blessed
for the meadow itself, let the stream and _its_ value be great or
small! Labour is Life: from the inmost heart of the Worker
rises his god-given Force, the sacred celestial Life-essence
breathed into him by Almighty God; from his inmost heart awakens
him to all nobleness,--to all knowledge, 'self-knowledge' and
much else, so soon as Work fitly begins. Knowledge? The
knowledge that will hold good in working, cleave thou to that;
for Nature herself accredits that, says Yea to that. Properly
thou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast got by working:
the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to be
argued of in schools, a thing floating in the clouds, in endless
logic-vortices, till we try it and fix it. 'Doubt, of whatever
kind, can be ended by Action alone.'

And again, hast thou valued Patience, Courage, Perseverance,
Openness to light; readiness to own thyself mistaken, to do
better next time? All these, all virtues, in wrestling with the
dim brute Powers of Fact, in ordering of thy fellows in such
wrestle, there and elsewhere not at all, thou wilt continually
learn. Set down a brave Sir Christopher in the middle of black
ruined Stoneheaps, of foolish unarchitectural Bishops, redtape
Officials, idle Nell-Gwyn Defenders of the Faith; and see
whether he will ever raise a Paul's Cathedral out of all that,
yea or no! Rough, rude, contradictory are all things and
persons, from the mutinous masons and Irish hodmen, up to the
idle Nell-Gwyn Defenders, to blustering redtape Officials,
foolish unarchitectural Bishops. All these things and persons
are there not for Christopher's sake and his Cathedral's; they
are there for their own sake mainly! Christopher will have to
conquer and constrain all these,--if he be able. All these are
against him. Equitable Nature herself, who carries her
mathematics and architectonics not on the face of her, but deep
in the hidden heart of her,--Nature herself is but partially for
him; will be wholly against him, if he constrain her not! His
very money, where is it to come from? The pious munificence of
England lies far-scattered, distant, unable to speak, and say, "I
am here;"--must be spoken to before it can speak. Pious
munificence, and all help, is so silent, invisible like the gods;
impediment, contradictions manifold are so loud and near! O
brave Sir Christopher, trust thou in those, notwithstanding, and
front all these; understand all the