The Poetry of Work
Executive people have generally the reputation, from their opposites, of being ill-tempered people. Self-trained to the observance of the admirable old maxim, that “whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well,” they are naturally disgusted with dawdling inefficiency and sloth in any shape. Chary of the precious flying moments, the most intolerable of vexations to them is to have their time trespassed upon, and wasted, in a million petty and unnecessary ways, by the stupidity or culpable thoughtlessness of those about them. Now what is called “an easy person,” i.e., a person who is not self-contained, on whose hands time hangs heavily, cannot be made to understand why a person of an opposite description need make a fuss about a few minutes. Why, “what is a few minutes?” they ask. Much, much in the course of a lifetime to those who carefully husband them. Those “few minutes” may make all the difference between an educated and an uneducated person; between a man independent in his circumstances, and a man always under the grinding heel of want; all the difference between intelligence, thrift, and system on one hand, and ignorance, discomfort, and disaster on the other. Those “few minutes,” carefully improved as they occur, have filled libraries with profound and choice volumes; those “few minutes,” saved for mental cultivation, have enabled men, and women too, to shed over a life of toil a brightness which made even monotonous duty a delight. Such can ill afford to be robbed of them by those unable to appreciate their value. Like the infinitesimal gold scrapings of the mint, they may not be purloined, or carelessly brushed away by idle fingers; but conscientiously gathered up and accounted for; to be molten and stamped with thought, then distributed to bless mankind.
What a pleasure it is to see anything perfectly done. I never go “shopping” that I do not look on with admiration while the storekeeper so deftly does up my parcels. I believe no woman who has not acquired the professional shopkeeping touch, can do this decently. I like, too, to watch a group of men painting a house, provided the platform upon which they stand is so strong that my blood does not curdle lest their merry song should never be finished. With what a dexterous, careful, delicate touch they brighten up the unsightly wall; there is fascination to the looker-on in their skilful progress. Carpentering, too, I like; what pretty, silky, curled shavings they plane off; how many times, when a child, I placed them on my head for ringlets, have I mentally resolved to be a carpenter’s wife, that I might always have plenty. How sure the stroke of their hammer upon the nail which a woman would bend, or break in pieces, beside jamming her fingers to a jelly. Mark the sturdy porter, too, as he tosses a huge “Saratoga trunk” lightly as a feather upon his back, and poising it, marches up uncounted stairs without tripping or bumping.
I like to see a strong man holding a fiery horse by a slight rein and a strong will. I like to see the oarsman in his red-shirt sleeves, pulling away over the sparkling water; I like to see the rough, red-faced omnibus driver making change, halting, gesticulating, hallooing to passers-by, all in the same breath. I like anything that is wide-awake and efficient, and if it be beautiful at the same time, so much the better. I like to see the cook toss eggs into a foam so nicely, with head turned the other way, watching pots, skillets, and frying-pans, and at the same time giving orders to half a dozen subordinates. I like to see a milliner twist a ribbon into a thousand fanciful shapes while talking, or selecting a rose from one box, a green spray from another, then a spear of wheat, a daisy and a poppy, twine them together with an artist’s taste and touch. I like to see the dressmaker fit the glossy silk to the curve of limbs as soft as the silky fabric. I like to see the flushed pressman sliding the damp newspapers from the “form” without a flaw or a wrinkle. I like to see a mother strip her little, tender babe, and bathe its fragile limbs with that wonderful delicacy of touch which mothers only know, singing, caressing, patting, and soothing, till the lovely task is done. I like to see those little imps of newsboys running indiscriminately between the legs of man and beast, yelling out their precocious wisdom about “accidents and arrivals;” dodging under carts, and coming out safe in wind and limb; thriving, in spite of dirt and rags, to turn up some day, ten to one, in a big marble store up town, as bookseller or publisher.
I am not at all sure, now that blessed chloroform is discovered by which my faith in the predicted millennium has had a most vigorous quickening (why don’t they build a statue to the discoverer?) that I could not look on admiringly while the surgeon’s knife wound amid veins and arteries with almost omnipotent skill, his patient lying calm as a sleeping infant the while.
And now the thought comes over me with overwhelming force, how strange that we, who so adore strength, power, beauty, and perfection, should be content with its circumscribed human progress; never look for it, never worship it, where it is limitless, unchangeable, unfettered by selfishness, caprice, or injustice. Alas! till we learn this, we shall, vine-like, throw out our tendrils to the mercy of every passing breeze, with nothing sure to twine around or cling to.