CHAPTER XIV.

IDLENESS, RAGGED AND RESPECTAble.

THE most common kind of idleness is that which assumes the form of work. Indolence in its etymological sense means freedom from pain. Men do not find that sitting in an armchair insures them this freedom, and so they get something to do. The most difficult thing in the way of mental exercise is attention. To learn this it is necessary to pass through severe discipline; and this means a kind of pain. The brain will not work till it is compelled, and it cannot work properly till it has passed through training. What is so evidently true in all craft of the hands is no less true of that organ by which the mind does its work. A man gets as physically tired of casting up accounts as he would of breaking stones. In both cases physical energy is consumed, the tissues are exposed to wear and tear, and a certain amount of exhaustion is inevitable. This means pain. To

avoid this many men have recourse to all kinds of subterfuges. They find that the body can only be kept healthy by a certain amount of alternate wear and repair of tissue; so they do not cease work, they only become indolent. In other words, they seek to be free from pain.

If we look back some forty years, we shall find that business hours have been much shortened. The tendency in the higher branches of labour is to concentrate energy. If this is not carried too far it is likely to prove most beneficial. We hear very much of the habit into which we have fallen of living too fast. If this be a true charge against our generation, it means not that our working hours are longer, nor indeed that the speed of work is dangerous, but that our play takes the form of work and continues the process of waste, which it ought to arrest and recover every day. Our fathers were indolent in the etymological sense of the word, for by spreading labour over so many hours they often worked without pain. There was no special reason why shops should be kept open till ten at night. The custom existed, and as a consequence the shopkeeper spent half his time leaning against the post of his shop door and gazing at the traffic of the street. To this day villagers have plenty of time to gape and stare at the smallest