230 National Duties 



need arouse in the breast of a healthy man no emo 

 tion stronger than that of contempt at the outside 

 no emotion stronger than angry contempt. The feel 

 ing of envy would have in it an admission of inferi 

 ority on our part, to which the men who know not 

 the sterner joys of life are not entitled. Poverty is 

 a bitter thing; but it is not as bitter as the existence 

 of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellec 

 tual flabbiness, to which those doom themselves 

 who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of 

 all vain pursuits the pursuit of mere pleasure as a 

 sufficient end in itself. The wilfully idle man, like 

 the wilfully barren woman, has no place in a sane, 

 healthy, and vigorous community. Moreover, the 

 gross and hideous selfishness for which each stands 

 defeats even its own miserable aims. Exactly as in 

 finitely the happiest woman is she who has borne and 

 brought up many healthy children, so infinitely the 

 happiest man is he who has toiled hard and success 

 fully in his life-work. The work may be done in a 

 thousand different ways with the brain or the 

 hands, in the study, the field, or the workshop if 

 it is honest work, honestly done and well worth 

 doing, that is all we have a right to ask. Every 

 father and mother here, if they are wise, will bring 

 up their children not to shirk difficulties, but to meet 

 them and overcome them ; not to strive after a life 

 of ignoble ease, but to strive to do their duty, first 



