The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1885-01-08
Wait Service.


1t is wonderful what large part
of our life is absorbed even in the |
little 'swaitings" which happen ev
cry day. We have all heard of the
French lawyer who wrote the whole
of an important work on jurisprn
dence during the minutes. rarely
numbering more than fifteen at a
time, while he waited for his wife to
ioin him for social occasions The
writer has known q busy lady. an
active professional woman, and a
mother of a household, who KEEP,
her family provided with hand knit
stockings, the product of waste
''odds and ends of time," when as
she herself put it, sit would have
been quite impossible to do any
thing else" :
We question whether the euperi
or richness of some lives is not en-
tirely due to a faculty-lsrgely ca
pable of deve!opment-cf utilizing
fragments of time which others
would allow to slip through their
| fingers. 1t is common saving
that busy people have most leisure.
The man who receives most letters
is the man Sho generally answers
by return of post. When an Indian
chief heard somebody excusing the
non.performauce OF certain duty
on the score that "there was no
time" he wittily remarked, l sup
pose each of US has all there Is"
One peculiar trial besets most of
the little, inevitable daily waitings.
They generally seem 30 unnecessa-
ry-nay, are quite unnecessary, so
far as those who impose them are
concerned. Committees should not
wait for the member who is always
1 late. Excursions should start with
out the loiterer who contrivcs to
miss the appointed train. It is 8
habit which spreads with deadly
rapidly. Busy people, who can be
punctual only by paias and man
agemeDt, are apt to relax their Ell
, forts when they find they are al
ways wasted by some idler.
1t is always we'll to have some
little by-work for waiting seasons
something which we loye to do
and which will therefore tend t.
keep US sweet and smooth when 9th
. erwise we should only be too liable
: to fret and chafe. But the mann l
of too many of our waitirgs for
bids our emulation of the exam
pie of the French lawyer, or the
busy professional woman. We can
not write, Or knit, or sew, or sketch
I + in other peoples rooms, in railway
STATIONS, or in the street. A book
iS a more manageable resource. w,
knew q doctor who made himself s
splendid German scholar while
, driving in his carriage from patien
to patient. But then his unoecu
pied intervals could be reckoned on
: With most of US it is not so. Gen
:. orally the time, place and name
of our waitings are infinitely va
rious.
Different kinds of waitings mus
be taken each on its own merits
For waitings in our own hous
: there should be certainly some re
> source which is our waiting work.
For other waitings there should b
always the prompt question, "Wha
: can I do?" to be followed by tn
! equally prompt execution of the de
cision, once it is arrived at. Otter
> r conversation can be entered int
with some other waiting one; anC
: it is wonderful how soon a CONVEX
sation may be made interesting ant
pertinent, if we give our minds t.
that end, instead of to desultor,
chat. Often there is something t
{ be observed aAd learned from GU
j surroundings, and scarcely an oh
servation or a fact can be stored
away in our minds but is sure t.
come out again some day, and tt
make itself useful in 3 way we can
not now dream of.-Ed. Garrett.