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CHAPTER XVIII.
THAT AMONG THE AMERICANS, ALL HONEST CALLINGS ARE HONOURABLE.
Among a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth,
every man works to earn a living, or has worked, or is born of
parents who have worked. The notion of labour is therefore
presented to the mind on every side as the necessary, natural, and
honest condition of human existence. Not only is labour not
dishonourable among such a people, but it is held in honour: the
prejudice is not against it, but in its favour. In the United States
a wealthy man thinks that he owes it to public opinion to devote
his leisure to some kind of industrial or commercial pursuit, or to
public business. He would think himself in bad repute if he
employed his life solely in living. It is for the purpose of escaping
this obligation to work, that so many rich Americans come to
Europe, where they find some scattered remains of aristocratic society,
among which idleness is still held in honour.
Equality of conditions not only ennobles the notion of labour in men's estimation, but it raises the notion of labour as a source of profit.
In aristocracies it is not exactly labour that is despised, but labour with a view to profit. Labour is honorific in itself, when it is undertaken at the sole bidding of ambition or of virtue. Yet in aristocratic society it constantly happens that he who works for honour is not insensible to the attractions of profit. But these two desires only intermingle in the innermost depths of his soul: he carefully hides from every eye the point at which they join; he would fain conceal it from himself. In aristocratic countries there are few public officers who do not affect to serve their country without interested motives. Their salary is an incident of which they think but little, and of which they always affect not to think at all. Thus the notion of profit is kept distinct from that of
