解放军文职招聘考试On Idleness

 On Idleness

There are some that profess Idleness in its full dig­nity, who call themselves the Idle, who boast that they do nothing, and thank their stars that they have nothing to do; who sleep every night till they can sleep no lon­ger, and rise only that exercise may enable them to sleep again; who prolong the reign of darkness by double curtains, and never see the sun but to " tell him how they hate his beams"; whose whole labor is to va­ry the postures of indulgence, and whose day differs from their night but as a couch or chair differs from a bed.

These are the true and open votaries of Idleness, for whom she weaves the garlands of poppies, and into whose cup she pours the waters of oblivion; who exist in a state of unruffled stupidity, forgetting and forgot­ten; who have long ceased to live, and at whose death the survivors can only say that they have ceased to breathe.

But Idleness predominates in many lives where it is not suspected; for being a vice which terminates in itself, it may be enjoyed without injury to others; and is therefore not watched like Fraud, which endangers property, or like Pride, which naturally seeks its grati­fications in another's inferiority. Idleness is a silent and peaceful quality, that neither raises envy by ostentation, nor hatred by opposition; and therefore nobody is busy to censure or detest it.

There are others to whom Idleness dictates another expedient, by which life may be passed unprofitably away without the tediousness of many vacant hours. The art is, to fill the day with petty business, to have al­ways something in hand which may raise curiosity, but not solicitude, and keep the mind in a state of action, but not of labor.

No man is so much open to conviction as the idler, but there is none on whom it operates so little. What will be the effect of this paper I know not: per­haps he will read it and laugh, and light the fire in his furnace; but my hope is that he will quit his trifles, and betake himself to rational and useful diligence.