| | | | | IT is fortunate for the mass of mankind that their time is pretty well | laid out for them. They are spared the problem which must constantly | vex the souls of men ~~ busy men, not impelled by sheer necessity ~~ | what is to come of their work, and why they do it. The man who | ploughs or carpenters sees a satisfactory fruit of his labours. He knows | that the world could not get on without him, that he, as one of a class, | is perfectly indispensable to the wellbeing, the existence even, of | mankind. That we must work, and that, because we must, something | useful will be provided for us to do, every believer in a Providence | cannot but assume. But people who idolise work of their own | devising, a common form of worship. in our time, are inevitably | subject to self-delusions. Very few men who work with their brains, | who invent work of any kind for themselves, can, in fact, be as sure | that they are benefiting their species as the man who weaves or digs. | Many | | authors unquestionably are serving their generation, many | philanthropists, many preachers, many philosophers, many ~~ let us | say ~~ essayists and critics; but the mere dignity of the sphere and the | conviction of utility, though self-sustaining, do not of themselves | prove it. In fact, the higher the aim, the less confident should men be | of the result. We are commanded to work, work is an instinct, and | head-work in a certain sense is a higher form of work than hand-work; | and the individual plods on, trusting to these general truths. But except | where there is an abiding afflatus ~~ an outpouring which a man must | utter or die ~~ except a man is habitually "overflowing as the moon at | the full," it may almost be doubted whether literary work could be | carried on by modest men without the common tie which makes all | labourers one brotherhood, that they earn money by it. Money is | something positive, a reason for exertion apart from the sense of the | value of your work. Your work may not be good, even in your own | eyes; it may not teach or prove, or edify or amuse; but the idea of | wages reduces the pen to the instrument of an honest trade, and the | wielder of it to the condition of an honest labourer. He is not | oppressed by the humbling sense of shame or failure, by the sore | misgiving that he is spinning worthless cobwebs out of his own vitals, | only for the remorseless housewife Oblivion to sweep away; for if he | does not serve society, it serves him. Something comes of the | transaction; which cannot always be said of the mere fancy work done | for honour and glory, or even for the gratuitous | | benefit of the human species. We believe the world of writers, on | whom men rely for their daily supply of teaching and amusement, | would be "utterly consumed by sharp distress" at the emptiness and | vanity of their work, but for the sedative and consoling reflection that | they are day-labourers, and write for their hire, and therefore may | flatter themselves, by analogy with their brethren of the plough and | loom, that what is fairly paid for is worth having, and that what is | worth paying for must have some intrinsic worth. If there is a fallacy, | it is decently hid. Under it the husbandry of the brain is still carried | on, and a precarious crop harvested. | | We doubt whether work should be so very delightful to the worker as | it seems to be to some people. A little enthusiasm now and then | carries him pleasantly forward, and habit makes it bearable and | comparatively easy. But for the brow to sweat is not in the nature of | things agreeable, though we feel the better for it, perhaps, when it is | cool again. Whenever the mere process of work becomes a man's | highest pleasure we suspect something wrong, some deficiency. He | ought to be glad when it is over. He ought not to undertake it but with | some feeling of necessity, ~~ something impelling him slightly | against the grain. Liberty ought to seem greater and better than | compulsion, even deliberate self-compulsion. Whenever people set | their heads to constant work we may be perfectly certain that they are | losing more than they gain, that they are sinking in the scale at once of | meditative and social beings, | | and that the world profits not at all by the overplus of activity. | | Perhaps excessive activity and laboriousness is not a very common | form of self-mismanagement, but still the work of the world is not | done with a wise economy. Some do not work at all ~~ are utterly | lazy. Some do their share grudgingly and unwillingly without giving it | their energies; and some are always grinding. They are possessed with | the idea that work is virtue and achievement, and renovation and life; | that every time they sit still and fold their hands, the wheels of the | universe drag heavily, that there is a stop, that mischief and decay are | intervening somewhere, and that, till they move again, all nature is out | of joint. It is a cheerful notion, no