Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/300



performing that work thoroughly well, we shall not lose the secret of happiness; we shall find it. The harming, the slandering, the over-reaching, the plucking down of our neighbors is not our business, and if we indulge in that kind of thing we shall never be happy. It is to a great extent true, as some of the newspapers tell us, that the twentieth century still finds us very far from the best ideals and hopes. War still hangs like a cloud across the country. Drink is still a curse, and large sections of trade are being taken from us by American and foreign rivals. This, if it goes on, will mean much ruin and misery and want to many of our English artisans and workmen, and this brings me to another point in the secret of happiness, which is Work. Not what we call scamp work; not work which drops its tools at the first sound of the dinner bell and runs across to the public-house, but good, conscientious, thorough work, of which the workman himself may be justly proud. Why should Americans take work which Englishmen, if they like, can do infinitely better? Simply because they are smart, cute, up to time, and take less early closing and fewer bank holidays. I am a very hard worker myself, and I am not speaking without knowing what I am talking about, and I say from my own experience—and I have worked ever since I reached my sixteenth year—that work is happiness. No one can take my work from me and therefore no one can take my happiness from me. I defy any one to upset, worry, or put me out in the least so long as I have my work to do. Take away my work, and I am lost. Show me a lazy, loafing person, man or woman, and I will show you a discontented grumbler, who is a misery in his or her home, and a misery to him or her self. Nothing is idle in God's universe; the smallest observation will prove that.
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