"
It is not true that the ordinary duties of life in a country like
ours--commerce, manufactures, agriculture,--the pursuits to which the vast
majority are and must be devoted--are incompatible with the dignity or
nobility of life. Whether a life is noble or ignoble depends, not on the
calling which is adopted, but on the spirit in which it is followed. The
humblest life may be noble, while that of the most powerful monarch or the
greatest genius may be contemptible. Commerce, indeed, is not only
compatible, but I would almost go further and say that it will be most
successful, if carried on in happy union with noble aims and generous
aspirations. What Ruskin says of art is, with due modification, true of
life generally. It does not matter whether a man "paint the petal of a
rose or the chasms of a precipice, so that love and admiration attend on
him as he labors, and wait for ever on his work. It does not matter
whether he toil for months on a few inches of his canvas, or cover a
palace front with color in a day; so only that it be with a solemn
purpose, that he have filled his heart with patience, or urged his hand to
haste.
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