doubt, that we are necessary to the | wellbeing and harmony of things, if this conviction goes along with | the persuasion that the sort of work we turn out is commensurate with | the mighty need: and work has, no doubt ~~ a man's own work, if he | keeps his mind pretty exclusively upon it ~~ the power of magnifying | itself. Very few people indeed can embrace the idea that they are of no | use; even their existence implies to most people the necessity for their | existence; but the busy man, mixed up in all sorts of affairs, with a | finger in every pie, and always comparing his brisk indefatigableness | with the indolence of colleagues, or the sloth which does not even | undertake labour, comes inevitably to put a high value on what he | does, and to think it essential and necessary. | | Yet, really, an immense proportion of labour of this | | sort must be superfluous. Only a percentage, to speak in mercantile | phrase, can reach the case. There is boundless waste in mere | unassisted intellectual industry. We must work trusting that some one | of the thousand seeds we sow will take root; and often good comes | where we least rely on it. But we suspect human nature is not strong | enough to bear the sense of failure which would be felt if the actual | fruit of our exertions, the miserable gleanings of so much promise, | were revealed to us; if all that came, for instance, of one busy day's | speeches, meetings, lectures, books, articles, hurryings to and fro, | runnings hither and thither, all that makes such mighty stir in the | doing, were set before us. We admit that ignorance is probably bliss in | this case, and we will not pursue the subject; for after all if the busy | workers do comparatively little good, the lazy do none, and ruin | themselves into the bargain. But such considerations, while they ought | not to interfere with work as a duty, may check it as a monomania. | The man who has no time for his friends, who has to apportion his day | into fragments which fit into one another like a Chinese puzzle, whose | whole scheme is disturbed by a moment's interruption, who suffers | under every accidental hindrance, who hurries from one engagement | to another, who at every compulsory check or failure feels himself | wasting and looks out for something to fill the gap, will perhaps do | well now and then to ask what is the good of it all ? and who would be | the loser if he condescended to a little relaxation? If, in the unwilling | holiday, he discovers that he has lost the | | power of enjoyment, that his social instincts have failed him, that free | thought has dwindled, that a thousand interests are lost to him because | he can only care where self is bustling and moiling and feeling itself | important, then the check will have taught him a useful lesson. No | man can be always busy without being slavishly busy. | Bacon tells us, | | But if indeed he is so involved that relaxation | is unattainable, then he may rely on it that society is treating him | shabbily, employing him as its dependant on routine work, trusting to | fresher minds, to men capable of leisure, its more responsible errands, | and reserving for them its real gratitude and rewards. While he thinks | himself a martyr to its service, it considers the favours really on its | own side. It is humouring a propensity and furnishing employment for | a blind instinct, and when he looks for any return he will find | disappointment, and hear himself put off with the old retort ~~ "No | thanks to him; if he had no business he would have nothing to do." | | Our remarks of course do not apply to men of business as such. Few | men who apply themselves strictly to their own calling are | overworked in the way we mean. There is always a propensity to take | things easily where the idea of supererogation is wanting; and | | the man who prides himself on never passing westward of Temple | Bar, and who is set up as a model tradesman, a pattern of clockwork | punctuality and concentrated energies, will be found to spend a good | many hours of every day in mere gossip and newspaper reading. For, | in fact, men's capacity for labour is limited, if by labour we mean an | intelligent application of the powers to any work in hand. It is an | exercise of patience on this account to watch the progress of skilled | labour of any sort. The bricklayer, the gardener, the mechanic are so | deliberate in every movement ~~ each act is so surrounded and | saturated, as it were, in waiting and leisure ~~ that the observer longs | to snatch the tool out of their hands and do the job for them; and very | likely he could do it in half the time; but after the exertion he would | rest on his laurels. The day-labourer, who has ten or twelve hours of it, | only takes his repose in minute, inglorious instalments. People who | contend too resolutely against this natural drag on progress, who will | work faster than the speed to which their capabilities limit them, | defeat their own ends. They