when the ordinary occupations of rural life were considered

compatible with the highest civic dignity, Pliny speaks of the triumphant generals and their men returning contentedly to the plough. In those days the lands were tilled by the hands even of generals, the soil exulting beneath the plough-share crowned with laurels and guided by a husbandman graced with triumphs. It was only after slaves became extensively employed in all departments of industry, that labor came to be regarded as dishonorable and servile, and so soon as

indolence and luxury became the characteristics of the ruling classes of Rome, the downfall of the empire sooner or later was inevitable. There is, perhaps, no tendency of our nature that has to be more carefully guarded against than indolence. When Mr. Gurney asked an intelligent foreigner who had travelled over the greater part of the world, whether he had observed any one quality which, more than another, could be regarded as a universal characteristic of our

species, his answer was, in broken English, me tink dat all men love lazy. It is characteristic of the savage as of the despot. It is natural to men to endeavour to enjoy the products of labour without its toils. Indeed, so universal is this desire that James Mill has argued that it was to prevent its indulgence at the expense of society at large that the expedient of government was originally invented. Indolence is equally degrading to individuals as to nations.

Sloth never made its marks in the world, and never will. Sloth never climbed a hill, nor overcame a difficulty that it could avoid. Indolence always failed in life, and always will. It is in the nature of things that it should not succeed in anything. It is a burden, an encumbrance and a nuisance, always useless, complaining, melancholy, and miserable. Burton, in his quaint and curious book, the only one, Johnson says, that ever took him out of bed

two hours sooner than he wished to rise, describes the causes of melancholy as hinging mainly on idleness idleness he says is the bane of body and mind the nurse of naughtiness the chief mother of all mischief one of the seven deadly sins the devil's cushion his pillow and chief reposal an idle dog will be mangy and how shall an idle person escape idleness of the mind is much worse than that of the body wit without employment is a disease the rust of the soul a plague a hell itself as in a standing pool worms and filthy creepers increase so do evil and corrupt thoughts in an idle person the soul is contaminated thus much i dare boldly say he or she that is idle be they of what condition they will never so rich so well allied fortunate happy

let them have all things in abundance and felicity that heart can wish and desire all contentment so long as he or she or they are idle they shall never be pleased never well in body or mind but weary still sickly still vexed still loathing still weeping sighing grieving suspecting offended with the world with every object wishing themselves gone or dead or else carried away with some foolish fantasy or other the indolent however are not wholly indolent though the body may shirk labor the brain is not idle if it do not grow corn it will grow thistles which will be found springing up all along the idle man's course in life the ghosts of indolence rise up in the dark ever staring the recreant in the face and tormenting him the gods are just and of our pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us

dost thou love life said franklin then do not squander time for that is the stuff it is made of true happiness is never found in torpor of the faculties but in their action and useful employment it is indolence that exhausts not action in which there is life health and pleasure the spirits may be exhausted and wearied by employment but they are utterly wasted by idleness hence a wise physician was accustomed to regard occupation as one of his most valuable remedial measures nothing is so injurious said dr marshall hall as unoccupied time an archbishop of mayence used to say that the human heart is like a millstone if you put wheat under it it grinds the wheat into flour if you put no wheat it grinds on but then tis itself it wears away

it has been truly said that to desire to possess without being burdened with the trouble of acquiring is as much a sign of weakness as to recognize that every thing worth having is only to be got by paying its price is the prime secret of practical strength even leisure cannot be enjoyed unless it is won by effort if it have not been earned by work the price has not been paid for it there must be work before and work behind with leisure to fall back upon but the leisure without the work can no more be enjoyed than a surfeit life must needs be disgusting alike to the idle rich man as to the idle poor man who has no work to do or having work will not do it the words found tattooed on the right arm of a sentimental beggar of forty undergoing his eighth imprisonment in the jail of bourges in france might be adopted as the motto of all idlers

the past has deceived me the present torments me the future terrifies me the duty of industry applies to all classes and conditions of society all have their work to do in their respective conditions of life the rich as well as the poor the gentleman by birth and education however richly he may be endowed with worldly possessions cannot but feel that he is in duty bound to contribute his quota of endeavor towards the general well-being in which he shares he cannot be satisfied with being fed clad and maintained by the labor of others without making some suitable return to the society that upholds him an honest high-minded man would revolt at the idea of sitting down to and enjoying a feast and then going away without paying his share of the reckoning to be idle and useless is neither an honor nor a privilege and though persons of small natures may be content merely to consume men of average endowment of manly aspirations and of

