It is assumed by most people nowadays that all work is useful, and by most well-to-do people that all work is desirable. Most people, well-to-do or not, believe that, even when a man is doing work which appears to be useless, he is earning his livelihood by it--he is "employed," as the phrase goes; and most of those who are well-to-do cheer on the happy worker with congratulations and praises, if he is only "industrious" enough and deprives himself of all pleasure and holidays in the sacred cause of labour... 
 
Here, you see, are two kinds of work - one good, the other bad; one not far removed from a blessing, a lightening of life; the other a mere curse, a burden to life. What is the difference between them, then? This: one has hope in it, the other has not. It is manly to do the one kind of work, and manly also to refuse to do the other. What is the nature of the hope which, when it is present in work, makes it worth doing? ...

Useful Work versus Useless Toil

Rodolphe, le plus jeune fils du roi des Haults-Prés, s'enfuit de la maison paternelle pour partir en quête d'aventures et connaître la vie d'un chevalier errant.
Chemin faisant, il apprend l'existence d'une source magique à l'eau miraculeuse et se met en devoir de la découvrir. Son épopée le mènera par-delà les cita- delles des hommes, les forêts enchantées et les landes arides. Le jeune aventurier y rencontrera un grand nombre de figures extravagantes qui bouleverse- ront sa vision du monde, du Bien et du Mal, et de lui-même : de fiers bergers-guerriers défiant l'ordre établi, des brigands justiciers plus joyeux que des ménestrels, un mystérieux chevalier noir, un moine lubrique tout droit sorti des Contes de Canterbury, et une sorcière insoumise à la loi des hommes dont il tombera éperdument amoureux.

La source au bout du monde Tome 2

Socialists no more than other people believe that persons are naturally equal: there are amongst men all varieties of disposition, and desires, and degrees of capacity; nevertheless these differences are inequalities are very much increased by the circumstances amongst which a man lives and by those that surrounded the lives of his parents: and these circumstances are more or less under the control of society, that is of the ordered arrangement of persons among which we live. So I say first that granted that men are born with certain tendencies those tendencies can be developed for good and evil by the conditions of our lives, and those conditions are in our own hands to deal with, taking us nation by nation as a whole. If we are careful to be prudent and wise for ourselves and just towards other people those inequalities which are natural can be used for making life pleasanter and more varied: but if we act stupidly and unjustly they become a source of misery to many, and of degradation to all.

I have admitted that men are not naturally equal, yet all persons must admit that there are certain things which we all need; in that respect we are equal: we all need food, clothes, and shelter, and clearly if we need these things we need them in sufficiency, and of good quality, or else we have not really got them. Since then these needs are common to all, it follows that if anyone is not able to satisfy his needs in these respects there is something wrong somewhere, either with nature, or the man himself, or with the society of which he forms a part and which therefore dictates to him how he shall live...

What Socialists Want - Essays on Socialism

"For surely there is no square mile of earth's inhabitable surface that is not beautiful in its own way, if we men will only abstain from willfully destroying that beauty; and it is this reasonable share in the beauty of the earth that I claim as the right of every man who will earn it by due labour; a decent house with decent surroundings for every honest and industrious family; that is the claim which I make of you in the name of art. Is it such an exorbitant claim to make of civilization? of a civilization that is too apt to boast in after-dinner speeches; too apt to thrust her blessings on far-off peoples at the cannon's mouth before she has improved the quality of those blessings so far that they are worth having at any price, even the smallest"...

Art and the Beauty of the Earth

Rodolphe, le plus jeune fils du roi des Haults-Prés, s’enfuit de la maison paternelle pour partir en quête d’aventures et connaître la vie d’un chevalier errant. Chemin faisant, il apprend l’existence d’une source magique à l’eau miraculeuse et se met en devoir de la découvrir. Son épopée le mènera par-delà les citadelles des hommes, les forêts enchantées et les landes arides. Le jeune aventurier y rencontrera un grand nombre de figures extravagantes qui bouleverseront sa vision du monde, du Bien et du Mal, et de lui-même : de fiers bergers-guerriers défiant l’ordre établi, des brigands justiciers plus joyeux que des ménestrels, un mystérieux chevalier noir, un moine lubrique tout droit sorti des Contes de Canterbury, et une sorcière insoumise à la loi des hommes dont il tombera éperdument amoureux.Grand roman d’aventures, ce texte est l’acte de naissance de la fantasy, croisement du roman d’aventures à la Walter Scott et du conte. Comme chez Swift, Voltaire ou Cyrano de Bergerac, l’aventure et le merveilleux deviennent dans ce roman les outils pour placer dans l’esprit de ses lecteurs les ferments d’une révolte nécessaire, éprise de liberté, d’égalité et de fraternité.

