Note A — LETTER XXI.

Many of my working readers have disputed this statement eagerly, feeling the good effect of work in themselves; but observe, I only say, simply or totally manual work; and that, alone, is degrading, though often in measure, refreshing, wholesome, and necessary. So it is highly necessary and wholesome to eat sometimes; but degrading to eat all day, as to labor with the hands all day. But it is not degrading to think all day—if you can. A highly-bred court lady, rightly interested in politics and literature, is a much finer type of the human creature than a servant of all work, however clever and honest.