gale on a lee-shore, or whirling white hot iron at
a furnace mouth, that man is not the same at the end of his day, or
night, as one who has been sitting in a quiet room, with everything
comfortable about him, reading books, or classing butterflies, or
painting pictures. If it is any comfort to you to be told that the rough
work is the more honourable of the two, I should be sorry to take that
much of consolation from you; and in some sense I need not. The rough
work is at all events real, honest, and, generally, though not always,
useful; while the fine work is, a great deal of it, foolish and false as
well as fine, and therefore dishonourable; but when both kinds are
equally well and worthily done, the head's is the noble work, and the
hand's the ignoble; and of all hand work whatsoever, necessary for the
maintenance of life, those old words, 'In the sweat of thy face thou
shalt eat bread,' indicate that the inherent nature of it is one of
calamity; and that the ground, cursed for our sake, casts also some
shadow of degradation into our contest with its thorn and its thistle;
so that all nations have held their days honourable, or 'holy,' and
constituted them 'holydays' or 'holidays,' by making them days of rest;
and the promise, which, among all our distant hopes, seems to cast the
chief brightness over death, is that blessing of the dead who die in the
Lord, that 'they rest from their labours, and their works do follow
them.'

And thus the perpetual question and contest must arise, who is to do
this rough work? and how is the worker of it to be comforted, redeemed,
and rewarded? and what kind of play should he have, and what rest, in
this world, sometimes, as well as in the next? Well, my good working
friends, these questions will take a little time to answer yet. They
must be answered: all good men are occupied with them, and all honest
thinkers. There's grand head work doing about them; but much must be
discovered, and much attempted in vain, before anything decisive can be
told you. Only note these few particulars, which are already sure.

As to the distribution of the hard work. None of us, or very few of us,
do either hard or soft work because we think we ought; but because we
have chanced to fall into the way of it, and cannot help ourselves. Now,
nobody does anything well that they cannot help doing: work is only done
well when it is done with a will; and no man has a thoroughly sound will
unless he knows h