The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1871-08-23
Rest.

There comes time in mans life
when he looks out for pauses and peri
DDS of rest. There is a time when
man is overlooking with energy. He
both finds work and makes work. He
cuts down trees in the forest of difficult
ty. He fights with wind-mills. He
sketches out programme which it
would take several lifetimes to eneom-
pass. He puts no limits to his energies
or his range of possibilities. By-and-
by man finds that his sphere is strict
ly limited and defined. He seeks to
curtail rather than extend his engage
ments. He no longer thinks that he
can know everybody and go every
where, but recognizes that in fact he
can, comparatively, only know few
persons and go, to few places. He
understands small economies of time
and circumstances. He appreciates the
laisses taire. He has growing opin-
ion in favor of holidays. Instead of
being always busy, he appreciates pau
ses from business. He studies to be
quiet. He begins to think that speech
is silver and silence is golden. He APP
preciates rest.
He appreciates rest it is only for
the sake of work according to the laws
of action and reaction. Hence, if you
can economist seasons of rest you re-
ally secure opportunities of work. In
New York every man seems in hurry,
and every man has his programme too
full. You note the New Workers. short
quick and somewhat impatient walk.
If he goes out to dinner he has been
working up to the last minute; at
place of amusement he is too thor
oughly tired to enjoy himself; even
on a holiday he is busy with his
schemes of work. A man can do no
justice to dinner, holiday, or concert
when his most pressing need is that he
should lie upon sofa or go to bed.
Hence come nervousness, indigestion,
bad nights, fatty degeneration, and all
kinds of horrors. 1t is here that the
smokers have great pull over the non
smoking part of the community. They
understand how to take things quietly
They may like the aroma of the weed,
but the indirect result of the rest is
chiefly valuable to them.
The taste for rest grows with oul
growth in wisdom. A child can not
understand it. When child is told
that his father or mother wants to be
quiet, the sentence is wonderment tC
him. The taste for quiet and thought.
fulness ought to be developed as mucl
as any other taste. Rest is an invest
ment for action. All mere friction
friction and nothing more, is waste
and loss. The wasted sparkle ani
glitter might have been consolidated
into diamond. There is a balance ant
equipoise in nature, and any calori'
that is uselessly given off is deduc
ton from the sum of vital heat. If yol
watch agricultural life, you may see
on large scale, how rest affects labor
In the winter the laborer's day is yer,
short. He gets up at very late hour
and goes to bed at an extraordinar,
early hour. His object is to economis,
light and fuel. He often takes in win
ter nearly twice as much sleep as HI
} takes in summer. In summer, he will
get up at four in the morning, ant
} work at night while the latest CLEAN
Of sunset lasts. 1t would be utterl,
, impossible for laborer to do his sum
, mer work unless he had stored VI
] force during his winter rest. In tn
old days when warfare was chronic
| winter-quarters were necessary to TIL
} summer campaign. In rest you recup
, crate from fatigue, and you also stor
, up forces for action. The prophet
l sent into the wilderness before he be
gins mission amid cities. In the live
: of various great men, you will findpe
l RODS in which they seemed condemne
to inactivity. But they were merel
t couchant for spring.
! There are all kinds of ways for ecor
4 omizing rest. And just in proportio
K as a man realizes the preciousness I
, effort and of work, as he would desil
t not to lead a feeble life o + intellectu;
: aims, so far will he be jealous of ust
: less effort, and desire to spare himse
: all friction and controversy. Life
y too short for quarrelling, and for IL
! of other things as we'll. As far as po
e sible let there be no waste in life, :
# there is none in nature.
i, SENATOR HENDRICKs.-This 1ndiar
$ gentleman, very candidly confessed
= the reporter or interviewer of the Ne
i, York Herald, that if the Democra
nominate him as their Presidential cal