honest purpose will feel such a condition to be incompatible with real honor and true dignity i don't believe said lord stanley at glasgow that an unemployed man however amiable and otherwise respectable ever was or ever can be really happy as work is our life show me what you can do and i will show you what you are i have spoken of love of one's work as the best preventive of merely low and vicious tastes i will go further and say that it is the best preservative against petty anxieties and the annoyances that arise out of indulged self-love men have thought before now that they could take refuge from trouble and vexation by sheltering themselves as it were in a world of their own the experiment has often been tried and always with one result you cannot escape from anxiety and labor it is the destiny of humanity those who shirk from facing trouble find that trouble comes to them

the indolent may contrive that he shall have less than his share of the world's work to do but nature proportioning the instinct to the work contrives that the little shall be much and hard to him the man who has only himself to please finds sooner or later and probably sooner than later that he has got a very hard master and the excessive weakness which shrinks from responsibility has its own punishment too for where great interests are excluded little matters become great and the same wear and tear of mind that might have been at least usefully and healthfully expended on the real business of life is often wasted in petty and imaginary vexations such as breed and multiply in the unoccupied brain even on the lowest ground that of personal enjoyment constant useful occupation is necessary he who labors not cannot enjoy the reward of labor we sleep sound said sir walter scott and our waking hours are happy when they are employed and a little sense of toil is necessary to the enjoyment of leisure even when earned by study and sanctioned by the discharge of duty

it is true there are men who die of overwork but many more die of selfishness indulgence and idleness where men break down by overwork it is most commonly from want of duly ordering their lives and neglect of the ordinary conditions of physical health lord stanley was probably right when he said in his address to the glasgow students above mentioned that he doubted whether hard work steadily and regularly carried on ever yet hurt anybody then again length of years is no proper test of length of life a man's life is to be measured by what he does in it and what he feels in it the more useful work the man does the more he thinks and feels the more he readily lives the idle useless man no matter what extent his life may be prolonged merely vegetates the early teachers of christianity ennobled the lot of toil by their example he that will not work said st paul neither shall he eat and he glorified himself in that he had labored with his hands and had not been chargeable to any man when st boniface landed in britain he came with a gospel in one hand and a carpenter's rule in the other

and from england he afterwards passed over into germany carrying thither the art of building luther also in the midst of a multitude of other employments worked diligently for a living earning his bread by gardening building turning and even clock-making it was characteristic of napoleon when visiting a work of mechanical excellence to pay great respect to the inventor and on taking his leave to salute him with a low bow once at st helena when walking with mrs malcolm some servants came along carrying a load the lady in an angry tone ordered them out of the way on which napoleon interposed saying respect the burden madam even the drudgery of the general humblest laborer contributes toward the well-being of society and it was a wise saying of a chinese emperor that if there was a man who did not work or a woman that was idle somebody must suffer cold or hunger in the empire the habit of constant useful occupation is as essential for the happiness and well-being of women as of man without it women are apt to sink into a state of listless ennui and uselessness accompanied by sick headaches and attacks of nerves

caroline perthes carefully warned her married daughter louisa to beware of giving away to such listlessness i myself she said when the children are gone out for a half-haliday sometimes feel as stupid and dull as an owl by daylight but one must not yield to this which happens more or less to all young wives the best relief is work engaged in with interest and diligence work then constantly and diligently at something or other for idleness is the devil's snare for small and great as your grandfather says and he says true constant useful occupation is thus wholesome not only for the body but for the mind while the slothful man drags himself indolently through life and the better part of his nature sleeps a deep sleep if not morally and spiritually dead the energetic man is a source of activity and enjoyment to all who come within reach of his influence even an ordinary drudgery is better than idleness

fuller says of sir francis drake who was early sent to sea and kept close to his work by his master that such pains and patience in his youth knit the joints of his soul and made them more solid and compact schiller used to say that he considered it a great advantage to be employed in the discharge of some daily mechanical duty some regular routine of work that rendered steady application necessary thousands can bear testimony to the truth of the saying of greuse the french painter that work is one of the great secrets of happiness cossibon was once induced by the entreaties of his friends to take a few days entire rest but he returned to his work with a remark that it was easier to bear illness doing something than doing nothing When Charles Lamb was released for life from his daily drudgery of desk work at the India office, he felt himself the happiest of men.

