Chapter 20: The Element Which Distinguishes Work from Drudgery

There is an infinite difference between the manner in which two people do the same thing. We know women who make an art of housekeeping. It does not matter whether they are making bread, pies, dressing a bed, or dusting furniture, they do it with the air of artists. They take a delight in doing what other women seem to hate. To them there is no drudgery in taking care of children or of the house. They lift everything into the artistic realm. In fact, we know women who do the commonest duties with such dignity, and carry themselves with such serenity and ease that it is a real pleasure to watch them about their work. They take a delight in arranging every piece of furniture and every bit of bric-a-brac so that it will express taste. The whole atmosphere of the home is that of refinement, fitness. There is something about it which satisfies the mind.

We know other women who seem to look upon every bit of work about the house as drudgery, to be gotten rid of if possible. They dread the work. They postpone it as long as they can and then rush it anyway to get through with it, and after they are done there is not the slightest sense of harmony or fitness about the house. Nothing satisfies the mind. You have a feeling that everything is at sixes and sevens. In other words, the work has been done in the spirit of the artisan, while the other woman did hers with the spirit of an artist.

You can tell very quickly when one likes his work. There is a creative quality in it, a spontaneity, a delicacy of touch and of treatment, a naturalness which is never found in work that is looked upon as drudgery.

Some women become cross and crabbed if a servant happens to be sick or away and they have to take her place; while other women are gracious and sympathetic and seem only too glad to give the hired girl an occasional holiday, even when others would not, and seem to take a delight in preparing the meal and doing the work themselves. In other words, one does her work gladly, cheerfully, artistically, — she puts her soul into it, expresses her taste, and gives it a touch of refinement and delicacy, — while the other's work is done just the reverse.

We see the same thing in the office, the store, and the factory. Some employees drag themselves around as though it were a real burden to exist, giving you the impression all the time that they hate their work and they wish it were over, that they do not see why they have to do such drudgery while others have easier positions. It tires one to see these employees make such hard work of everything, — everything they take hold of they seem to despise, — while it is a real delight to manage and to have around one employees who go to their work with a light, glad heart, who are always cheerful, optimistic, helpful, always wanting to do something for you, anxious to see your business prosper. There is a great difference between the whole-hearted and half-hearted work, between enthusiastic and lukewarm service, between the dead-in-earnest worker and the indifferent one.

Every manager and proprietor instinctively feels the helpfulness of the conscientious, the glad, willing, earnest worker. He feels an uplift which is a great encouragement to him. These employees radiate a helpfulness which he feels constantly. He knows what employees are trying to help him and those who are shirking and who are afraid they will earn a cent more than is found in their pay envelope.

On the other hand, he feels the depression, the dragging, discouraged, don't care spirit, which the indifferent, careless, lazy employees radiate. You feel instinctively drawn towards those who work in the right spirit and are interested in your welfare, and you have a repulsive feeling when you come near those who do not care what becomes of your business if they can only shirk their responsibility and work.

We know shoemakers, men who will sew a patch on a shoe or put on a sole so neatly, and do it so daintily, delicately, and artistically that you feel that they are real artists, that they put their heart into their work, while other shoemakers will put on patches as though they did it just for a living and did not care how they looked. The first seemed to do the work because they liked it, and did not think of what they were going to get out of it, but were anxious to make the neatest looking job of any shoemaker in town.

We know stenographers who do their work so accurately and cheerfully that it gives an employer real pleasure. We know others who are so slovenly about their work, so indifferent and careless, — it never seems to trouble them because they have made a mistake, — that they are a constant anxiety, while the former seem to feel as pained at a mistake or if they cause their employer anxiety or loss as though the business was their own.

We know teachers who go to their school as a great master would go to his canvas, — with the whole heart throbbing with helpfulness and with sympathy and a dead-in-earnest desire to be of real help to the pupils. They seem to try to radiate sunshine and helpfulness from every pore. The schoolroom seems to be their studio. They are masters in their line. Their whole heart is in their work. Other teachers start off in the morning feeling that it is a bore to go and try to teach those stupid children, and they wish they were not obliged to do it. They put no enthusiasm, they infuse no life or heart into their teaching. This spirit, of course, is contagious and the scholars, of course, take no interest, except now and then one who would be a scholar anyway.

The same thing is true of the clergymen. One will go into the pulpit as Michael Angelo would go to his block of marble which he kept by the side of his bed so that he could go to his loved work as soon as the day dawned. They look upon their work as a great privilege, as a perpetual delight. They do it in the spirit of an artist, while other clergymen seem to be indifferent of the welfare of their flocks. They love to read, perhaps, or enjoy social life, but they do not carry that zest and enthusiasm, that dead-in-earnestness, that desire to help and to inspire that the great master carries into his work.

It is this artistic quality, this soul spirit, this dead-in-earnestness which distinguishes the work of an artist from the work of a drudge.

It is a great thing to form the habit of infusing the spirit of the artist into everything we do.

We knew a man in Rhode Island who built a stone wall with the same spirit that a great artist would paint his masterpiece. He would turn every stone over and study its character and try to place it to the best possible advantage, and after he had built a rod of wall he would stand off and look at it from every possible angle with the same satisfaction that a great sculptor would look at the statue which he had called out of the marble. He put his character, his enthusiasm in every stone he laid. Wealthy summer visitors often went to call upon this farmer, who built even a stone wall in the spirit of an artist, and he loved to tell them about the individuality and the character of the stones and how he managed to make them express themselves to the best advantage, and what it meant to build a piece of wall so that it would stand for a century.