world can be carried on without rough labour; but I have seen enough
of that to know that it need not be by any means degrading. To
plough the earth, to cast the net, to fold the flock--these, and
such as these, which are rough occupations enough, and which carry
with them many hardships, are good enough for the best of us,
certain conditions of leisure, freedom, and due wages being granted.
As to the bricklayer, the mason, and the like--these would be
artists, and doing not only necessary, but beautiful, and therefore
happy work, if art were anything like what it should be. No, it is
not such labour as this which we need to do away with, but the toil
which makes the thousand and one things which nobody wants, which
are used merely as the counters for the competitive buying and
selling, falsely called commerce, which I have spoken of before--I
know in my heart, and not merely by my reason, that this toil cries
out to be done away with. But, besides that, the labour which now
makes things good and necessary in themselves, merely as counters
for the commercial war aforesaid, needs regulating and reforming.
Nor can this reform be brought about save by art; and if we were
only come to our right minds, and could see the necessity for making
labour sweet to all men, as it is now to very few--the necessity, I
repeat; lest discontent, unrest, and despair should at last swallow
up all society--If we, then, with our eyes cleared, could but make
some sacrifice of things which do us no good, since we unjustly and
uneasily possess them, then indeed I believe we should sow the seeds
of a happiness which the world has not yet known, of a rest and
content which would make it what I cannot help thinking it was meant
to be: and with that seed would be sown also the seed of real art,
the expression of man's happiness in his labour,--an art made by the
people, and for the people, as a happiness to the maker and the
user.