He is often sad and
hopeless about the human race, but he knew from hard experience what
work could do against despair. So, in spite of his ravings,
notwithstanding his eruptive style, and his sorrow for what is, he has
given us, in a masterly piece of prose, this noble "Gospel of Work."
His sentences, alive with enthusiasm, and terrible in their seriousness,
contain great reaches of thought, poetry, prophecy, like that of the
ancients; and all are full of the praises and rewards of labor.
"Consider how, even in the meanest sorts of labor, the whole soul of
a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets
himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair
itself, all these like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor
day-worker, as of every man; but he bends himself with free valor
against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring
far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow of labor
in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and
of sour smoke itself there is made bright, blessed flame!" "Doubt of any
kind can be ended by action alone."
What makes us blame the weather so much for our moods, girls? The
day is gray everywhere,--in the skies, on the trees, in the air, on
the ground,--and gray in us therefore. Ah! but these gray colors are
beautiful, even in November and December.
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