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Ruskin on Work. There is, then, no worldly distinction between idle and industrious people; and I am going to-night to speak only of the industrious. The idle people we will put out of our thoughts at once-they are mere nuisances-what ought to be done with them, we'll talk of at another time. But there aro class distinctions among the industrious themselves ; -tremendous listinctions, which rise and fall to every degree in the infinite thermometer of human pain and of human power-distinctions of high and low, of lost and won, to the whole reach of man's soul and body. These separations we will study, and the laws of them, among energetic men only, who, whether they work or whether they play, put their strength into the work, and their strength into the game; being in the full sense of the word 'industrious, one way or another-with purpose, or without. And these distinctions are mainly four : I. Between those who work, and those who play. II. of life, and those who consume them. III. Between those who work with the head, and those who work with the hand. IV. Between those who work wisely, and those who work foolishly. Between those who produce the means For easier memory, let us say we are going to oppose, in our examination I. Work to play; II. Production to consumption ; III. Head to hand ; and, IV. Sense to nonsense. I. First, then, of the distinction between the classes who play. Of course we must agree npon a definition of these terms-work and 2 play, before going farther. Now, roughly, not with vain subtlety of definition, but for plain use of the words, play' is an exertion of body or mind, made to please ourselves, and with no determined end; and work is a thing done be cause it ought to bo done,and with a determined cnd. You play, as you call it, at cricket, for instance. That is as hard work as anything else; but it amuses you, and it has no result but the amusement. If it were done as an ordered form of exercise, for health's sake, it would become work directly. So, in like manner, whatever we do to please ourselves, and only for the sake of the pleasure, not for an ultimate object, is play,' the plensing thing, not the useful thing. Play may be useful, in a secondary sense ; (nothing is indeed more uscful or necessary); but the use of it depends on its being spontaneous. Let us, then, enquire together what sort of games the playing class in England spend their lives in playing at. The first of all English games is making money. That is an all absorbing game ; and we knock each other down oftener in playing at that, than at football, or any other roughest sport : and it is absolutely without purpose; no one who engages heartily in that game ever knows why. Ask a great money-maker what hic wants to do with his money,--he never knows. He doesn't make it to do anything with it. He gets it only that he may get it. What will you make of what you have got ? you ask. “Well, I'll get more, he says. Just as, at cricket, you get more runs. There's no use in the runs, but to get more of them thau (thcr people is the game. And there's no use in the money, but to have more of it than other