from the inmost heart of the
Worker rises his God-given Force, the sacred celestial Life-essence
breathed into him by Almighty God; from his inmost heart awakens him
to all nobleness,--to all knowledge, "self-knowledge" and much else,
so soon as Work fitly begins. Knowledge? The knowledge that will hold
good in working, cleave thou to that; for Nature herself accredits
that, says Yea to that. Properly thou hast no other knowledge but
what thou hast got by working: the rest is yet all a hypothesis of
knowledge; a thing to be argued of in schools, a thing floating in the
clouds, in endless logic-vortices, till we try it and fix it. "Doubt,
of whatever kind, can be ended by Action alone."

* * * * *

And again, hast thou valued Patience, Courage, Perseverance, Openness
to light; readiness to own thyself mistaken, to do better next time?
All these, all virtues, in wrestling with the dim brute Powers of
Fact, in ordering of thy fellows in such wrestle, there, and elsewhere
not at all, thou wilt continually learn. Set down a brave Sir
Christopher in the middle of black ruined Stone-heaps, of foolish
unarchitectural Bishops, red-tape Officials, idle Nell-Gwynn Defenders
of the Faith; and see whether he will ever raise a Paul's Cathedral
out of all that, yea or no! Rough, rude, contradictory, are all things
and persons, from the mutinous masons and Irish hodmen up to the idle
Nell-Gwynn Defenders, to blustering red-tape Officials, foolish
unarchitectural Bishops. All these things and persons are there not
for Christopher's sake and his Cathedral's; they are there for their
own sake mainly! Christopher will have to conquer and constrain all
these,--if he be able. All these are against him. Equitable Nature
herself, who carries her mathematics and architectonics not on the
face of her, but deep in the hidden heart of her,--Nature herself is
but partially for him; will be wholly against him, if he constrain her
not! His very money, where is it to come from? The pious munificence
of England lies far-scattered, distant, unable to speak and say, "I am
here";--must be spoken to before it can speak. Pious munificence, and
all help, is so silent, invisible like the gods; impediments,
contradictions manifold, are so loud and near! O brave Sir
Christopher, trust thou in those, notwithstanding, and front all
these; understand all these; by valiant patience, noble effort,
insight, by man's strength, vanquis