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A Traveler from Altruria: Romance by William Dean Howells
page 59 of 222 (26%)

"I beg your pardon," said the Altrurian, sweetly; "you can see how easily
I go astray."

"Why, I don't know," the banker interposed, "that you are so far out in
what you say. If you had said that money was always the first motive, I
should have been inclined to dispute you, too; but when you say that money
is the first consideration, I think you are quite right. Unless a man
secures his financial basis for his work, he can't do his work. It's
nonsense to pretend otherwise. So the money consideration is the first
consideration. People here have to live by their work, and to live they
must have money. Of course, we all recognize a difference in the
qualities, as well as in the kinds, of work. The work of the laborer may
be roughly defined as the necessity of his life; the work of the business
man as the means, and the work of the artist and scientist as the end.
We might refine upon these definitions and make them closer, but they
will serve for illustration as they are. I don't think there can be
any question as to which is the highest kind of work; some truths are
self-evident. He is a fortunate man whose work is an end, and every
business man sees this, and owns it to himself, at least when he meets
some man of an aesthetic or scientific occupation. He knows that this
luckier fellow has a joy in his work which he can never feel in business;
that his success in it can never be embittered by the thought that it is
the failure of another; that if he does it well, it is pure good; that
there cannot be any competition in it--there can be only a noble
emulation, as far as the work itself is concerned. He can always look up
to his work, for it is something above him; and a business man often has
to look down upon his business, for it is often beneath him, unless he is
a pretty low fellow."

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