6. Rest 



The greatest passion of the resident of the city is getting 

 out into the country occasionally for the sake of a rest. The 

 city is so full of hurry and change and activity and strain 

 that if one would not either temporarily or permanently 

 impair his physical reserve he must periodically seek recupera- 

 tion in some quiet retreat of Rural America. A synonym of 

 city is flux. On the other hand, one finds in the country 

 absence of all those things that enter into the intensity of 

 city life. But the impression is quite general, especially in 

 the city, that there is a great deal of drudgery in the country. 



Too much has been made in the past of the drudgery of 

 country life. Life in the country has no more drudgery than 

 life in the city. All life is full of drudgery, and unless one 

 have his share of it he will fail to develop symmetrically. 

 The poet who laboriously corrects his manuscript and gives 

 the very best effort of his life to the clothing of immortal 

 thoughts in immortal verse is experiencing drudgery. It is 

 said of Wordsworth that he often dreaded the drudgery of 

 poetic composition and found the task of writing very labor- 

 ious. The chemist in his laboratory encounters drudgery of 

 the most trying kind. The teacher or professor in correcting 

 papers and compositions and in doing many other things that 

 his work demands, comes to understand drudgery. The 

 banker has an endless amount of detail in his work, much of 

 which is annoying. The trained nurse, the physician, the 

 minister, in short, everybody who works undergoes drudgery. 

 No one has a monopoly of drudgery. " Of all the work that 

 produces results," said a famous English Bishop, " nine-tenths 

 must be drudgery." x There is no work, from the highest to 

 the lowest, that can be done well by anyone who is afraid of 

 drudgery. The average person understands most perfectly 



1 Philip G. Hamerton, " The Intellectual Life," p. 70. 

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