There is certainly some chill and
arid knowledge to be found upon the summits of formal and
laborious science; but it is all round about you, and for
the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm and
palpitating facts of life. While others are filling their
memory with a lumber of words, one-half of which they will
forget before the week is out, your truant may learn some
really useful art: to play the fiddle, or to speak with
ease and opportunity to all varieties of men. Many who
have 'plied their book diligently,' and know all about some
one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of the
study with an ancient and owl-like demeanour, and prove
dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and brighter
parts of life. Many make a large fortune who remain
underbred and pathetically stupid to the last. And
meantime there goes the idler, who began life along with
them--by your leave, a different picture. He has had time
to take care of his health and his spirits; he has been a
great deal in the open air, which is the most salutary of
all things for both body and mind; and if he has never read
the great Book in very recondite places, he has dipped into
it and skimmed it over to excellent purpose. Might not the
student afford some Hebrew roots, and the business man some
of his half-crowns, for a share of the idler's knowledge of
life at large, and Art of Living?
*
Nay, and the idler has another and more important quality
than these.
Pages:
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116