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 



