Essays on Work and Culture. Hamilton Wright Mabie

to a long life of sustained energy and of the highest productivity; "The Robbers" was soon distanced and eclipsed by the noble works of one of the noblest of modern spirits; and to the extravagance of the ardent French Romanticists of 1832 succeeded those great works in verse and prose which have made the last half-century memorable in French literary history.

      It is the fruitage of work, not the wild play of undirected energy, which gives an epoch its decisive influence and a man his place and power. Both aspects of the "storm and stress" period need to be kept in mind. When it is tempted to condemn too sternly the extravagance of such a period, society will do well to recall how often this undirected or ill-directed play of energy has been the forerunner of a noble putting forth of creative power. And those who are involved in such an outpouring of new life, on the other hand, will do well to remember that extravagance is never the sign of art; that licence is never the liberty which sets free the creative force; that "storm and stress" is, at the best, only a promise of sound work; and that its importance and reality depend entirely upon the fruit it bears.

      The decisive test, in other words, comes when a man deals, in patience and fidelity, with the task which is set before him. Up to this point his life, however rich and varied, has been a preparation; now comes that final trial of strength which is to bring into clear light whatever power is in him, be that power great or small. If work had no other quality, the fact that it settles a man's place among men would invest it with the highest dignity; for a man's place can be determined only by a complete unfolding and measurement of all the powers that are in him, and this process of development must have all the elements of the highest moral process. So great, indeed, is the importance of work from this point of view that it seems to involve, under the appearance of a provisional judgment, the weight and seriousness of a final judgment of men. Such a judgment, as every man knows who has the conscience either of a moralist or of an artist, is being hourly registered in the growth which is silently accomplished through the steady and skilful doing of one's work, or in the gradual but inevitable decline and decay which accompany and follow the slovenly, indifferent, or unfaithful performance of one's task.

      We make or unmake ourselves by and through our work; marring our material and spiritual fortunes or discovering and possessing them at will. The idle talk about the play of chance in the world, the futile attempt to put on the broad back of circumstances that burden of responsibility which rests on our own shoulders, deceives no man in his saner moments. The outward fruits of success are not always within our reach, no matter how strenuous our struggles to pluck them; but that inward strength, of which all forms of outward prosperity are but visible evidences, lies within the grasp of every true worker. Fidelity, skill, energy—the noble putting forth of one's power in some worthy form of work—never fail of that unfolding of the whole man in harmonious strength which is the only ultimate and satisfying form of success.

      Chapter VII

      Liberation

      Work is the most continuous and comprehensive form of action; that form which calls into play and presses into steady service the greatest number of gifts, skills, and powers. Into true work, therefore, a man pours his nature without measure or stint; and in that process he comes swiftly or slowly to a clear realisation of himself. Work sets him face to face with himself. So long as he is getting ready to work he cannot measure his power, nor take full account of his resources of skill, intelligence, and moral endurance; but when he has closed with his task and put his entire force into the doing of it, he comes to an understanding not only of but with himself. Under the testing process of actual contact with materials and obstacles, his strength and his weakness are revealed to him; he learns what lies within his power and what lies beyond it; he takes accurate account of his moral force, and measures himself with some degree of accuracy against a given task or undertaking; he discovers his capacity for growth, and begins to see, through the mist of the future, how far he is likely to go along the road he has chosen. He discerns his lack of skill in various directions, and knows how to secure what he needs; in countless ways he measures himself and comes to know himself.