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Page 61
Of all that I have to say to you this seems to me the most
important, that our daily and necessary work, which we could not
escape if we would, which we would not forego if we could, should be
human, serious, and pleasurable, not machine-like, trivial, or
grievous. I call this not only the very foundation of Architecture
in all senses of the word, but of happiness also in all conditions
of life.
Let me say before I go further, that though I am nowise ashamed of
repeating the words of men who have been before me in both senses,
of time and insight, I mean, I should be ashamed of letting you
think that I forget their labours on which mine are founded. I know
that the pith of what I am saying on this subject was set forth
years ago, and for the first time by Mr. Ruskin in that chapter of
the Stones of Venice, which is entitled, 'On the Nature of Gothic,'
in words more clear and eloquent than any man else now living could
use. So important do they seem to me, that to my mind they should
have been posted up in every school of art throughout the country;
nay, in every association of English-speaking people which professes
in any way to further the culture of mankind. But I am sorry to
have to say it, my excuse for doing little more now than repeating
those words is that they have been less heeded than most things
which Mr. Ruskin has said: I suppose because people have been
afraid of them, lest they should find the truth they express
sticking so fast in their minds that it would either compel them to
act on it or confess themselves slothful and cowardly.
Nor can I pretend to wonder at that: for if people were once to
accept it as true, that it is nothing but just and fair that every
man's work should have some hope and pleasure always present in it,
they must try to bring the change about that would make it so: and
all history tells of no greater change in man's life than that would
be.
Nevertheless, great as the change may be, Architecture has no
prospects in civilisation unless the change be brought about: and
'tis my business to-day, I will not say to convince you of this, but
to send some of you away uneasy lest perhaps it may be true; if I
can manage that I shall have spoken to some purpose.
Let us see however in what light cultivated people, men not without
serious thoughts about life, look to this matter, lest perchance we
may seem to be beating the air only: when I have given you an
example of this way of thinking, I will answer it to the best of my
power in the hopes of making some of you uneasy, discontented, and
revolutionary.
Some few months ago I read in a paper the report of a speech made to
the assembled work-people of a famous firm of manufacturers (as they
are called). The speech was a very humane and thoughtful one,
spoken by one of the leaders of modern thought: the firm to whose
people it was addressed was and is famous not only for successful
commerce, but also for the consideration and goodwill with which it
treats its work-people, men and women. No wonder, therefore, that
the speech was pleasant reading; for the tone of it was that of a
man speaking to his friends who could well understand him and from
whom he need hide nothing; but towards the end of it I came across a
sentence, which set me a-thinking so hard, that I forgot all that
had gone before. It was to this effect, and I think nearly in these
very words, 'Since no man would work if it were not that he hoped by
working to earn leisure:' and the context showed that this was
assumed as a self-evident truth.
Well, for many years I have had my mind fixed on what I in my turn
regarded as an axiom which may be worded thus: No work which cannot
be done without pleasure in the doing is worth doing; so you may
think I was much disturbed at a grave and learned man taking such a
completely different view of it with such calmness of certainty.
What a little way, I thought, has all Ruskin's fire and eloquence
made in driving into people so great a truth, a truth so fertile of
consequences!
Then I turned the intrusive sentence over again in my mind: 'No man
would work unless he hoped by working to earn leisure:' and I saw
that this was another way of putting it: first, all the work of the
world is done against the grain: second, what a man does in his
'leisure' is not work.
A poor bribe the hope of such leisure to supplement the other
inducement to toil, which I take to be the fear of death by
starvation: a poor bribe; for the most of men, like those Yorkshire
weavers and spinners (and the more part far worse than they), work
for such a very small share of leisure that, one must needs say that
if all their hope be in that, they are pretty much beguiled of their
hope!
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