Solitude and Company 171 



intolerable, but facility in doing and think- 

 ing, the self-reliance of a wider resource. 

 And aptness with the hands is not enough : 

 aptness of mind is equally good for us. 

 Without in the least underrating the dig- 

 nity and importance of hand-work, real- 

 izing, too, the happiness and health that 

 come of it, I fancy an unspoken contempt 

 in some who work with their muscles for 

 men who work with their brains and nerves, 

 the intellectual and emotional element in 

 society, the scholars and artists ; yet it is 

 easier for the scholar to plough, to hammer, 

 to weave, to drill, than for those who do 

 such things to gain mental poise and ful- 

 ness, supposing that they lack it in the first 

 place, and that their minds are always nar- 

 rowly on the material fact ; so the scholar 

 may, in the end, be the more self-complete 

 of the two. Manual labor has its de^ 

 cided advantage, however, in the hours for 

 thought, study, and fancy that it gives to. 

 whoever will take them. While planing, 

 hammering, and hoeing, as while tramping, 

 the mind is at liberty for idyls or Iliads. 

 The lore of Edwards, Burritt, and Cobbett, 



