A PLEA FOR INDOLENCE. 



ARTHUR F. RICE. 



There are certain words in our language 

 that by almost insensible gradations, some- 

 times degradations, have come to convey a 

 meaning widely different from the original. 

 If, therefore, one desires to be certain of 

 his ground he will hesitate to assume that 

 the common acceptation of a word is its 

 absolutely correct definition . 



In the Latin, "indolentia" is a rare but 

 thoroughly classical word meaning free- 

 dom from dolor, or pain, and was therefore 

 properly considered synonymous with 

 bodily or mental ease and restfulness. 

 When incorporated into English as "in- 

 dolence" it got a bad twist and strayed 

 from its true derivation. Its dignity suf- 

 fered successive falls, and from a thor- 

 oughly respectable word it came to mean 

 listlessness, sluggishness, habitual idleness, 

 laziness. I protest against this humiliation 

 of a patrician word, and as an advocate 

 of indolence, would say something in its 

 behalf. I would urge on everyone the 

 wisdom of cultivating true indolence as 

 a means of prolonging life and making it 

 the better worth living. Let us under- 

 stand, then, that when properly translated 

 "indolence" does not mean laziness. It 

 does, however, imply opportunity of leisure 

 and the faculty of enjoying it; 2 things 

 which the majority of people seem to lack, 

 often more from habit than necessity. 

 Without attempting to revolutionize the ex- 

 isting order of things, or engaging in vis- 

 ionary speculation, let us see if we can not 

 introduce into our lives a little more of 

 that charming state of mind and body 

 called indolence. 



This is a tremendously busy world and 

 we Americans are among the busiest people 

 in it. We are a pride to ourselves in this 

 respect and a source of wonder to all the 

 nations of the earth. We are like a teem- 

 ing hive of bees that dart forth on their 

 errand of industry, hastily gather, far and 

 wide, the honey of their search, then dart 

 back with it to their treasure house and 

 out again for more ; storing up more than 

 they can consume ; absorbed in the business 

 of getting and ready to sting anything that 

 gets in their way. "Busy as a bee" is no 

 bad description of the average American. 

 Now, this is all very well up to a certain 

 point and as long as our energies are 

 neither overtaxed nor misapplied, but it 

 does not follow that we should get heart 

 disease in running to catch trains, or ac- 

 quire indigestion by bolting our meals, or 

 die with our boots on because we have not 



realized all our ambitions. If this is a busy 

 world, it is also a beautiful world, and a 

 beneficent Providence intended that we 

 should occasionally stop work long enough 

 to admire and enjoy it. "I loaf and invite 

 my soul," said Walt Whitman, and both 

 he and the world were better off for the 

 loafing he did. Life was not one long holi- 

 day with him more than with any other 

 man who really amounts to anything, but 

 he suffered his mental machinery to run 

 down and cool off at times, and then he 

 saw and enjoyed things that other people 

 missed. Is it not well occasionally to re- 

 lax the tension of muscle and brain, as the 

 machinist sometimes shifts a belt from the 

 tight to the loose pulley to preserve its 

 elasticity? 



I am inclined to think that our education 

 and training are somewhat faulty in respect 

 to work. It is made the chief desideratum 

 rather than the means to an end. There is 

 too much said about a man's vocation, or 

 calling in business, and too little about his 

 avocation, or calling away from business. 

 We are taught from childhood that work 

 is the summum bonum of all things ; that 

 if we do not work we we shall not eat ; 

 a's though eating were the final and soul- 

 satisfying reward of well-doing; that by 

 the sweat of our brow we must earn our 

 bread ; but we are not instructed as to 

 what we should do after we have won our 

 loaf and stopped perspiring. "Seest thou 

 a man diligent in his business," says the 

 preacher, "he shall stand before kings." 

 But he doesn't say why the man should 

 stand there, nor whether the king, who 

 evidently has the best of it, was also dili- 

 gent in his business, nor whether it 

 wouldn't be more pleasant and profitable to 

 iie on a mossy bank beside a brook than to 

 be standing before a king. Furthermore, if 

 it be true that "uneasy lies the head that 

 wears a crown," it is a question whether 

 it would not be better for the king himself 

 to abdicate and cultivate indolence in- 

 stead of giving audience to a lot of tiresome 

 people whose chief claim to his notice is the 

 fact that they have been diligent in busi- 

 ness. 



Now, I do not wish to be misunderstood, 

 nor to convey the idea that we can get 011 

 in the world without work. I am a firm 

 believer in the dignity and saving quality 

 of labor, with hand or head, and in the 

 counsel that whatsoever our hands find to 

 do we should do it with our might; but it 

 is also a part of my creed that, having done 



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