dleness is harder to distinguish than the philosopher's stone. stupidity you can put your finger on; and so with sullenness, day-dreaming, or bovine lassitude. but idleness may link itself with any, all, or none of these. it is the will-o'-the-wisp among human characteristics. you avoid it, being hoodwinked as to its presence in your vicinage; you bear with it in others, when your tolerance is veritably bestowed on something very different. small wonder if you wax so wise and so finical that you shall swear, sooner or later, in the phrase of a certain friend of ours, that "there never was no sich" a thing!
what astronomy is to astrology, or chemistry to the alchemy of old times, that is idleness, so called, the most useful and edifying spectacle in the world, to idleness criminal. idleness, simon-pure, from which all manner of good springs like seed from a fallow soil, is sure to be misnamed and misconstrued, even when it is stuck, like a bill-post, in the public eye. a thinking person, the schoolmaster will allow you, is barely to be called idle; but for that exaggeration of thought, the almost tidal stand-still between activities, which belongs to dunce on the back bench, he has no more respect than can fit in the circumference of his rod. dunce, nevertheless, may grow up to be called oliver goldsmith, or arthur, duke of wellington. tommy, who stops on his way to market, to sit on a stone wall and plan a nest-robbing, indulgent passers-by shall consider busy, though misguided; but young galileo or columbus, planning nothing whatsoever, drifting into the mental hush and stillness whence astonishing ideas arise, are sure to be set up as a couple of intolerable wool-gatherers. a boy may crouch before the fire, looking through the kettle steam at "one far-off divine event," and be com-163-plimented on his prospective value to society, or ironically offered a penny for the contents of his ridiculous head.
thoreau put his own case, in the illustration of the man who roves all day through a pine-forest, rejoicing in its height and shade and fragrance, and is heralded far and wide as a lazy good-for-nought, as opposed to the sober and industrious citizen who betakes himself, axe in hand, to hew the giants down. every township has its business men, but mr. henry thoreau was, without exception, the best american idleness-man on record. he floated about in his dory, the breathing reflection of nature in its wealth of detail, inflated with pride because he had not ever chosen to stand behind a counter! yet he "got his living by loving," and may be suspected of having grained his name, diamond-like, on that window which looks out eastward on the atlantic. how else was half the wisdom of the orient cradled, but in the solemn buddhist, coiled up, with his sealed eyelids, his shut teeth, and parted lips, contemplating nothing with tremendous suavity? the secret of handsome leisure is a fast secret now, indeed. the ancients have not transmitted it. who can think of a breathless athenian, save in the hour of battle, or of manly sport? pericles laid the fold of his garment, so, deliberately over his arm, and steadied himself against some calm assurance, "marchyng," as the old chronicler said of queen bess, "with leysure." repose is stamped on every statue the greeks left us. it is in their lyrics, however joyous; in their large drama; in their golden history. they did nothing in feverish haste. perhaps it may not be rash to acknowledge that they were reasonably clever, and managed their terrene concerns with some intelligence. there is over-much stir around us: mountains heaving, cities building, seasons racing by, governments shifting and turning at the four corners of the earth. it is the modern miracle that the contemporaneous growing lilies have not lost their blessedness, in striving to toil and spin.
wherever a soul keeps energy in reserve, and a little healthful languor dominant, a patch of arcadia is yet to be found.
"oblivion here thy wisdom is,
thy thrift, the sleep of cares;
for a proud idleness like this
crowns all thy mean affairs!"
when the familiar yankee angel, nervous prostration, brushes you with his wing, arcadia withers away. your holiday siesta, after that, is not genuine. of idleness you cannot be conscious, even as innocence is no longer itself when it knows its name. therefore no week-day preacher need exhort you to be idle, ladies and gentlemen, as often as you can afford it. he can only cast an eye along your ranks, and discovering one or two of the elect, who shall remind him of boats swinging gently at their moorings, piously hold his tongue and go on his way with thanksgiving.
