Work, the exercise of our organs, cannot be meritorious, for it is simply a physical necessity of man in common with all other animals, as is shown by a tethered calf galloping round and round, or, among ourselves, by the silly exercises to which rich and well-fed people of the leisured classes betake themselves, finding no better use for their mental faculties than reading novels and newspapers, or playing chess and cards, or for their muscles than gymnastics, fencing, lawn tennis, and horse-racing.
In my opinion, not only is work not a virtue, but in our defectively organized society it is more often a means of moral anæsthesia, just as are tobacco, wine, and other means of drowning thought and hiding from ourselves the disorder and emptiness of our lives; and it is precisely as such that M. Zola recommends work for young people.
III
There is a great difference between the letter of M. Dumas and the speech of M. Zola, without mentioning the external difference, namely, that the speech of M. Zola seems to court the approbation of the young men to whom it is addressed; whilst the letter of M. Dumas does not flatter young men, does not tell them that they are important persons and that everything depends on them (a notion which they ought never to cherish if they wish to be good for anything), but, on the contrary, points out to them their habitual faults, their presumption, and their levity. The principal difference between these two articles is that the speech of M. Zola aims at keeping men in the path they are in, by making them think that what they know is precisely what is necessary for them to know, and that what they are doing is exactly what they ought to do; whilst the letter of M. Dumas shows them that they are ignorant of the essentials of what they ought to know, and are not living as they should live.
