ON DOING NOTHING

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7028, 17 January 1910, Page 7

ON DOING NOTHING

I like to do nothing. To sit by a fire I In winter, or in a garden in summer; to loaf on a sea-beaoh with tho sun on me; to hang over tho wall of a pierhead and watch the waves in their green and white, tantrums; to sit in a brasserie on a Parisian boulevard with a common bock, with iho people moving to and fro; to idle in parks or publio squares, or in the quadrangles and closes of colleges, or the Inns of Court, or the great cathedrals; to forget haste and effort in old empty churches, or drowsy taverns; to rest by a roadside hedge, or in a churchyard where sheep browse; to Ho in a punt in tho green shade of tho willows; to sit on a fence —these things ploaso me well. My love of doing nothing is deep-root-ed'.' I have never thought it necessary to arguo about it. There are so many peoplo arguing about so many things. Besides. I am not vain; I desire not to convort. Who, indeed, shall say to what faith one ought to bo converted? My private opinion is that the convertible are already converted.

Of course, 1 work—but I do not make a virtue of that. 1 I work because I have to. But I do not make this admission to invito your sympathy, liven were I rich I might do something, just to give a relish to my real aim in life. . . .

As it is, I work to provide a margin to my days, a margin in which I may "tasto the vaguely sweet content of perfect sloth in limb and brain."

I know there are people who like work, and I am bound to respect their taste; but I do not in the least understand them. They do tease me out of thought as doth Eternity; and I am silent before them as Keats was before a greater thing. There are many things wo are forced to accept with our limited perceptions; wo understand very little in spite of our hurrying here and there, and of our vast knowledge. It behoves me, therefore, to take' the militant worker for granted. . I am often tempted to look more deeply, into the phenomenon of work. If tlio lovo of work in somo moves .me to silence, surely the inclusion of work among the rights of man ought to move mo to tears—or laughter. But I will neither weep nor smile; nor will I pursue tho matter further, for I am unworthy. One cannot properly understand a subject unless one comes to it with sympathy; and I have no sympathy for work. I do not hold it among the virtues.\ i

I would be better employed in considering, nay, in emulating the lilies of the field, who have confounded the wisdom of those who toil from the beginning of time. Why, I often ask myself, why nas this not been generally accepted? And in my effort ■to answer the question, I am forced to admit that it has been generally accepted, though not generally admitted. And, after' all, I am not alone in my faith: the majority are with me, only some perverse tradition prevents them from avowing it. I tam, indeed, quite satisfied/that

Hearts just as pure and fair Do beat in Belgrave square As in the lowly air Of Seven Dials!

The difficulty lies in the fact that neither Seven Dials nor Belgrave square will grant to the other the right to follow his own convictions. How much better would it be if the protagonists signed a truce in which each should undertake to. establish a kind of pragmatic sanction for idleness, and henceforth to take tho field as opponents of luxury and .poverty? This at least would have the ;desirabTs effect of establishing on a firm basis that idleness which is the last link between the poor and tho rich.

Unless some such agreement is arranged, I greatly fear that rich and poor may do something to each, other which they would eternally regret. Their hy'pocrisy may make slaves of them all. This would not matter ©o much if we who profer to do nothing were loft out '.of it,, but that would be impossible, for slavery is both infectious and contagious, and- sooner or later it afflicts every citizen in those States where it has gained a footing. We are threatened with the disease even now, and I think if .would be far from unwise if our legislators considered means of arranging for ■the quarantine of all w r ho aro suspected ( of tho taint. But I <lo not wish to follow up a Iquestion which for tho moment does not laffect me. I am fortunately placed. The 'iiods have been kind to me. They have permitted mo to do just sufficient worK, ,and then to loaf, to dream, to do nothring! For this boon I should give praise 'every moment of my life; and I do»— 'for is not appreciation praise? Hours lof voluntary idleness are indeed hours .of .praise. Por in such 'hours we. are in communion with the real world; in them we have done, with the time that passeth away, and become one with the time which is eternal. Tho priests of old knew this when they instructed theio* acolytes in the art of meditation. Walt WhifSnan knew it when he loafed on "fish-shaped Paunianok" observing a spear of summer grass; Thoreau knew it in his hut by Walden Pond; William Blake knew it when'ho saw the angels on Peckham-rye. » « • * •

It is only when life is overwrought with tho tyranny of doing that we miss the joy of being. And it is only the consciousness of being that makes us ■capable of any worthy action. That is why tho great ones of tho earth lave .always been men of a wide leisure, men who have had a.margin to their days, liko the margin about the page of. a well-built book. Tho men who do anything worth doing aire just the men it is easiest to catch doing nothing. But 1 did not set out to make a virtue.of doing nothing. Virtues are to the virtuous. And it may bo that some of us are unworthy of work as others are certainly unworthy of idlene-.se. Ono cannot settle such questions, they must bo left to settle themselves. So I ond as I began. I like doing nothing. And tho ono who likes doing nothing has tims- to appreciate everything—even time. He is at one with the long silences; kin with the world. —H. Jackson in London "Leader."