 so easy to do, that it seems as if
there were less done, though probably more is produced. I suppose this explains
that fear, which I hinted at just now, of a possible scarcity in work, which
perhaps you have already noticed, and which is a feeling on the increase, and
has been for a score of years.«
    »But do you think,« said I, »that there is any fear of a work-famine amongst
you?«
    »No, I do not,« said he, »and I will tell why; it is each man's business to
make his own work pleasanter and pleasanter, which of course tends towards
raising the standard of excellence, as no man enjoys turning out work which is
not a credit to him, and also to greater deliberation in turning it out; and
there is such a vast number of things which can be treated as works of art, that
this alone gives employment to a host of deft people. Again, if art be
inexhaustible, so is science also; and though it is no longer the only innocent
occupation which is thought worth an intelligent man spending his time upon, as
it once was, yet there are, and I suppose will be, many people who are excited
by its conquest of difficulties, and care for it more than for anything else.
Again, as more and more of pleasure is imported into work, I think we shall take
up kinds of work which produce desirable wares, but which we gave up because we
could not carry them on pleasantly. Moreover, I think that it is only in parts
of Europe which are more advanced than the rest of the world that you will hear
this talk of the fear of a work-famine. Those lands which were once the colonies
of Great Britain, for instance, and especially America - that part of it, above
all, which was once the United States - are now and will be for a long while a
great resource to us. For these lands, and, I say, especially the northern parts
of America, suffered so terribly from the full force of the last days of
civilisation, and became such horrible places to live in, that they are now very
backward in all that makes life pleasant. Indeed, one may say that for nearly a
hundred years the people of the northern parts of America have been engaged in
gradually making a dwelling-place out of a stinking dust-heap; and there is
still a great deal to do, especially as the country is so big.«
    »Well,
