My Humble Opinion

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 166, 13 July 1907, Page 12

My Humble Opinion

My Humble Opinion By PIERROT.

THE REST CUBE.

Few people know how to rest, and the demon of rush is at the heels of people even on what they call a holiday. To lie in bed of a morning is called laziness, and laziness is quite unjustifiably held to be a term of reproach; while to travel three hundred miles in the day. eat hurried meals at wayside stations, and battle hard on the way to a goal of imaginary bliss in the shape of a tourist spot, is praised as healthy, manly and altogether wise. This is no holiday season, and I shall not enter into the minutiae of the tourist side of the question; preferring rather to regard the attitude of these restless persons as typical of a general disease.

fortunately Mr. Eustace Miles has come to our rescue with the bold statement that it is difficult to get too much bed. Bed with this champion of the tennis lawns is not a passing incident of the watches of the night; it is a permanent health institution as valuable in the light of the sun as in the light of the moon. Go to bed when you feel inclined in the fullest confidence that it is a good thing of which you cannot have too much. In one inspired sentence Mr, Miles even tells us enthusiastically of the advantages he has gained, although in perfect health, from spending two whole days in a recumbent posture. He advises working in bed, and tells us of the green baize-covered bc/lrd •which, resting against his knees, forms his desk in bed. In the lamentably overcrowded state of most offices there is hardly room for everyone to work lying down, but let us support Mr. Miles to the extent of hoping that the aay will yet come when every office will be made up of bright, well-lighted dormitories, and wticn the chest of drawers and the wardrobe will be as much an essential of office furniture as the elbow-chair or the roller-topped desk.

Mr. Eustace ililes is, of course, ahead of his times in suggesting such revolutionary methods as a -working proposal. Perhaps there will have "to be generations of the bolt-upright, condescending creatures in blue -who adorn so many of our banks and offices before we reach the age of graceful deshabille, of flowered dressing-gowns and guest-beds lor conferences -with a rival firm. But even if the ideal may seem a little Mgn, at least that is no reason for ceasing to strive for a fuller and more fitting appreciation of the Bed in business. Ledgers will have to be less -weighty, the typewriter adapted to manipulation lying down, and other inventions perfected before -\ve can hope for the full atbainment of what is an inspiring and noble dream; but much comes from small beginnings, and I only say as a plea. Let us begin! We have all had enough oi hours of cramping sitting; let us strive to learn the art of lying down. There axe callings, of course, which, will never be folio-wed in bed; and the change will delight the souls of the Labour party by giving the bricklayer a remuneration still more advantageous than now in comparison with the~best of mere clerks. The- manager's old complaint of short hours will be no moTe; there will be a healthy rivalry to avoid getting up and dressing preparatory to going home; and recumbent -working will bring blessings to a business hardly less tEan those enjoyed by even the least distinguished members of its staff.

Think even of the loss of irritability, and you are on the trail of a mighty amelioration. Excepting the gouty or the neuralgic, few people snap or' sneer in bed; and probably even the shortesttempered of managers would borrow from his posture something of its easy good nature. The mean view of things which so injures, as well as disfigures, our businesses, would be transformed; trickery -would give way to honest generosity; and the tumbled pillow at the close of a hard day's woTk would at once suggest the gentle argument of an easy oblivion. the short-sighted meanness of employers cuts down profits, •overworks a staff, and kills originality at its birth. At the millennium of business in bed all would be thoughtful, gentle, and wise. "live and let live" ■would be the watchword; and faults would be corrected by the withholding of praise rather than by the irritating captiousness that mentions nothing but, an error. Thus work would become a work of love: a work for solid achievement conscientioush', if. leisurely, gained, instead of for the merely negative goal of having avoided a mistake. Work in the chair means a trivial perfection; work in bed would be grand in its wise liberality, its superiority to trivial considerations-

"Meantime we can only snatch our scanty opportunities; take a morning yawn as a delicious invitation to another ten minutes of the hard-won bliss; and pray for the day when we can purchase an annuity and sleep handsomely in Spain on a pound a week. Those who are tied to the British Empire —all praise to them for the sacrifice—must wait double the time, for British sleeping is not above reproach at forty shillings, and the individual millennium of perfect rest is both imperfect and remote. And w-hdle we are waiting for tiiis golden epoch we can only fight the doctrines of the crows that seven hours f= enougn, that it is the fool who asKs for eight; that early to rise makes a man healthy and wise; that the early "bird does not catch cold and a bad temper, as well as the first worm. TEere is ga.ll as well as folly in these cranky old saws; and they are far better suited to an embryo Shyloek than a nursling hero, much less a budding sage. But there is hardly 1 need to tear the ta-ttered fragments of the old school which makes "self-help" an atcid reaction on every generous and spontaneous impulse. '.The burglar helps himself in the same way, if on a grander scale: and he spends his holidays in gaol. So do the other seil'-helpers and murderers of their own repose, if only they had the mind to learn -what gaol is, and.how far it extends. I have it on the authority of a doctor that, the overworked man with a fortnight's holiday would do far better to take one week in bed than to rush about ■in holidaymaking for both. The sheeplike herding of people in huge picnics has always seemed to mfc to be the height of insanity, at any rate from the recreative point of vie*?- The sane man does not regard his holiday as '"spoiled" because it rains; it is not so good as a day of sunshine, but it is still very crood. And a man who really wants a rest cares little enough for rain or shine. If he is wise his thought centres on Bed—■■where he is independent of all grievimces' against either man or nature.