[137] The gentleman by birth and education, however richly he may be endowed with worldly possessions, cannot but feel that he is in duty bound to contribute his quota of endeavour towards the general wellbeing in which he shares.

He cannot be satisfied with being fed, clad, and maintained by the labour of others, without making some suitable return to the society that upholds him.

An honest highminded man would revolt at the idea of sitting down to and enjoying a feast, and then going away without paying his share of the reckoning.
To be idle and useless is neither an honour nor a privilege; and though persons of small natures may be content merely to consume--FRUGES CONSUMERE NATI--men of average endowment, of manly aspirations, and of honest purpose, will feel such a condition to be incompatible with real honour and true dignity.
"I don't believe," said Lord Stanley [13now Earl of Derby] at Glasgow, "that an unemployed man, however amiable and otherwise respectable, ever was, or ever can be, really happy.

As work is our life, show me what you can do, and I will show you what you are.

I have spoken of love of one's work as the best preventive of merely low and vicious tastes.