I would not go back to my prison, he said to a friend, ten years longer for ten thousand pounds. He also wrote in the same ecstatic mood to Bernard Barton. I have scarce steadiness of head to compose a letter, he said. I am free. Free as air. I will live another fifty years. Would I could sell you some of my leisure.

Positively, the best thing a man can do is nothing, and next to that, perhaps, good works. Two years, two long and tedious years passed, and Charles Lamb's feelings had undergone an entire change. He now discovered that official, even humdrum work,

the appointed round, the daily task, had been good for him, though he knew it not time had formerly been his friend it had now become his enemy to bernard barton he again wrote i assure you no work is worse than overwork the mind preys on itself the most unwholesome a food i have ceased to care for almost anything never did the waters of heaven pour down upon a forlorner head what i can do and overdo is to walk i am a sanguinary murderer of time but the oracle is silent no man could be more sensible of the practical importance of industry than sir walter scott who was himself one of the most laborious and indefatigable of men indeed lockhart says of him that taking all ages and countries together the rare example of tireless energy in union with serene self-possession of mind and matter such as scott's

must be sought for in the role of great sovereigns or great captains rather than in that of literary genius scott himself was most anxious to impress upon the minds of his own children the importance of industry as a means of usefulness and happiness in the world to his son charles when at school he wrote i cannot too much impress upon your mind that labor is the condition which god has imposed on us in every station of life there is nothing worth having that can be had without it from the bread which the peasant wins with the sweat of his brow to the sports by which the rich man must get rid of his ennui as for knowledge it can no more be planted in the human mind without labor than a field of wheat can be produced without the previous use of a plow there is indeed the great difference that chance or circumstances may so cause it that another shall reap what the farmer sows

but no man can be deprived whether by accident or misfortune of the fruits of his own studies and liberal and extended acquisitions of knowledge which he makes are all for his own use labor therefore my dear boy and improve the time in youth our steps are light and our minds are ductile and knowledge is easily laid up but if we neglect our spring our summers will be useless and contemptible our harvest will be chaff and the winter of our old age unrespected and desolate southey was as laborious a worker as scott indeed work might almost be said to form part of his religion he was only nineteen when he wrote these words nineteen years certainly a fourth part of my life and yet i have been of no service to society the clown who scares crows for twopence a day is a more useful man he preserves the bread which i eat in idleness and yet southey had not been idle as a boy on the contrary he had been a most diligent student

He had not only read largely in English literature, but was well acquainted, through translations, with Tasso, Ariosto, Homer, and Ovid. He felt, however, as if his life had been purposeless, and he determined to do something. He began, and from that time forward he pursued an unremitting career of literary labor down to the close of his life.

daily progressing in learning to use his own words not so learned as he is poor not so poor as proud not so proud as happy the memoirs of men who have thrown their opportunities away would constitute a painful but memorable volume for the world's instruction no strong man in good health says ebenezer elliott can be neglected if he be true to himself for the benefit of the young i wish we had a correct account of the number of persons who fail of success in a thousand who resolutely strive to do well i do not think it exceeds one per cent men grudge success but it is only the last term of what looked like a series of failures they failed at first then again and again but at last their difficulties vanished and success was achieved the desire to possess without being burdened with the trouble of acquiring is a great sign of weakness and laziness everything that is worth enjoying or possessing can only be got by the pleasure of working

this is the great secret of practical strength one may very distinctly prefer industry to indolence the healthful exercise of all one's faculties to allowing them to rest unused in drowsy torpor in the long run we shall probably find that the exercise of the faculties has of itself been the source of a more genuine happiness than has followed the actual attainment of what the exercise was directed to procure The weakest living creature, says Carlyle, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something, whereas the strongest, by dispersing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. Have we difficulties to contend with? Then work through them. No exorcism charms like

labor. Idleness of mind and body resembles rust. It wears more than work. I would rather work out than rust out, said a noble worker. Schiller said that he found the greatest happiness in life to consist in the performance of some mechanical duty. It is because application to business teaches method most effectually that it is so useful as an educator of character. The highest working qualities are best trained by active and

sympathetic contact with others in the affairs of daily life. It does not matter whether the business relates to the management of a household or of a nation. Indeed, as we have endeavored to show in a preceding chapter, the able housewife must necessarily be an efficient woman of business. She must regulate and control the details of her home, keep her expenditure within her means, arrange everything according to plan and system, and wisely manage and govern those subject to her rule.

