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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: self-improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was
unprofitable in result, because there was no give and take; they
would grant you as little as possible for premise, and begin to
dispute under an oath to conquer or to die.
But the talk of a workman is apt to be more interesting than that of
a wealthy merchant, because the thoughts, hopes, and fears of which
the workman's life is built lie nearer to necessity and nature. They
are more immediate to human life. An income calculated by the week
is a far more human thing than one calculated by the year, and a
small income, simply from its smallness, than a large one. I never
wearied listening to the details of a workman's economy, because
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