. With all which, alas, this distracted Earth is now full,
nigh to bursting. Semblances most smooth to the touch and eye; most
accursed, nevertheless, to body and soul. Semblances, be they of
Sham-woven Cloth or of Dilettante Legislation, which are _not_ real
wool or substance, but Devil's-dust, accursed of God and man! No man
has worked, or can work, except religiously; not even the poor
day-labourer, the weaver of your coat, the sewer of your shoes. All
men, if they work not as in a Great Taskmaster's eye, will work wrong,
work unhappily for themselves and you.

* * * * *

Industrial work, still under bondage to Mammon, the rational soul of
it not yet awakened, is a tragic spectacle. Men in the rapidest motion
and self-motion; restless, with convulsive energy, as if driven by
Galvanism, as if possessed by a Devil; tearing asunder mountains,--to
no purpose, for Mammonism is always Midas-eared! This is sad, on the
face of it. Yet courage: the beneficent Destinies, kind in their
sternness, are apprising us that this cannot continue. Labour is not a
devil, even while encased in Mammonism; Labour is ever an imprisoned
god, writhing unconsciously or consciously to escape out of Mammonism!
Plugson of Undershot, like Taillefer of Normandy, wants victory; how
much happier will even Plugson be to have a Chivalrous victory than a
Chactaw one! The unredeemed ugliness is that of a slothful People.
Show me a People energetically busy; heaving, struggling, all
shoulders at the wheel; their heart pulsing, every muscle swelling,
with man's energy and will;--I show you a People of whom great good is
already predicable; to whom all manner of good is yet certain, if
their energy endure. By very working, they will learn; they have,
Antaeus-like, their foot on Mother Fact: how can they but learn?

The vulgarest Plugson of a Master-Worker, who can command Workers,
and get work out of them, is already a considerable man. Blessed and
thrice-blessed symptoms I discern of Master-Workers who are not vulgar
men; who are Nobles, and begin to feel that they must act as such: all
speed to these, they are England's hope at present! But in this
Plugson himself, conscious of almost no nobleness whatever, how much
is there! Not without man's faculty, insight, courage, hard energy, is
this rugged figure. His words none of the wisest; but his actings
cannot be altogether foolish. Think, how were it, stoodst thou
suddenly