Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-11-20
THE Habit OF HURRY.
Modern Life Dominated by a Desire to Do
Too Much.

sensible and, We fear, only too oporture
observations on what it calls the ''habit Of
hurry" in modern business life. The
modern man of business dresses in hurry,
be breakfasts in a hurry, he ia in hurry
to catch his train, he is in 3 hurry to get
cut OF it. It is with hurry that he proceeds
ty his Office, in hurry that he reads his
letters, that he answers thsn, that he
passes his day, and that he returns
to the station to catch his homewsrd bound
train. All this precipitation, this constant,
daily, perpetual being in Il hurry is alto
gether gratuitous, and that il is the result
OF bad habit. Business men cannot af
ford not to seem to be in hurry. If one
OF them were to walk at u leisurely and de-
llberate pace to his morning train, and
saunter through the day at the same rate,
people would conclude that he had either
very little business to transact, or that he
was remls6 and letnargic IN transactirg
IT. hence, ne begins by assuming neces-
slty Tof haste whsn hone really exists; and.
by degrees, habit becomes second nature.
That there is a good deal of truth in ali
this nobody who has obseryantly watched
modern ways of life would dream of deny
ing. But in truth the habit of hustle
which Is so marked q characteristic of our
time, Is originally set up by conditions
over which men have little or no control
In the case of men OF business there are
! necessarily certain days in the year. mail"
days, for instance, or balancing" days,
when there really does exist a greater
pressure of work than at other times. In
these cases push" has to be made, and
everybody concerned in getting the work
done communicates his own fegerishness
! to his nelghbors. But such is the con-
| sfltutlon of the human frame, such the
| mechanism of the human temperament,
that what is done frequently has a ten
dency to establish itself as a
something that is always done. It
even becomes pleasure to
| some men at last, as we'll as necessity,
to do things quickly. Moreover, on the
| supposltion that man of business lives
| 10 the country, or in a semi-rural suburb
which is the case with the majority-it is
| only natural that he should linger among
his household gods till the last possible
minute. 1t is SO much more pleasanter to
go round to the stables, to see how the
azaleas are getting on, to count the COM
| ing rosebuds, to linger on the dewy gravel
path, than to be in the noisy, dirty,
steaming city. Then suddenly the watch
Is taken out of the pocket to see what time
| it is, and in order to catch the city train
he must make a run for it." The day be-
gun in that fashion probably is continued
| IN that fashion. The train arrived at the
place of departure five, ten, fifteen min
utes late. The traveller begins to fdget
and worry. He has an appointments and he
fears he will be late for it. Possibly, he
is. Thereby everything is thrown out of
gear, and for the rest of the day he
is in the plight of Macaulays
duke of Newcastle, whom the
historian described as losing half an hour
| IN the morning and spending all the rest of
the day in futile attempt to catch it up
1t is easy enough to see how it is that the
habit of hurry" is set up, but much more
| difficult to perceive how the setting up of
| it is to be avoided under the conditions of
modern life, or how, when once set up, it
is to be remedied. There is however, this
comfort which men of business and the
working bees of society may take to Them
selves, that modern life very often seems
| to spare the drones no less. Certainly
during the height of the London season
no persons acquire habits of hurry more
completely than people of fashion. In
order to consume ali the amount of Sen
joyment" that is placed at their disposal
they must perpetually be in hurry. How
to be in the row--in time; how to reach
| the theatre or opera-in time. These are
problems of daily, of hourly occurrences
| In the West end. The whole of modern
| life, whether in the centers of pleasure or
the centers of business, is dominated by
the desire to do too much, and
the consequent necessity of doing it
with precipitation. It is a horrible habit
"a detrimental habit; we had almost said
a vulgar habit The whole world is in a
| conspiracy to double, to treble the pace.
And what is gained by it? Loss of tenn
per, deterioration of manners, injury to
digestion, increase of nervous Distress
these are The natural aud inevitable results
of that high pressure to winch we nearly
all expose ourselves and subject each
other. Who is made better By it, who
wiser, who even richer? Everything is
relative in this world; and if everybody
gallops, nobody is better off than if ev-
cry body walked. But who will consent to
alter it? It would require universal
consensus; and this is not attsinable.
Il Lit,te Close.
Portland (Me.) Correspondence Boston Globe