alse comprehension of the regulation of
labor, because it seems to us that the shoemaker, the machinist, the
writer, or the musician will be better off if he gets rid of the labor
peculiar to man. Where there is no force exercised over the labor of
others, or any false belief in the joy of idleness, not a single man will
get rid of physical labor, necessary for the satisfaction of his
requirements, for the sake of special work; because special work is not a
privilege, but a sacrifice which man offers to inward pressure and to his
brethren.

The shoemaker in the country, who abandons his wonted labor in the field,
which is so grateful to him, and betakes himself to his trade, in order
to repair or make boots for his neighbors, always deprives himself of the
pleasant toil of the field, simply because he likes to make boots,
because he knows that no one else can do it so well as he, and that
people will be grateful to him for it; but the desire cannot occur to
him, to deprive himself, for the whole period of his life, of the
cheering rotation of labor.

It is the same with the _starosta_ [village elder], the machinist, the
writer, the learned man. To us, with our corrupt conception of things,
it seems, that if a steward has been relegated to the position of a
peasant by his master, or if a minister has been sent to the colonies, he
has been chastised, he has been ill-treated. But in reality a benefit
has been conferred on him; that is to say, his special, hard labor has
been changed into a cheerful rotation of labor. In a naturally
constituted society, this is quite otherwise. I know of one community
where the people supported themselves. One of the members of this
society was better educated than the rest; and they called upon him to
read, so that he was obliged to prepare himself during the day, in order
that he might read in the evening. This he did gladly, feeling that he
was useful to others, and that he was performing a good deed. But he
grew weary of exclusively intellectual work, and his health suffered from
it. The members of the community took pity on him, and requested him to
go to work in the fields.

For men who regard labor as the substance and the joy of life, the basis,
the foundation of life will always be the struggle with nature,--labor
both agricultural and mechanical, and intellectual, and the establishment
of communion between men. Departure from one or from many of these
varieties of lab