The artist who labours to create forms, hues, and ideas of beauty; the author who enriches the world with fresh treasures of thought; the physician whose aim and whose reward is to relieve suffering; the carpenter to whom his craft is a pride and a triumph; the labourer in the field who loves the soil he tills, and delights to watch from season to season the checkered success of his operations: these, and such as these, are the truly fortunate men, into whose annual money-winnings we have no need to inquire before pronouncing them happy. Here, again, our lot is to a large extent in our own hands; for though we have not all the professions and occupations of life offered to our choice, yet some selection is open to us, and it behoves us to choose both wisely and boldly, and it is an instance where boldness is often wisdom. Even where the choice presented to us is so narrow as seemingly to preclude all chance of satisfying our aspirations, there is but little work in the world which we cannot ennoble by our method of performing it and by the spirit in which we undertake it. The ideal life which presents us with the spectacle of the Master washing the feet of his disciples and kneading the common clay of the ground, teaches us how to invest with dignity the meanest labour of our hands. From the examples of Chaucer, whose pen ‘moved over bills of lading,’ and of Burns, whose feet trod deep into the miry furrows behind the plough he guided, we may learn that while a humble toil cannot degrade the man, a man may infinitely ennoble the toil. Let us but once recognise that it is necessary and right that any piece of work should be done, and that it has fallen to our lot to do it, and a genuine pleasure may be derived from its thorough performance. ‘The manly part,’ says Emerson, ‘is to do with might and main what you can do.’ Indifference as to the excellence of the work turned out, hurried or perfunctory or slovenly execution, will result in lethargy and self-dissatisfaction; while a right pride in a piece of good work well done will leave the nerves braced and not relaxed, and the faculties developed instead of diminished.