We do well, however, to add at once one limitation. Not all work is of equal value, and there is spurious work which is directed to fictitious ends, and work which is itself fictitious in its form. Much, for instance, of the sewing and embroidering done by cultivated women, much of the parading of soldiers, much of what is called art, like the useless drumming on the piano by persons with no musical sense, a considerable part of the sportsman’s life, and, not least, the time devoted to keeping one’s accounts,--all these are occupations of this fictitious nature. A sagacious and wide-awake person must look for something more satisfying than these. Here also is the reason why factory labor, and, in short, all mechanical occupation in which one does but a part of the work, gives meagre satisfaction, and why an artisan who completes his work, or an agricultural laborer, is, as a rule, much more contented than factory operatives, among whom the social discontent of the modern world first uttered itself. The factory workman sees little of the outcome of his work. It is the machine that works, and he is a part of it. He contributes to the making of one little wheel, but he never makes a whole clock, which might be to him his work of art and an achievement worthy of a man. Mechanical work like this fails to satisfy because it offends that natural consciousness of human worth which the humblest human being feels. On the other hand, the happiest workmen are those who can absolutely lose themselves in their work: the artist whose soul must be wholly occupied with his subject, if he hopes to grasp and reproduce it; the scholar who has no eye for anything beyond his special task. Indeed, the same thing is to be said of those people whom we call “one-idea-ed” and who have created their own little world within one narrow sphere. All these have at least the feeling--sometimes, no doubt, without adequate reason--that they are accomplishing real work for the world; a true, useful, necessary work, which is not mere play; and many such persons, by this continuous, strenuous, and sometimes even physically unhealthy activity, attain great old age, while idle and luxurious men and women of society, who are, perhaps, the least useful and least productive class of the modern world, must devote much of their time to the restoration of their health.