The Defence of Idleness. 221 



remembered than a month of Sundays. I never 

 met him yet who had no love for a holiday. Toil 

 is necessary, but it does not charm ; labor per se is 

 not man's chiefest aim, but to complete a life-work 

 as soon as possible, that the inactive contempla- 

 tion of it may be indulged. So universal is a 

 love of such idleness that, it is safe to assume, 

 idleness is the aim of life. Every one disputes 

 this, but it matters not. We all know it as a feel- 

 ing hidden in every breast ; else why every one 

 wishes he was so far rich that he need not labor ? 

 Not necessarily to sit with folded hands and 

 dream ; but to be able to follow the whim of the 

 moment, to do as he pleases, to indulge in 

 idleness. This, unhappily, is the lot of few, but 

 the many are not so sorely stricken as they im- 

 agine, and hours of happy idleness are lost through 

 ignorance. 



A truce to sermonizing : let us to serious con- 

 sideration. To be idle is not to be passive and 

 semi-unconscious. Who really does the greater 

 work, he who moves a mountain by the shovelful, 

 or he who fathoms the mystery of how it came to 

 be? Nor is this but referring to the difference 