Efficient domestic management implies industry, application, method, moral discipline, forethought, prudence, practical ability, insight into character, and power of organization, all of which are required in the efficient management of business of whatever sort. Business qualities have, indeed, a very large field of action. They mean aptitude for affairs, competency to deal successfully with the practical work

of life, whether the spur of action lie in domestic management, in the conduct of a profession, in trade or commerce, in social organization, or in political government. And the training which gives efficiency in dealing with these various affairs is, of all others, the most useful in practical life. Moreover, it is the best discipline of character, for it involves the exercise of the work of

of diligence, attention, self-denial, judgment, tact, knowledge of and sympathy with others. Like other great captains, Wellington had an almost boundless capacity for work. He drew up the heads of a Dublin police bill, being still the secretary for Ireland, when tossing off the mouth of the Mondego, with Juno and the French army waiting for him on the shore. so caesar another of the greatest commanders is said to have written an essay on latin rhetoric while crossing the alps at the head of his army and wallenstein when at the head of sixty thousand men

and in the midst of a campaign with the enemy before him dictated from headquarters the medical treatment of his poultry-yard Washington also was an indefatigable man of business. From his boyhood he diligently trained himself in habits of application, of study, and of methodical work. his manuscript schoolbooks which are still preserved show that as early as the age of thirteen he occupied himself voluntarily in copying out such things as forms of receipts notes of hand bills of exchange bonds indentures leases land warrants and other dry documents all written out with great care and the habits which he thus early acquired were in a great measure the foundation of those admirable business qualities which he afterwards successfully brought to bear in the affairs of government

most of the early english writers were men of affairs trained to business for no literary class as yet existed excepting it might be the priesthood chaucer the father of english poetry was first a soldier and afterwards a comptroller of petty customs the office was no sinecure either for he had to write up all the records with his own hand and when he had done his reckonings at the custom-house he returned with delight to his favorite studies at home poring over his books until his eyes were dazed and dull indeed habits of business instead of unfitting a cultivated mind for scientific or literary pursuits are often the best training for them voltaire insisted with truth that the real spirit of business and literature are the same the perfection of each being the union of energy and thoughtfulness

of cultivated intelligence and practical wisdom of the active and contemplative essence a union commended by lord bacon as the concentrated excellence of man's nature it has been said that even the man of genius can write nothing worth reading in relation to human affairs unless he has been in some way or other connected with the serious everyday business of life hence it has happened that many of the best books extant have been written by men of business with whom literature was a pastime rather than a profession gifford the editor of the quarterly who knew the drudgery of writing for a living once observed that a single hour of composition won from the business of the day is worth more than the whole day's toil of him who works at the trade of literature in the one case the spirit comes joyfully to refresh itself like a heart to the water brooks in the other it pursues its miserable way panting and jaded with the dogs and hunger of necessity behind

Samuel Richardson successfully combined literature with business, writing his novels in his back shop in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, and selling them over the counter in his front shop. William Hutton of Birmingham also successfully combined the occupations of bookselling and authorship. He says in his autobiography that a man may live half a century and not be acquainted with his own character. He did not know that he was an antiquarian until the world informed him of it from having read his History of Birmingham, and then, he said, he could see it himself. Benjamin Franklin was alike eminent as a printer and bookseller, an author, a philosopher, and a statesman.

Montaigne has said of true philosophers that, if they were great in science, they were yet much greater in action, and whenever they have been put upon the proof, they have been seen to fly to so high a pitch as made it very well appear their souls were strangely elevated and enriched with the knowledge of things. Thales, speaking against the pains and care men put themselves to to become rich, was answered by one in the company that he did like the fox, who found fault with what he could not obtain. Thereupon Thales had a mind, for the jest's sake, to show them the contrary, and having

upon this occasion for once made a master of all his wits, wholly to employ them in the service of profit, he set a traffic on foot, which in one year brought him in so great riches, that the most experienced in that trade could hardly in their whole lives, with all their industry, have raked so much together. Niebuhr, the historian, was distinguished for his energy and success as a man of business.

