but in that grim brow, in that indomitable heart which
_can_ conquer Cotton, do there not perhaps lie other ten-times nobler
conquests?

CHAPTER XI

LABOUR.

For there is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in Work. Were
he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always
hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in Idleness alone is
there perpetual despair. Work, never so Mammonish, mean, _is_ in
communication with Nature; the real desire to get Work done will
itself lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and
regulations, which are truth.

The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. 'Know
thyself:' long enough has that poor 'self' of thine tormented thee;
thou wilt never get to 'know' it, I believe! Think it not thy
business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable individual:
know what thou canst work at; and work at it, like a Hercules! That
will be thy better plan.

It has been written, 'an endless significance lies in Work;' a man
perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair
seedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and withal the man
himself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwholesome desert
thereby. Consider how, even, in the meanest sorts of Labour, the whole
soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he
sets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation,
Despair itself, all these like helldogs lie beleaguering the soul of
the poor dayworker, as of every man: but he bends himself with free
valour against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink
murmuring far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed
glow of Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison
is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made bright blessed
flame!

Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating us. A formless
Chaos, once set it _revolving_, grows round and ever rounder; ranges
itself, by mere force of gravity, into strata, spherical courses; is
no longer a Chaos, but a round compacted World. What would become of
the Earth, did she cease to revolve? In the poor old Earth, so long as
she revolves, all inequalities, irregularities disperse themselves;
all irregularities are incessantly becoming regular. Hast thou looked
on the Potter's wheel,--one of the venerablest objects; old as the
Prophet Ezechiel and far older? Rude lumps