Work


It is physically impossible for a well-educated, intellectual, or brave
 
man  to  make  money  the  chief  object  of  his  thoughts;  as  physically
 
impossible  as(1)  it  is  for  him  to  make  his  dinner  the  principal  object
 
of  them.  All  healthy  people  like  their  dinner,  but  their  dinner  is  not
 
the main object of their lives. So all healthy-minded people like making
 
money- ought to like it and to enjoy the sensation of winning it; but the
 
main object of their lives is not money; it is something better than money.
 
A good soldier, for instance, mainly wishes to do his fighting well.  He
 
is glad of his pay- very properly so(2), and justly grumbles when you keep
 
him ten months without it; still, his main notion of life is to win battles,
 
not  to  be  paid  for  winning  them.
 
So  of  doctors.  They  like  fees  no  doubt-  ought  to  like  them;  yet  if  they
 
are  brave  and  well  educated,  the  en-  tire  object  of  their  lives  is  not
 
fees. They, on the whole, desire to cure the sick, and--if they are good
 
doctors,  and  the  choice  were  fairly  put  to  them(3)  --would  rather  cure
 
their  patient  and  lose  their  fee  than  kill  him  and  get  it.  And  so  with 
 
all other brave and rightly trained men; their work is first, their  fee
 
second,  very  important  always,  but  still  second.
 
But  in  every  nation,  there  is  a  vast  class  of  people  who  are  cowardly,
 
and more or less stupid. And with these people, just as certainly the fee
 
is first and the work second, as with brave people the work is first and
 
the  fee  second.
 
And this is no small distinction. It is the whole distinction. It is
 
the whole distinction in a man. You can- not serve two masters; you must
 
serve one or the other. If your work is first with you, and your fee second,
 
work  is  your  master.
 
Observe, then, all wise work is mainly threefold in character. It is honest,
 
useful, and cheerful. I hardly know anything more strange than that you
 
recognize honesty in play, and do not in work(4). In your lightest games
 
you  have  always  someone  to  see  what  you  call  "fair  play".  In  boxing  you
 
must hit fair; in racing, start fair. Your watchword is fair play;  your
 
hatred, foul play. Did it ever strike you that you wanted another watchword
 
also,  fair  work,  and  another  hatred  also  ,  foul  work  ?