The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1873-03-11
A Martyr to Leisure.

Robert Dale Owen, in his Autobio
graphy, thus describes one of his father
partners in business
a man Of letters, educated to every
classical attainment, and the inheritor O
a princely fortune, this gentleman hat
been able to crafty, at a wish, his cult
waited tastes. His marriage was fortun
ate, and his children grew up around him
with the fairest promise. He had @
handsome town house in fashionable
square in London, and a country-seat six
or eight miles off in the midst of one ol
those magnificent English parks,-the
ideal Of stately rural elegance, with 1t,
trinity kept lawn and its wide.spreadine
chase, dotted over with clumps of noble
old trees, where the deer sought refuge
from the MONDAY heat, and lair a,
nightfall.
Its owner had travelled over Europe
and brought back as memcntoes of hi.
journey, paintings and statuary by some
Of the best masters, ancient and modern
with which to adorn his favorite retreat
The house itself. in which l spent some
happy days, with its rich marble columns
and balustrades, was fine specimen oi
the purest Palladian manner, where all
that luxurious refinement could devise
had been unsparingly lavished.
There my fathcr-during brief inter.
val in his own public life of incessant bus.
tle-found his friend with no occupation
more pressing than to pore over the treas.
ures Of his library, and no graver care
than to superintend the riches of con.
servatory where wealth had brought to.
gether, from half the world its choicest
plants and flowers. They spent some
days of uidisturbed quiet not an Incl.
dent beyond the conversation of sedate
and intellectual family circle and the ar
rival and departure of friend or two to
break the complete repose.
Delightful my father thought it, in
contrast with the busy turmoil he had left
and one day he said to mis- host, "I've
been thinking that if [ ever met man
who has nothing to desire, you must be
he. You have health cultivation, a
charming family. You have gathered
round you every comfort wealth can give
the choicest of all that nature and art car
supply. Are you not completely happy p
Never, my father said to me, would he
forget the sad unexpected reply: "Hap.
py All, Mr.. Owen, / committed one ia.
tai error in my youth, and dearly have
paid for it . | started in life without an
object, almost without ambition. My
temperament disposed me to ease, and |
INDUCED it. | said to myself, Il have all
that | see others contendlng for; why
should | struggle?' | knew not the
curse that lights on those who have never
to struggle for anything ought to have
created for myself some definite pursuit,
literary, scientific, artistic, political, no
matter what, so there was something to
labor for and to overcome. Then might
have been happy"
My father suggested that he was scarce.
ly past the prime Of life, and that in a
hundred ways he might still benefit 9th.
ers, while occupying himself. Come and
spend month or two with me at Brax-
field he added. "Iou have a larger
share in the Lanark mills than any of my
partners. See for yoursel what has been
done for the work-people there, and for
their children and give me the benefit of
your suggestions and your aid"
at is too late was the reply. "The
power is gone. llablts are become chains.
You can work aud do good; but for me,
-in all the proitless years gone by |
seek vainly for something to remember
with pride, or even to dwell on with sat
iStaction. | have thrown away life. |
feel, sometimes, as if there were nothing
remaining to me worth living for"
And neither then, nor at any future
time, did this strange martyr to leisure
visit the establishment in which he had
invested hundred and fifty thousand dol.
lars.