The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1892-07-21
Work and Character.

ln0r6 IS 0OCnlDg IN the WOrlO OF 50 much
value to character as work, and the habit
of work. This the pleasure lover. idler,
the young and thonghtless may be inclined
to doubt but advancing years will teach
them all the truth of the statement. We
remember to have heard one of the most
successful and distinguished professional
men once say to young man who COM
planned that he hated work, and would like
to roll for year or two on rose leaves,
"Ah. my young friend. l hope the time
will never come to you when you will be
thankful for work"
1t may be vastly more agreeable for a
season to lounge in the sunshine. to enjoy
the semi tOrpor of luxurious ease, and read
a novel that takes us out of our hum drum
existence and into life inviting as Elysian
fields, to fold our hands doing nothing and
waiting for something to turn up; but all
that sort of thing, pursued as profession.
grows infinitely more tireSOme than the
most firing work. For there is a wide diff
ference in the significance of the two words,
tiresOme and firing, the one often implying
fatigue of the spirit which diSspateS all
the forces. and the other a wholesome
fatigue of the body. to be refreshed by rest
or sleep. But no rest or sleep refreshes
wien thing is simply tiresome. for the
tiresOmeneSS is mOnOtOnOus, underlying,
enduring. In fact. if we do not want pleas
ure and ease to pail on us so that we would
at last find ourselves glad to dig or scrub
for change from the soft condition, we
shall have to take that pleasure and ease
MI no r1 Of 1ohO ro1o tin,,
really earned by effort. something that
has become ours by personal right.
Nor is work, of any sort, merely desirable
in the way of exercise and sport to the
healthy muscle and healthy brain. maintain
ing sound condition or creating it; but it is
a blessing. even if in disguise, taking us for
time wholly out of ourselves and apart
from other matters that environ or over
whelm us. and which but for wholesome
occupation might wreck our lives. For
work that can be done without thinking has
little of the sacredness of work about it.
and is sort of hybrid between work and
play. Those who have suffered afflictiOn,
who are surrounded by an atmosphere of
teasing trouble. or who have met with some
great calamity have found their best resource
in some absorbing work which they once
scOrned. For time. at least the stinging
thrOng of annOyances is escaped, the pres
sure of the great calamity is lifted, we find
ourselves with new anxiety, the old anXi-
ETY. is neutralized by new one. that of do
ing our work well, of expressing our
thought perfectly, of achieving success in
the direction we have aimed. Only those
who have suffered may perhaps know the
full extent of the blessing that work is when
it comes to absorb them from their grief and
lift them out of themselves. And even the
idle and the pleasure seeking will find that
life has one more pleasure to give them in
the rekndling and revivifying of work pur-
sued in earnest.
But even considering labor, not as bless
ing per Sc, but as part of the primal curse
in which man was hidden to earn his bread
in the sweat of his brow, and which the ma
jOrity of mankind seem to think did not in.
clude themselves. what right has any Gre
ated thing to wish to evade it? There is no
such thing as rest among all the agencies
and forces of the c0smic universe. the very
name of force and agency implying action.
Not drop of water pauses in the roll of
the ocean, not one tongue of flame hangs
suspended in the fire, not cloud stays mo-
ti0nless in the wide heavens. not one atom