William Morris on Work That Creates
William Morris believed one idea from his Socialist speeches survived scrutiny on its own merits. In a passage from Useful Work versus Useless Toil (1883), he argued that the pleasure of using one's energies belongs to all living things — even beasts, he wrote, rejoice in being lithe and swift and strong.
The difference for a human worker, in Morris's account, is scope: a man making something he feels will exist because he works at it and wills it exercises mind and soul along with body. Memory and imagination assist him, and past generations of thought guide his hands — so that, as part of the human race, he creates.
If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.
Morris framed this kernel of the Arts and Crafts movement as wholly true even where the surrounding optimism of the speech was not.
