Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1871-06-30
gelecteh Mlscellany.
From "London Society,""
REST.

| There comes q time IN mans lite when
he looks out for pauses and periods of rest.
There is time when a man is overflow
ing with energy. He both finds work
and makes work. He cuts down trees in
the forest of difficulty. He fights with
windmills. He sketches out programme
which it would take several lifetimes to
encompass. He puts no limit to his en-
ergies or his range of possibilities. By
and-by a man finds that his sphere is
strictly limited and defined. He seeks to
curtail rather than extend his engage
ments. He no. longer thinks that he can
know everybody and 60 everywhere, but
recognizes that in fact he can, compare
lively, only know few persons and 20 to a
few places. He understands small econ
omies of time and circumstances. He
appreciates the laissez faire He has a
growing opinion in favor of holidays. In
stead of being always busy, he appreciates
pauses from business. He studies to be
quiet. He begins to think that speech
| is silvern and silence is golden. He ap.
preciates Rest.
He appreciates rest if it is only for the
sake of work. according to the laws ol
action and reaction. Hence. if you can
economize seasons Of rest you really Sc.
cure opportunities of work. In London
every man seems in hurry, and every
man has his programme too full You
note the Londoner's short, quick. and
somewhat impatient walk. If be goes out
to dinner he has been working up to the
last minute; at place of amusement he
is too thoroughly tired to enjoy himself
even on holiday he is busy with his
schemes of work A man can do no JUS
tice to dinner, holiday, or concert when
his most pressing need is that he should
lie upon sofa or 60 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 commu-
nifty. 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. I demonstrated
with man the other day on his childish
ness in stopping to look at the shop-win-
dows. He might have answered that to
look at the shop-windows was itself part
of a'liberal education. No Oriental Ba-
zaar equals the bazaar of the London shops.
But he told me that he was in the habit
of walking great deal too fast. and con-
|sequently he would every now and then
hrin m hi m calf to ,pohor IN front of n sLo
window, and counted the rest as gain
For my own part, I delight, when practi-
cable, to ''turn in" for an afternoon SER
vice at the Abbey or St. Paul's. There
is something inetfably soothing and rest
full in the coolness, the shade. the stiffness,
the silvery echo of noble voice, the
soaring or sinking of the music amid the
old arches.
The taste for rest grows with our growth
in wisdom. A child cannot understand
it. When child is told that his father or
mother wants to be quiet, the sentence is
a wondcrment to him. Mrs. Schimmel-
pcnninck says that, when she was a child
of six, her parents taught her to fold her
hands and be quiet for half an hour. This
valuable art might be taught at our schools,
even if charged for as an extra. The taste
for quiet and thoughtfullness ought to be
developed as much as any other taste.
Rest is an investment for action. All
mere friction. friction and nothing more,
is waste and loss. The wasted sparkle
and glitter might have been consolidated
into the diamond. There is a balance and
equipoise in Nature. and any caloric that
is uselessly given off is deduction from
the sum of vital heat. If you watch agri-
cultural life you may see, on large scale,
how rest affects labor In the winter the
laborer's day is very short. He gets up
at very-late hour and goes to bed at an
extraordinarily early hour. His object is
to economize light and fuel. He often
takes in winter nearly twice as much sleep
as he takes in summer. In summer he
will get up at four in the morning, and
work at night while the latest CLEAN OF
sunshine lasts. 1t would be utterly i'm
possible for laborer to do his summer
work unless he bad stored up force during
his winter rest In the old days when
warfare was chronic, nter-ouarters were