I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me; the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927), a leading English humorist of the late Victorian era, often satirized middle-class respectability and the moral earnestness surrounding “industry.” This quip comes from his comic travel narrative in which the narrator (a version of “J.”) digresses into mock-philosophical observations about everyday life. In the 1880s, as clerical and office work expanded and “hard work” was treated as a civic virtue, Jerome’s persona undercuts the era’s work ethic by adopting an exaggerated, deadpan laziness. The line is delivered as a humorous aside, turning the language of admiration into a confession of procrastination.

The joke hinges on a reversal: “work” is described with the vocabulary of aesthetic contemplation—something to be watched, collected, and cherished—rather than done. By claiming he can “sit and look at it for hours,” the speaker parodies the self-congratulatory tone of industriousness while admitting to avoidance. The final twist—being heartbroken at the thought of “getting rid of it”—treats unfinished tasks like treasured possessions, exposing how people can become attached to postponement and to the identity of being “busy” without actually acting. The humor is gentle but pointed, mocking moralizing attitudes toward labor and the rationalizations of procrastination.