ng and digging, "Ye scandalous
persons who produce too much"--My Corn-Law friends, on what imaginary
still richer Eldorados, and true iron-spikes with law of gravitation,
are ye rushing!

* * * * *

As to the Wages of Work there might innumerable things be said; there
will and must yet innumerable things be said and spoken, in St.
Stephen's and out of St. Stephen's; and gradually not a few things be
ascertained and written, on Law-parchment, concerning this very
matter:--'Fair day's-wages for a fair day's-work' is the most
unrefusable demand! Money-wages 'to the extent of keeping your worker
alive that he may work more;' these, unless you mean to dismiss him
straightway out of this world, are indispensable alike to the noblest
Worker and to the least noble!

One thing only I will say here, in special reference to the former
class, the noble and noblest; but throwing light on all the other
classes and their arrangements of this difficult matter: The 'wages'
of every noble Work do yet lie in Heaven or else Nowhere. Not in
Bank-of-England bills, in Owen's Labour-bank, or any the most improved
establishment of banking and money-changing, needest thou, heroic
soul, present thy account of earnings. Human banks and labour-banks
know thee not; or know thee after generations and centuries have
passed away, and thou art clean gone from 'rewarding,'--all manner of
bank-drafts, shop-tills, and Downing-street Exchequers lying very
invisible, so far from thee! Nay, at bottom, dost thou need any
reward? Was it thy aim and life-purpose to be filled with good things
for thy heroism; to have a life of pomp and ease, and be what men call
'happy,' in this world, or in any other world? I answer for thee
deliberately, No. The whole spiritual secret of the new epoch lies in
this, that thou canst answer for thyself, with thy whole clearness of
head and heart, deliberately, No!

My brother, the brave man has to give his Life away. Give it, I advise
thee;--thou dost not expect to _sell_ thy Life in an adequate manner?
What price, for example, would content thee? The just price of thy
Life to thee,--why, God's entire Creation to thyself, the whole
Universe of Space, the whole Eternity of Time, and what they hold:
that is the price which would content thee; that, and if thou wilt be
candid, nothing short of that! It is thy all; and for it thou wouldst
have all. Thou art an unreasonable mortal;--or rather thou ar