Bring me back any way I like to come,
explaining, by means of her guide-books and histories, everything
upon the way that she thinks can interest me; will, while I am
absent, carry my messages to those I have left behind me in England,
and will bring me theirs in return; will look after me and take care
of me and protect me like a mother - as no mother ever could.
All that she asks in return is, that I shall do the work she has
given me to do. As a man works, so Society deals by him.
To me Society says: "You sit at your desk and write, that is all I
want you to do. You are not good for much, but you can spin out
yards of what you and your friends, I suppose, call literature; and
some people seem to enjoy reading it. Very well: you sit there and
write this literature, or whatever it is, and keep your mind fixed
on that. I will see to everything else for you. I will provide you
with writing materials, and books of wit and humour, and paste and
scissors, and everything else that may be necessary to you in your
trade; and I will feed you and clothe you and lodge you, and I will
take you about to places that you wish to go to; and I will see that
you have plenty of tobacco and all other things practicable that you
may desire - provided that you work well. The more work you do, and
the better work you do, the better I shall look after you. You
write - that is all I want you to do."
"But," I say to Society, "I don't like work; I don't want to work.
Why should I be a slave and work?"
"All right," answers Society, "don't work. I'm not forcing you.
All I say is, that if you don't work for me, I shall not work for
you. No work from you, no dinner from me - no holidays, no tobacco."
And I decide to be a slave, and work.
Society has no notion of paying all men equally. Her great object
is to encourage brain. The man who merely works by his muscles she
regards as very little superior to the horse or the ox, and provides
for him just a little better. But the moment he begins to use his
head, and from the labourer rises to the artisan, she begins to
raise his wages.
Of course hers is a very imperfect method of encouraging thought.
She is of the world, and takes a worldly standard of cleverness. To
the shallow, showy writer, I fear, she generally pays far more than
to the deep and brilliant thinker; and clever roguery seems often
more to her liking than honest worth.
