Going to the Ant

WALT WHITMAN loafed and invited his soul, and we are led to believe that the invitation was accepted. Against this happy consummation we may set the injunction, ‘Go to the ant, thou sluggard.’ More nearly neutral ground is suggested by Keats’ phrase, ‘ evenings steeped in honeyed indolence.’ Lastly, Dr. Watts: ‘For Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’

On the surface the case seems to be a battle of authorities: on one side Solomon, who was a moralist, and Dr. Watts, who was moral, frowning titanically on all who would stray from the stern path of duty; on the other, Whitman, a questioner of life, and Keats, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, walking in other ways, unconcerned and unaware that both apology and polemic are demanded to justify their difference. But even as the chess-player who develops his attack too eagerly may find that he has turned the tables on himself, so Solomon, advocate of the ant, and Watts, denouncer of the unbusied hand, have by their sallies exposed some essential weaknesses of their own position.

The ant, elegantly styled by Milton the ‘parsimonious emmet,’ is definitely commended to us in the Proverbs, but not absolutely. We (assuming for the moment the rôle of the reprimanded) are to ‘consider her ways and be wise.’ But from the assumption springs the doubt. It is the sluggard, the comatose, the befuddled, who is to learn from this interesting little animal. Her lesson is activity, and physical action is often the best and sometimes the only way to induce the finer motions of the spirit. So Dr. Watts, doubtless unconsciously, is in reality declaiming against vacuity of mind, the unperceptive state, when the drowsy spirit has no volition save that suggested to it by the unmoral flesh. The ant for the sluggard, by all means; but the ant is not an ultimate ideal. She may be a pattern of industry; but her disposition is peevish, her mandibles tipped with formic acid, and her misplaced enthusiasm for labor, when exhibited in the sugar-bowl (for instance), may cause both annoyance and disgust to beings of a higher order, and as conscientious as herself. She is something like an unchastened housewife, who by the very perfection of her ministrations in the home renders any other habitation a relief. We may be justified in regarding the ant as a model worker, but neither logic, scripture, nor Dr. Watts, can compel us to regard the attainment of an ant-like nature as the chief end of man.

Idleness which is mere negation we would not advocate. The sodden mind is mind corrupt or imbecile. Neither do we disparage such labor as is done with zest, or honestly to win one’s livelihood. But when work dominates the life, when the end of the necessary task, or the accomplishment of the Deed, brings only the impulse to do more for doing’s sake, then the balance is destroyed. We should justly resist the ant who would have the world one anthill; or the little, busy bee in any design to make honey the universal diet. The continuance of the human race no doubt depends on the persistence of the ant-spirit therein, but its happy continuance is equally conditioned on the presence of powers and moods presumably unknown or shocking to our small black sister. There is an idleness that is not only allowed but praiseworthy, as there is an industry which is both unnecessary and wrong.

Suppose we assume that the crown of active life is the Deed. By Deed, with a big D, we mean action plus the special contribution of the actor. We are familiar with the doctrine that concentration and fidelity are the parents of success — and they are: without them achievement is not born. But the fairy godmother who endows success is not hard work, but idleness discreetly used. Holmes somewhere speaks of the impact of a lyric impulse on the mind, and we have not quite outlived the belief in inspiration. But to whom does inspiration come? Moses tended the flocks of Jethro his father-in-law, and in that idlest of occupations there came to him the word that made possible the song of Miriam. The makers of bricks without straw saw no Burning Bush, but they were admirable ants. Keats loved his ‘evenings steeped in honeyed idleness,’ and the ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’ is a permanently lovely thing. Kipling’s ‘dreamers dreaming greatly’ have enlarged the bounds of empire; but if the busy cobbler gives way to reverie, he may smash his thumb. Doing work with the whole self inhibits new conceptions; or if they come, the work is spoiled. To make the Deed a lyric there must first be a time busied with no deed — a space in which the mystery of mountains, the sound of running water, the wording of a phrase, or the appeal of music, may stir the mental atmosphere and start the avalanche which is the true action of the man. Obviously such a man is not a sluggard.

Satan does not always find mischief for idle hands. John the Baptist does not seem to have led an industrious life. He ate the product of the bee’s labor, but he did not emulate the producer. Yet there is abundant testimony that he was brilliantly successful; and had he grown used to the toilsome ways of common life, it is hardly likely that when the need came he could have launched his message with such authority as that which he accumulated during the years of his inactive solitude. Watts playing with the tea-kettle, Newton musing on a fallen apple, Galileo staring at the slow-swinging lamp — idle fellows all, but idle with a very pregnant and potential idleness.

And the strange thing is that not one of them was trying to do anything in particular when the great illumination came to him. They were more naive than Buddha under the Bo-tree. The light simply dawned. They might have been too busy to see the dawn.

All this is dangerous doctrine. But then the truth is always deceptive to any one who is willing to be deceived. No doubt many idle hours that might have been fruitful in fine action have been the parents only of lawless and degrading impulses. Still, there is protection possible even here. Idleness, rightly conceived, is exposing the mind to all gracious and benign influences, not morbid introspection or listless resignation to mere fancy. It sounds rather like preaching, but the soul must listen and look beyond. Something may fructify the mind. One can only try.