But the oracle is silent."
No man could be more sensible of the practical importance of
industry than Sir Walter Scott, who was himself one of the most
laborious and indefatigable of men. Indeed, Lockhart says of him
that, taking all ages and countries together, the rare example of
indefatigable energy, in union with serene self-possession of mind
and manner, such as Scott's, must be sought for in the roll of
great sovereigns or great captains, rather than in that of
literary genius. Scott himself was most anxious to impress upon
the minds of his own children the importance of industry as a
means of usefulness and happiness in the world. To his son
Charles, when at school, he wrote:- "I cannot too much impress
upon your mind that LABOUR is the condition which God has imposed
on us in every station of life; there is nothing worth having that
can be had without it, from the bread which the peasant wins with
the sweat of his brow, to the sports by which the rich man must
get rid of his ENNUI.... As for knowledge, it can no more be
planted in the human mind without labour than a field of wheat can
be produced without the previous use of the plough. There is,
indeed, this great difference, that chance or circumstances may so
cause it that another shall reap what the farmer sows; but no man
can be deprived, whether by accident or misfortune, of the fruits
of his own studies; and the liberal and extended acquisitions of
knowledge which he makes are all for his own use.
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