He proved so efficient as secretary and accountant to the African consulate, to which he had been appointed by the Danish government, that he was afterwards selected as one of the commissioners to manage the national finances, and he quitted that office to undertake the joint directorship of a bank at Berlin. It was in the midst of his business occupations that he found time to study Roman history, to master the Arabic, Russian, and other Slovakian languages, and to build up the

great reputation as an author by which he is now chiefly remembered. Men of trained working faculty so contract their habit of labor that idleness becomes intolerable to them, and when driven by circumstances from their own special line of occupation they find refuge in other pursuits the diligent man is quick to find employment for his leisure and he is able to make leisure when the idle man finds none he hath no leisure says george herbert who useth it not the most active or busy man that has been or can be says bacon has many vacant times of leisure except he be either tedious and of no dispatch or lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle with things that may be better done by others

thus many great things have been done during such vacant times of leisure by men to whom industry had become a second nature and who found it easier to work than to be idle one of the most able and laborious of our recent statesmen with whom literature was a hobby as well as a pursuit was the late sir george cornwall lewis he was an excellent man of business diligent exact and painstaking he filled by turns the offices of president of the poor law board the machinery of which he created chancellor of the exchequer home secretary and secretary at war In each he achieved the reputation of a thoroughly successful administrator. In the intervals of his official labors, he occupied himself with inquiries into a wide range of subjects, history, politics, philology, anthropology, and antiquarianism.

His works on the astronomy of the ancients and essays on the formation of the Romantic languages might have been written by the profoundest of German scholars. He took a special delight in pursuing the abstruser branches of learning, and found in them his chief pleasure and recreation. Lord Palmerston sometimes remonstrated with him, telling him he was taking too much out of himself by laying aside official papers after office hours in order to study books. Palmerston himself declaring that he had no time to read books, that the reading of manuscript was quite enough for

him. Doubtless, Sir George Lewis rode his hobby too hard, and for his devotion to study, his useful life would probably have been prolonged. Whether in or out of office, he read, wrote, and studied. He relinquished the editorship of the Edinburgh Review to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when no longer occupied in preparing budgets, he proceeded to copy out a mass of Greek manuscripts at the British Museum. He took particular delight in pursuing any difficult inquiry in classical

antiquity. One of the odd subjects with which he occupied himself was an examination into the truth of reported cases of longevity, which, according to his custom, he doubted or disbelieved. This subject was uppermost in his mind while pursuing his canvas of Herefordshire in 1852. On applying to a voter one day for his support, he was met by a decided refusal. i am sorry was the candidate's reply that you can't give me your vote but perhaps you can tell me whether anybody in your parish has died at an extraordinary age

a fair measure of work is good for mind as well as body man is an intelligence sustained and preserved by bodily organs and their active exercise is necessary to the enjoyment of health it is not work but overwork that is hurtful and it is not hard work that is injurious so much as monotonous work fagging work hopeless work all hopeful work is healthful and to be usefully and hopefully employed is one of the great secrets of happiness. Brain work, in moderation, is no more wearing than any other kind of work. Duly regulated, it is as promotive of health as bodily exercise,

and, where due attention is paid to the physical system, it seems difficult to put more upon a man than he can bear. Merely to eat and drink and sleep one's way idly through life is vastly more injurious. The wear and tear of rust is even faster than the tear and wear of work. But overwork is always bad economy.

It is, in fact, great waste, especially if conjoined with worry. Indeed, worry kills far more than work does. It frets, it excites, it consumes the body, as sand and grit which occasion excessive friction wear out the wheels of a machine. Overwork and worry have both to be guarded against, for over-brain work is strain work, and it is exhausting and destructive according as it is in excess of nature. And the brain-worker may exhaust and overbalance his mind by excess, just as the athlete may

overstrain his muscles and break his back by attempting feats beyond the strength of his physical system. End of chapter 6. Work. Read by John Greenman.