River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1907-01-31
SEES JOY IN WORK
WORLD SEEMS TO HAVE NO
FLAcE FOR THE IDLER.
No Real Joy in Life of Ease Without
Labor, Says Man Who Has Given
the Matter a Thorough
Trial.


after ALL said man who some
time ago had fortune left to him,
there's nothing like work.
Il used to think that if l had
money enough to live on comfortably,
so that l didn't have to work, should
be happy. My work was one incessant
grind, day after day the same un.
ending round of the same things over
and over again, and used to get so
tired of it all that sometimes it SEEM
ed as though should fly.
but l had to keep at it to live, and
so / did keep at it till a distant rela-
tive of mine that l had never known
was worth anything died and left me
a fortune.
There never was anything that
ever happened to me that ever gave
me half so much pleasure as that.
The first thing l did was to shake the
work which l got rid of as quickly as
/ decently could, and then / set about
planning enjoyment
"The one thing of all that wanted
most was travel. l ogaved change,
and when that money came got it. |
set out on my dreamed of travels,
and found a keen delight in them all
for a time.
1T was all the same to me whether
it rained or the sun shone, for wher-
ever | was or wherever / was going,
was free to enjoy it all, and did
for time, but then l began to find
myself in way apart, and not so
much privileged to enjoy these things
as had been at first.
For I was an idler pure and sim
| pie, while all those to whom l was
| indebted for the possibility, of the
pleasures of travel, the railroad men
and the steamship men, were all
workers, as were also the hotel men
and the theater people and every
body to whom / was indebted for
pleasures in sojourn, all workers. So
| likewise were all or nearly all the
travellers / met, workers in one field
or another, all, and finding delight in
every breath they drew because they
were workers.
''And they were drawn, II not to-
|
Of their kind, while /, an idler only,
had nothing in common with the
world. Even in the far distant ports
| where leaned over the rail | found
myself more and more separated from
the laborer on the wharf, who, bound
though he might be to his work, yet
had an object in life, which he ac-
complished by labor, while l was a
mere part.
TN fact the more / idled the more
clearly 1 came to realize that the law
of the universe is labor, that in nature
there is nothing idle, and the more
/ travelled the more clearly it came to
me how few real idlers there are
among men. When finally at the
end of three years Of idling / had
come back again to the city l had
this fact borne in upon me with
greater intensity than ever, and now
the great JOY that / had found at
first in sheer loafing was quite de-
parted.
"The city was alive with activity,
with men all at work, all doing some
thing, all accomplishing SOmetnlnB,
and was out of it, an idler and-a
stranger. Actually men looked at
me as a strange being, and some of
them with curiosity. That should
be doing nothing when there was a
chance, they wondered.
Friends that l had known greet
ed me and smiled and then-passed
on They had their work to do, and
their interests and their sympathies
were with other people. So / stood
alone, as one set off, until, by
kind of Providence, there arose with
in me a desire to work
I've been at it ever since, and
am at it still, grateful to be back in
the fold of men,"