Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1874-04-16
Need One Hurry !!

ALTHOUGH the sun rises and sets daily
with some show of regularity, and the
seasons succeed each other in the same
order with which they began, each show
ing some anticipation of the one that is
to come, as well as "Reminiscences of the
one that has just departed, there is never
theless feeling that turks very generally
in the human mind that the wQnd is
coming to an end. 1t has lurked Where,
certainly in all historic time, and the
fables which prehistoric times have told
had this moral; il has blaZed out now
and then into fire of burning expecta-
ton and dread and in every generation
there are men and whole classes Of socie-
ty to whom the coming end is the slim
illus Of action or the paralyzer OF hon.
est work.
Now there is no great, comprehensive,
or penetrating impulse moving men and
generations, which has not its miniature
and the strong hope which made the
horizon luminous to the Apostle, and
caught up his daily life into the sweep of
heroic action, is parodied in the flicker
of some phantom future which makes
ordinary mortals disconnected with the
present, and turns their daily work into
an unseemly push and incontinent hurry.
Something is coming-be 1t Saturday, or
payday, or the annual balance-sheet, or
the visit Of relation, or journey, a
marriage, a birthday, an anniversary-the
end of the world in which we are dwell
ing for the time is at hand; then is to
begin something new; some changed cir
cumstances, fresh day, a new week, a
new account different society, a new
start in life, settlement, q beginning
after the end
1t is impossible for one to sit down to
think at all of what enters into the motive
Of his life without seeing how very large
share new beginnings have In 1t; how
constantly he looks to the end with refer
ence to the beginning that is to come
after. The point at issue is not how to
eradicate hope, small or great, from ones
life, but how to get rid of this perpetual
hurry and drive, this galloping to the end
of q journey, only to mount fresh steed
and gallop on the next stage; the clatter
of the horses hoofs becoming an accom-.
paniment to all ones thoughts. There is
certainly something ignominious in the
confession which people are constantly
making that they have no time 10 do this
or that needful thing, and that they shall
breathe more freely If they can once clear
their desk, or finish this job, or wipe out
this obligation. One comes to feef that
Time has been borrowed from, and tina,
ones notes are perpetually maturing
while one makes vain effort to cancel
them by giving fresh notes. We turn
round in helpless sort of fashion, and
berate the age we live in, with its whiz
zing locomotives and its clicking tele
graphs, as If the punctuality Of railroad
trains and the instantaneousness OF dis
patches were not the very friends and ser
wants Of honest leisure.
1t would be idle to lay down Q set Of
rules by which one might hope to exor
else this evil demon of haste and unrest
but one would take much pains II
he could hope 10 persuade the unhappy
man Of hurry that the fault was all hii
own, and lay in the very spirit with
which he set about his work; that, In
short, hurry was an evil spirit, to be exor
cised by whatever power is mighty
enough to control it. It is among men Of
business that 1t shows itself most clearly
while IL 10 most offensive when displayed
In the life of men of thought. Business
and hurry, SO far from being necessary
partners, are opposed to each other by the
most violent contrast. 1t may safely bt
o0iA tuht tuc nOSb suCCCroiui uSH Va ouS'
ness are the least hurried, for hurry is an
open transgression of the law of order, and
order Is the foundation-stone Of business
house. And there we touch the secret OF
aleisurely life, one which has free play
without this incessant push from behind
He who orders his life, and refuses
to be carried along by the nearest
current; who holds his purposes
as sacred and does not lightly allow
himself 10 be turned from them
who has the will to refuse work, in spite
OF that most intolerable complaint, the
suspicion of being shirk-it is he who
can hope bravely to live life OF leisure
Is 1t not pitiable to see one who, through
his very anxiety to do everything which
circumstance seems to lay on his broad
back, comes to be the very thrall OF cir
cumstance, and starts at every shadow
which seems to whisper that he Is not
faithful? He wears his life away to o
iretful existence in the vain attempt to
leave nothing undone, when it would
have been nobler to leave much undone
which has been done i'll. He disappoints
his masters by the excess of his enceavor