Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1870-04-14
On Wasting Time.

On Wasting Time.
"HERE you are, sir, wasting your valu-
able time--as they say to me-" said Charles
Dickens one morning, many years ago,
as his little boy ran up to him on the
Broadstairs sands, spade in hand. And
we have often wondered since how many
people there are who know what is meant
by wasting time.
Il is very easy to make mistakes on this
subject, for nothing is so deceitful as ap-
pearances We all know that Penelope,
that classical model of propriety and all
the virtues, employed her time in weav-
ing garment by day, and unraveling it
at night. She did this to keep of her
lovers, who wanted to persuade her that
her husband Ulysses was dead When
the suitors found her out, of course they
accused her Of wasting time-but at that
moment Ulysses knocked at the door,
after seeing many men and cities. In
fact, he had come home, and the fair
Penelope had her reward after all.
Surely il is waste OF time for that old
tortoise to try and beat the nimble hare
at racing, but the silly old thing will crawl
on, without stopping, at about the pace
one gets down the Strand on q rainy day.
Presently, down comes the hare at flu
rious pace-there Is no wasting time with
him at all events-but, alas! when he ar
rives breathless at the winning. post, he
finds the old tortoise there before him,
and fast asleep, too. "Ah" says the hare,
~ wish had taken my nap at the end
instead of the beginning OF the race, and
then should have won 1t and that tor
toise might have crawled in vain; as 1t ID,
he has made good use Of his time, and I
have wasted mine"
What an idle man that is yonder, fishing
hour after hourl Truly q melancholy
spectacle, as stern old Doctor johnson
would say. "a line with worm at one
end and fool at the other" Wrong
again! That man is an eminent statesman,
who has escaped to recruit his weary
brain in the company of the kingfsher
and tho boron. vvh.t clo4uonon wisdns>
and wholesome legislation do not we owe
to such hours of idleness Nay, do not
some of our best and kindliest thoughts
often come to us as we sit on the beach
and toss pebbles into the shining sea COW
cred with it's "innumersble smiless" Rec
reation is not waste when it is a rest from
real work, and preparation for more.
We confess we never feel at home with
a man who must always be doing some
thing There was French statesman
who wrote huge book by snatches, in
those occasional intervals when he hap
pened to be kept waiting for his dinner.
We have not the slightest wish to see this
ante prandial performance. We do not
doubt it was a very dull book, for men
who are never at leisure are always dull.
Pussy men and idle men are equally in
sufferable to us. The real worker is never
in hurry, and the real idler, we may
add, is never anything else. Who ever
heard of Lord Palmerston, or the Duke
of Wellington. or Lord Brougham being
in a hurry? When we see man in q
great hurry, we may be pretty certain
that his profession consists in doing moth
ing, and that he Is doing that badly. The
idlest man we ever saw was always SO
much pressed for time that he never had
five minutes to spare for anything. No
one need ever be in such terrible hurry
as this. IL we ever find ourselves 30, it
IL probably because we have been was-3
ing our time. We. have had no system,
and have, therefore, done in an hour what
ought to have been finished in twenty
minutes; or, like the hare, we have loi-
tered on the way, and then we make q
push for it, and arrive just in time to
miss the train. How many hares there
are every morning who arrive breathless
in the city, because breakfast was half an
hour late, or because they would not get
up when the clock struck seven.
But our readers have right to ask
what constitutes, as q general rule, waste
of time We answer in single sentence
whatever binders or prevents you do
ing your work in life. Every one should
realize that his duty here consists in sp-
plying himself to some worthy work,
and his time may then safely and
without waste be divided into three
periods-preparing for work, doing
work, and resting from work. Waste
of time, then, becomes q thing pure
" relative. What is mere waste in one
case is real profit in another. The idle
man who travels simply for pleasure, Il
simply wasting his time; the man who
travels for safety, or the man who travels
| to get rest from work, or for the sake o.
his health, is not wasting or abusing hi
time, he is turning It to good account.
Let the heart be filed with some good
principle Of action, and let the mind be
directed towards some congenial pursuits
and then our innocent pleasures will b.
as little in danger Of degenerating into
criminal indulgence, as our wholesom,
recreations into waste OF tme.-Cdssstt'
AT temperance meeting In Buffalo
4 a - Il ~ A.<y has Herr