Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-08-23
Gurtester 9ailg Spp.
From the Cornhill Magazine for August.
ON HOLIDAYS.
A RHAPSODY FOR AucuSr


urllt INTO August For with August comes TO
many toll-worn men-would that it came tn
an !-one OF Gods best gifts to mana holiday.
Ihere is lull in the mighty clatter of the
machinery of life the great wheels are still
or they gyrate slowly and noiselessly. How
1t happens, it is hard to say land the harder
the more you think about it, for mans wants
ANU mans passions, which make work, are
never still j but the Autumnal Sabbath comes
round as sure as the shorter days and the
yellower leaves and from the great heart of
the metropolis we go out in search of a cheer.
Ter life and fresher atmosphere.
There IS, doubtless, special providence de.
creelng this, so that even the delirium ofkiHgs,
out OF which come the wrestling of nations is
for time subdued and thus the Nestors of
the State are suffered, like meaner men,
to grow young again in the heather and the
turnip-ield. The High Court of Pertinent
sets the example, removes itself from the
sphere OF our weekly prayers, and ditfuses it,
self over vast expanses of country, in quest OF
new wisdom and new strength, and plentiful
amusement, which is both. Then Justice
takes the bandage from her eyes, lays down
her scales, tucks up her flowing robes and
girds herself for a walking tour halfway over
Europe, with pipe in her mouth The ex.
change quickly follows suit. Commerce
grows moustache assumes the wide awake,
goes sketching on the Rhine, and draws pic
lures OF Ehrenbreitstein, instead of bills of
exchange. And so we all pour ourselves out
! into the great reservoir Of ldleness-and We do
our appointed work thereby more surely than
if we plodded all the time at our desks.
We are coming to understand this as
nation better than we once did; but we have
not yet so hearty an appreciation of the truth,
but that few reflections on the subject from
an old fellow like myself may have their uses
lust on the verge of autumn. What have to
say is mainly in praise of holidays. l have
becoming sense of what is called the dignity
of labour," but, more than that, l believe that
of all the blessings and benignities of life,
work is verify the greatest The bread which
we earn be the sweat Of the brow, and brain
sweat is therein included is the sweetest that
is ever eaten. A dull life, and one that one
would not care to live, would be life without
labour. So patent, indeed, is this-so often
has it been demonstrated-tha men not born
to work, make work for themselves. Not
being harnessed by the iron hand Of Necessity
into the gocart OF daily labour, they harness
themselves into go'carts Of their own, and
drag the burden after them as Justify as the
rest. We envy one another bindly and igno-
rantly, neither knowing our neighbours sore
ness and sufferings, nor rightly approaching
beatitudes of their own. We have all joys
and sorrows--God be praised for both land
more equally dispensed than many care to ac-
knowledge. Toil-worn men, indeed, will not
readily believe that their hard grinding work
is foremost in the category of their blessings.
They know it is very easy and very pleasant
to be idle for day, or tor a week, perhaps tor
q month but if they were to try life of idle
ness they would find how hard life it is.
The wise physician, who recommended Locu-
PIES as remedy for all his aches and pains,
his causeless anxieties, his asperities of tenn
per- the gloom and dependency of his whole
life, "to live upon a shilling day, and earn
Nit, probed the rich mans ailments to their
very depths, and prescribed the only cure for
such imaginary distempers. Let Locuples
work and be happy. Locuples has, nova
days, some notion of this, and so he works, as
have said, of his own free will, turning leg
islator, and magistrate, and poo--law guardi-
an, and colonel of volunteers, and lecturing to
mechanics institutes, and writing books, and
in getting a profitable place, if he cam in the
great omnibus OF the state. And what can be
wiser? For if there were no work for Locuples,
there would be no holidays
And there can be no holidays without work,
so there ought to be no work without holidays;
the one, indeed, is the natural complement of
the other. Labor and rest, in fitting proper
tons, are the conditions of healthy life. This
everybody knows and admits. But there is
poor, weak, cowardly feeling often lurking
in mems minds, which will not suffer them
honestly to believe and declare that it is as
much the duty of man to rest as to labor. We
are wont, inia sneaking, contemplate sort way
to apologize for our holidays, as though they
were no better than small sins, delinquen3ies
alterations, to be compounded for by addition
al labor and selfdenial. But, rightly consd-
cred, rest and amusement, or, in word, holt
days. are a substantive part of the "whole duty
of man )" anu to neglect that duty, or to sut-
fer others to neglect it, is no less crime
against one common manhood, than to suffer
our energies to run to waste in Indifference
and inaction, and to do nothing for ourselves or
mankind Have we any right to over.act our
selves, or to over-drink ourselves, or to over.any
thing else ourselves Moderate passions, says
an old writer, care the best expressions of hu.
mainly" Let there be no moderation, then,
even in the passion for work. We must not
wear out this mighty tabernacle Of the human
frame, this god-like intellect of man, by an
unseemly demand on their resources. very
old proverb is that about the bow, which is
always bent; but it is not so old that men in
this generation do not sometimes require to be
reminded of it. The Chinese have another
proverb, to the effect that one day is as good
as three, if you will only do the right thing at
the right time. The Chinese are wise peo.
pie, and l hope that, when we go to war with
them, we shall catch some of their wisdom.
1t is not tlls time that he bestows upon his
work, but the system he carries to it, and the
energy which he infuses into it, that enables
the workman to do his appointed business with
success.
carry, to the best of my poor ability, these
little fancies of mine into the practice of daily
life. work as hard as l can. My friends
are pleased sometimes to say, very kindly,
that they wonder contrive TO get through SO
much work. My answer, when the remark is
made in my own presence, most frequently is,
that do contrive it by playing as much as
can. | am getting on in years, and L speak
more of the past than of the present. But
man is never too old to play, by himself or by
proxy; and the vicarious disportions of adj
vancing age are not the least of the pleasures
and privileges of man. If we cannot stand up
at Lords to the cataputian bowling OF this
generation, mindful as we are OF the times
when Mr. Budd, not perhaps without some
pardonable feelings of vanity, derived from a
consciousness of the perfect anatomy of his
lower limbs, kept wicket and "obbed" at the
opposite stamps, in nankin shirts and pink silk
stockings if we cannot venture to compete
with the athletes of the different rifle corps,
who now go in for astonishing broad jumps,
and high jumps, and hurdle races, and put
tings and pickings.up of stones, at the Crystal
Palace, and other places of gregarious resort
we can at all events look on and let our ashes
sparkle up from contact with the fires o.
younger men, and cry Tiri puelliS, etc. and
live again in the energies of our boys.
And if take holiday myself, whenever
can, without injury to Others am no lesI
minded to give the young people who serve
under me in the department of her majesty
government to which l am honored by be
longing, holiday whenever they ask for it