Yesterday I began writing my perhaps-a-book in earnest. The boys have been funny and observant about my new obsession. Boys: "So tell us what your book will be about." Me: "Oh, I don't know if it will be a book." Boys: "It's always a book when you start ordering tons of other people's books."

They seem to believe that it's perfectly reasonable for me to undertake a research project. Boys: "So you're writing a history of coal and steel?" Me (horrified): "No! No! I don't know how to find out anything about anything! Ack!" Boys: "So you're writing a family history?" Me: "No! Ack! My mother would hate that!"

As you can see, my plans aren't all that clear. Nonetheless, something seems to be happening. Call it, for the moment, "Coal: A Meditation."

One thing I have been thinking about is what I've been calling "the romance of the laborer," a vision of the worker that has lured many people into an ambiguous and contradictory relationship with their own roots and daily actions. Andrew Carnegie, famous strikebreaker and founder of U.S. Steel, was prone to "noble statements about the workingman to the very end of his life, seemingly untroubled by those who criticized his business and labor practices." Henry Clay Frick, on the other hand, offered "no paeans to his former brethren among the ranks and no convoluted justifications as to just how and why the rights of the workers might somehow be maintained without interfering with a steady flow of profit."

Both of these quotations are from Les Standiford's Meet You in Hell, a brief history of the fraught partnership between Carnegie and Frick, which culminated in the infamous Homestead Strike of 1892. I don't always agree with Standiford's quick guesses about the psychological motivations of these men, but they have pressed me to make my own inferences and links. And as I was reading about Carnegie and thinking about our shared "romance of the laborer" tendencies, my thoughts turned suddenly to this poem, which in a way sums up what I mean about the allures and dangers of that romance. My guess is that Carnegie, a dedicated reader of the classics, was well aware of the work of the most popular American poet of his day.

The Village Blacksmith

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Under a spreading chestnut-tree

The village smithy stands;

The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands;

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,

His face is like the tan;

His brow is wet with honest sweat,

He earns whate'er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,

You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,

When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school

Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge,

And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the burning sparks that fly

Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,

And sits among his boys;

He hears the parson pray and preach,

He hears his daughter's voice,

Singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,

Singing in Paradise!

He needs must think of her once more,

How in the grave she lies;

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes

A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,---rejoicing,---sorrowing,

Onward through life he goes;

Each morning sees some task begin,

Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,

For the lesson thou hast taught!

Thus at the flaming forge of life

Our fortunes must be wrought;

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped

Each burning deed and thought.