An Apology for the Fallow Field

— The other day, watching the incessant activities of an anthill I thought I discovered an idler. His fellows fretted and fumed around him, and often seemed to be expostulating on his indifference and slothfulness in the midst of so busy a world. But I found my sympathies singularly awakened in behalf of the slothful one : he might be a simple “ striker,” but more probably was solving some problem in formic sociology, — a true peripatetic philosopher. At any rate, there was something of dignity in his reserved attitude, if I may so express myself, that contrasted not unfavorably with the perpetual restless action of his neighbors, — action for the greater part impressing the looker-on as being unconsidered aud effective of nothing. A perversion of the old proverb occurred to me, — “ Go to the sluggard, thou ant.” The idea that these bustling little citizens might be arraigning the idleness of my philosophical friend became more and more a humorous one, and in its train followed the reflection that all the vehement endeavors and doings of the human family might, in some larger overlook, appear no more significant than those of the ant-hill ; nor would the refraining from industry of a single member appear more culpable than to me appeared the behavior of the dissenting and inoperative ant.

It is true that a score of years ago anything that I could have said regarding time would have been to emphasize the necessity of its improvement rather than to advocate its discreet waste. But now, in the frank undeploring and unaffected spirit which does not as a rule characterize early youth, I am ready to admit that, instead of being the prudent husbandman of time I once supposed myself, I am an incorrigible prodigal thereof. Nor do my fits of remorse with regard to my spendthrift proclivities fall as frequently as formerly. On the contrary, I am fast becoming reconciled to the idea that I must sacrifice what to many would seem a fortune in time, in order that I may avail myself of some few fragments, — desultory, accidental, but to me incalculably precious fragments of time. Happily or unhappily, it cannot be otherwise arranged with my perverse “ demon of the study.” “ If you would work, you must play. If you would do anything to the purpose at any time, you must needs be irrelevant and inconsequent as much of the time as it pleases me to dictate,”is the insistent argument of this perverse demon. Apparently, it cannot be helped that my field lies fallow through whole seasons, while that of my neighbor, the soil being deeper and richer, can be persuaded to rotate crops. My ground is not his, and so the method of tilth must be different. To change the figure, — I should be as unreasonable to censure too much the tardigrade performance of this native demon of mine as I should be, had I undertaken a journey with kind old Dobbin, to lash that leisurely paced animal because he did not bear me along at race-course speed. How much this tranquilized view of the subject is due to an increasingly modest estimate of human accomplishment in general, and of my own in particular, I am not able to determine ; but it seems wise to escape the goad of an irritable restlessness by reflecting that one may finish one’s work if his day holds out ; otherwise, the unfinished work, if of use in the world, will find a completing hand when his own has ceased from its activity. I am of the mood to agree with the Spaniards when they sombrely observe, “ There is more time than life,” and also when they plead mañana, mañana, to any exhortation urging dispatch.

It is not to be denied that from the habit of undervaluing opportunity and squandering time one goes from bad to worse. The tragic Story of a Day Lost would usually read thus ; Morning slips away, stealing, as she was wont to do, the beautiful youth of one’s spirit and resolution ; then the loser, becoming discouraged, throws after her both the noon and the evening, and thereupon goes into bankruptcy. I own that I envy such as have the happy faculty of improving their time and yet of making pastime of it, — possessors of a vitality so keen and enduring that they can pass readily from one piece of work to another, and so on; in the succession and variety of employment finding the rest or recreation which others obtain only in cessation from all effort.

An acknowledged idler, I yet hope I wear my idleness “ with a difference,” and that I shall never find myself in the needy strait of the average idler, who never has any time to spare. The “ sales-lady ” in the bakery who declares that she “hates cakes ;" the old lady (of my rural reminiscences) whose third dish of hot maple sugar tasted bitter; the minister’s young sons who each evening came ruefully to their dose of card-playing (their excellent father wisely considering that home surfeit would forestall appetite abroad), — none of these is so ludicrously burdened by the compelled and inalienable possession of a good thing as is the human creature with too much time at disposal ! Perhaps there is no better test than this whereby to discover an idler of the least hopeful order : observe who protests, “ Oh, no, I do not wish to rest! I should be miserable if I. had nothing to do even for a day ! ” None but an inveterate idler so dreads confronting a clean leisure hour. The same is proverbially in a hurry. A physician tells me that, of a number of patients awaiting their turn at his office, it is only the habitually unoccupied person (suffering from maladie du faire rien) who cannot abide the necessary delay. The really busy man or woman can even spend a little more time than was anticipated, the indolent person never.

There are all degrees of idleness. I have two idle friends. The one replies to the question whether he has time for this or that, “ Certainly, I have all the time there is.” His remark, if not highly original, still induces in me a pleased sense that this young man is the favorite legatee of old Father Chronos, and I am affected as cheerfully as though I heard him jingle in his pockets the twenty-four hours converted into so many gold pieces, or their minutes into so much small silver ! Idler though he is, he is a leisurely idler, and much enjoyed by his friends. Of a verydissimilar class is my other idle friend, whose fugitive and uneasy figure is faintly shadowed in the sketch ut infra.

TOO MUCH TOO LITTLE } TIME.