La Source au bout du monde

En 1857, dans une Angleterre victorienne patriarcale, William Morris, poète de 23 ans proche du mouvement préraphaélite, s'empare de la légende arthurienne qui connaît alors une popularité croissante.
Mais, au lieu de célébrer les exploits des chevaliers, l'auteur décide de donner pour la première fois la parole à la reine Guenièvre. Reprenant l'un des épisodes les plus célèbres du mythe du Camelot durant lequel la souveraine est accusée d'adultère avec Lancelot, William Morris place Guenièvre au centre de son récit et lui laisse le champ libre pour qu'elle présente seule sa défense devant un parterre de juges : tous des chevaliers, tous des hommes. La reine développe alors ses arguments, défend son amour et montre qu'elle a aussi été contrainte dans une condition qu'elle n'a pas voulue.

La défense de Guenièvre

It is true that if all were going smoothly with art, or at all events so smoothly that there were but a few malcontents in the world, you might listen with some pleasure, and perhaps advantage, to the talk of an old hand in the craft concerning ways of work, the snares that beset success, and the shortest road to it, to a tale of workshop receipts and the like: that would be a pleasant talk surely between friends and fellow-workmen; but it seems to me as if it were not for us as yet; nay, maybe we may live long and find no time fit for such restful talk as the cheerful histories of the hopes and fears of our workshops: anyhow to-night I cannot do it, but must once again call the faithful of art to a battle wider and more distracting than that kindly struggle with nature, to which all true craftsmen are born; which is both the building-up and the wearing-away of their lives...

That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people would venture to assert, and yet most civilised people act as if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging both themselves and those that are to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is meant by ART, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than men.

Now I ask you, as I have been asking myself this long while, what proportion of the population in civilised countries has any share at all in that necessity of life?

I say that the answer which must be made to that question justifies my fear that modern civilisation is on the road to trample out all the beauty of life, and to make us less than men.

Now if there should be any here who will say: It was always so; there always was a mass of rough ignorance that knew and cared nothing about art; I answer first, that if that be the case, then it was always wrong, and we, as soon as we have become conscious of that wrong, are bound to set it right if we can...

The Beauty of Life - Making the Best of It

The Designs Of William Morris

Rodolphe, le plus jeune fils du roi des Haults-Prés, s'enfuit de la maison paternelle pour partir en quête d'aventures et connaître la vie d'un chevalier errant. Chemin faisant, il apprend l'existence d'une source magique à l'eau miraculeuse et se met en devoir de la découvrir. Son épopée le mènera par-delà les citadelles des hommes, les forêts enchantées et les landes arides. Le jeune aventurier y rencontrera un grand nombre de figures extravagantes qui bouleverseront sa vision du monde, du Bien et du Mal, et de lui-même : de fiers bergers-guerriers défiant l'ordre établi, des brigands justiciers plus joyeux que des ménestrels, un mystérieux chevalier noir, un moine lubrique tout droit sorti des Contes de Canterbury, et une sorcière insoumise à la loi des hommes dont il tombera éperdument amoureux.
Grand roman d'aventures, ce texte incarne la naissance de la fantasy, croisement du roman d'aventures à la Walter Scott et du conte. C'est aussi une déclaration d'amour au Moyen Âge, cet âge où les machines n'avaient pas encore tout détruit, où chaque homme, chaque femme, avait plus de pouvoir entre ses mains, même face au seigneur féodal, que l'ouvrier n'en possède face au riche financier. Comme chez Swift, Voltaire ou Cyrano de Bergerac, l'aventure et le merveilleux deviennent dans ce roman les outils pour placer dans l'esprit de ses lecteurs les ferments d'une révolte nécessaire, éprise de liberté, d'égalité et de fraternité.

Useful Work versus Useless Toil

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