are borne along by mere senseless | impetus, and their work either remains a defect and a hindrance, or has | to be undone and retraced. | | We suspect that our age is particularly prolific of this sort of busy | men, as supplying a wide field for them from the great increase of | public business and joint exertion. Where men once worked solitarily | in their closets in personal effort, they now work in committees, | boards, and other associations, thus reversing | | the old arrangement, which was to labour alone, and to enjoy leisure | in company. It must be owned people had then but a narrow | acceptation of the word "neighbour;" it was every man for himself and | his friend, not for himself and the wide world. But the effect of this | limitation rendered it impossible for any given man to have so many | irons in the fire as the active temperament finds room for now; and so | the workers, as well as the wits, had a jolly time of it. They were idle | men after two or three o'clock of the day ~~ the previous hours, well | applied, serving for most men's private affairs ~~ and they supped | nightly in company. If people were to return to this sort of life now, | we should expect a universal collapse. That things went on at all, nay, | that there was actual progress an the while, is a proof that the seething | excitement of apparent work in our own day is not all productive, that | a great deal of it simply supplies employment ~~ in fact, is working in | a circle. And this brings us to our real ground of quarrel with the over- | busy habit of mind, which is, that it not only spoils a man for society, | but stops all real progress and cultivation of his own mind. It | imprisons him in himself, and shuts him out from a whole range of | good and happy influences; and this not because he works, but | because exclusive devotion to his own efforts makes him set an undue | value upon them and upon himself. The position is a false and | mistaken one. | | | and yet this is inevitably the attitude of one who prefers his own work | to intercourse with others, and who thinks he must impart all and can | receive nothing. His whole demeanour shows it. His bustle is a | constant reproof, his uniform plea of want of time a standing insult. | | We pity men who, while esteeming themselves the benefactors and | regenerators of their species, awake a certain resentment above and | beyond that inevitable consequence of self-estimation, being thought | bores. And this feeling of society will seem to them all the harder and | more unthankful, in that it certainly likes busy women. A certain fuss | of occupation fits in with their place and nature. Their work looks | natural, and has never a touch of reproof in it, which man's fussiness | always has. A man cannot be busy without a certain ostentation; but a | woman may be in a little commotion from morning till night, occupied | with her needle, with her household, her studies, her | accomplishments, even with her schools and amongst her poor; and | instead of exciting our spleen, if she manage well, we feel, as it were, | sleeping partners in her labours, and by some mysterious soothing | process to have a share in the merit of them. But a busy woman who is | always otherwise engaged when she is wanted ~~ who keeps her | husband waiting for dinner ~~ who talks with solemn prolixity of her | schemes and doings, how she labours, how much depends upon her ~~ | who delights in being overdriven ~~ who describes herself as in a | turmoil of business, and is for ever parading her own hobbies ~~ | | is perhaps the greater bore of the two, for she is the greater | contradiction to the ideal woman, as being uncomfortable and | irritating. She is worrying where worry is least looked for, and is | therefore the greater hardship. But there are not many such women. | They figure in books rather than in actual life; and so much is | occupation congenial to women, that even this is better than doing | nothing. Society does not assume for them that background of hard | work which gives to men's social idleness the pretence of relaxation; | and thus listlessness, inactivity, and folding of the hands in women is | a painful anomaly to their idlest male friends, and acts upon them like | a cold hearth or lukewarm coffee. In fact, it is unpretending or trifling | employments that should be made prominent. We should not have | quarrelled with Will Whimble for parading his tobacco-stoppers, dog- | whips, or fishing-tackle, in all companies, any more than we do now | with the ladies for putting forward their netting and embroidery; but | men should be diffident, modest, reserved, retiring, about their real | work, the labour of hand and brain, of soul and spirit, because it is a | venture, because they should know something of their own | weaknesses, and because far-off results alone can show the value of | their work, or whether it has a value beyond the occupation, stimulus, | and interest it has furnished to their own minds.