A Hardy Norseman by Edna Lyall

But the change for the better did not last long, for Frithiof was without the motive which "makes drudgery divine. " And there was no denying that the work he had to do was really drudgery.

It has been the fashion of late years to dwell much on the misery of the slums, and most of us are quite ready to be stirred into active sympathy with the abjectly poor, the hungry, or the destitute. It is to be feared, however, that very few of us have much consideration for the less romantic, less sensational lives of the middle class, the thousands who toil for us day after day behind the counter or at the desk. And yet are their lives one whit less worthy of sympathy? Are they not educated to a point which makes them infinitely more sensitive? Hood has given us a magnificent poem on the sorrows of a shirt-maker; but who will take trouble to find poetry in the sorrows and weariness of shop assistants?