The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do. The world
is full of fops who never did anything, and who have persuaded beauties
and men of genius to wear their fop livery, and these will deliver the
fop opinion, that it is not respectable to be seen earning a living;
that it is much more respectable to spend without earning; and this
doctrine of the snake will come also from the elect sons of light; for
wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their
taste or their humor, to once from their reason. The brave workman, who
might betray his feeling of it in his manners, if he do not succumb in
his practice, must replace the grace or elegance forfeited, by the merit
of the work done. No matter whether he make shoes, or statues, or laws.
It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the
doer with a certain haughtiness. He can well afford not to conciliate,
whose faithful work will answer for him. The mechanic at his bench
carries a quiet heart and assured manners, and deals on even terms with
men of any condition. The artist has made his picture so true, that it
disconcerts criticism. The statue is so beautiful, that it contracts no
stain from the market, but makes the market a silent gallery for itself.
The case of the young lawyer was pitiful to disgust,—a paltry matter of
buttons or tweezer-cases; but the determined youth saw in it an aperture
to insert his dangerous wedges, made the insignificance of the thing
forgotten, and gave fame by his sense and energy to the name and affairs
of the Tittleton snuffbox factory.
Society in large towns is babyish, and wealth is made a toy. The life
of pleasure is so ostentatious, that a shallow observer must believe
that this is the agreed best use of wealth, and, whatever is pretended,
it ends in cosseting. But, if this were the main use of surplus
capital, it would bring us to barricades, burned towns, and tomahawks,
presently. Men of sense esteem wealth to be the assimilation of nature
to themselves, the converting of the sap and juices of the planet to the
incarnation and nutriment of their design. Power is what they want,—not
candy;—power to execute their design, power to give legs and feet, form
and actuality to their thought, which, to a clear-sighted man, appears
the end for which the Universe exists, and all its resources might be
well applied. Columbus thinks that the sphere is a problem for practical
navigation, as well as for closet geometry, and looks on all kings and
peoples as cowardly landsmen, until they dare fit him out. Few men on
the planet have more truly belonged to it. But he was forced to leave
much of his map blank. His successors inherited his map, and inherited
his fury to complete it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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