OFFICE OF DEPARTMENT REFORM |
| DIRECTOR Mario Manwich |
ABOUT
Idleness is one of the most extraordinary disorders of the mind, uniting in its progress more pain and pleasure than any other. It is likewise more general than any other; ■for, however the wisest men may deprecate it, there are very few who can venture to say that it does not very frequently overmaster their best resolutions, and dissolve their firmness. Its first attacks are certainly pleasant, because they afford relaxation from some labour of which we are tired, but the continuance of them creates a degree of pain and languor more intolerable than any labour, and frequently incurable. •■
In the pride of our hearts, we direct our censures upon account of idleness., principally .against the poor. Many of them, it is true, are very idle, but then we -ought to apologize, in seme degree,. jfrorn two ciicum
stances; first, that their industry sef., dam brings more than the neceslaries of life, and that they consequantly have not the temptation of its comforts to ipur them to activity; and; secondly, that when the poor are idle, the sin carries the punishment along with it, and there is no occasion foe very lharp censure to those who arc already suffering. But how shall the better ranks of mankind excuse their idleness f How (hall they who boast of the dignity of rational and improved. natures, vindicate that barrenness in which they allow their minds to remain ? ( It is amusing to listen to the various excuses made for idleness, all of which taken separately are allowed by the party to be very urgent and convincing, and taken together, absolutely amount to a degree of bust!* and business, the farthest removed: from idleness that can be conceived. Vapid, after a two hours ride in the park, two hours spent in dressing, five in dining, and the rest in the theatre, and a supper-visit till midnight, goes to bed .with a degree of fatigue, which sew of our day-labourers experience, and complains next dayofthevalt quantity of business he went through, as if to any useful purpose. The truth is, \»« are apt to blame an idle man because we think he is a man of mere pleasure and suffers nothing, but whoever will make the experiment cannot fail to be convinced that, independent of the serious evils arising from idleness, it is attended with very considerable pain, anxiety, aud fatigue. It is indeed, comparatively, the most miserable of all lives: Every one affords some ease, some variety, and some consolation ; but an idle life is * an eternal renovation of hope, with a perpetual disappointment.