Flowers and fruit from the writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

THE CHIMNEY CORNER.

A well-developed man.

We still incline to class distinctions and aristocracies. We incline to the scheme of dividing the world’s work into two classes: first, physical labor, which is held to be rude and vulgar, and the province of a lower class; and second, brain-labor, held to be refined and aristocratic, and the province of a higher class. Meanwhile the Creator, who is the greatest of levelers, has given to every human being both a physical system, needing to be kept in order by physical labor, and an intellectual or brain power, needing to be kept in order by brain labor. Work, use, employment, is the condition of health in both; and he who works either to the neglect of the other lives but a half-life, and is an imperfect human being.