42．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  ?