CONCLUSION.
Work, and the true nobility of being devoted to it, distinguished every exemplar recorded in our sketch; and no name of eminence or excellence can be selected in human annals who has ever used the phrase, which can only console idiots, that “he is perfectly happy, for he has nothing to do, and nothing to think about!” “Nothing to do!” in a world whose elements are, as yet, but partially subdued by man, and whose happiness can be augmented so incalculably by the perfecting of his dominion over Nature. “Nothing to think about!” when language, and poetry, and art, and music, and science, and invention, afford ecstatic occupation for thought which could not be exhausted if a man’s life were even extended on the earth to a million of years. “Nothing to do, and nothing to think about!” while millions are doing and thinking,—for a human creature to profess that he derives pleasure from such a state of consciousness, is to confess his willingness to be fed, clothed, and attended by others, while he is meanly and despicably indolent and degradingly dependent.
Young reader, spurn the indulgence of a thought so unworthy of a human being! Remember, that happiness, worth the name, can never be gained unless in the discharge of duty, or under the sense of duty done. And work is duty—thy duty—the duty of all mankind.Whatever may be a man’s situation, from the lowliest to the highest he has a work to perform as a bounden duty. Such was glorious Alfred’s conviction as a king: such was Lackington’s conviction as a tradesman. For every diversity of mind and genius the universe in which we live affords work, and the peculiar work for which each mind is filled becomes its bounden duty by natural laws. “First of all we ought to doour own duty—but, first of all,” were the memorable death-bed words of Canova; and the conviction they expressed constituted the soul-spring of every illustrious man’s life. The life of Canova was—work: so was the life of Shakspere, of Milton, of Jones, of Johnson, of Handel, of Davy, of Watt, of Newton, of all-glorious Howard. Their lives were “Triumphs of Perseverance:” even their deaths did not lessen their triumphs. “Being dead, they yet speak.” They are ever present with us in their great words and thoughts, and in their great acts. Their spirits thus still conjoin to purify and enlighten the world: they are still transforming it, in some senses more effectually than if still living, from ignorance, and vice, and wrong and suffering, into a maturing sphere of knowledge and might over Nature, and justice and brotherhood. Let every earnest heart and mind be resolved on treading in their footsteps, and aiding in the realisation of the cheering trust that the world shall yet be a universally happy world, and so man reach that perfect consummation of the “Triumphs of Perseverance!”