IDLENESS THE MOTHER OF PROGRESS

 Idleness is the mother of progress. So long as men were busy they had no time to think of bettering their condition.

 

Idleness is the mother of art. It was when men had leisure from the chase that they decorated the handles of their hunting-knives and the walls of their cave-dwellings.

 

Idleness is the mother of religion. It is in the relax and rebound¹ from toil² that men think of God.

 

We talk of all men’s right to work. There is a deeper right than that. It is the right to idleness.

 

The value of what we put upon the page 52 of life depends upon the width of the margin³.

 

The great, useful, redeeming⁴, and lasting⁵ work of the world is that work which is a reaction from idleness. The continent of labor⁶ is barren. It is the little island of labor that is green and fruitful in the sea of leisure.

 

The curse of America is its deification of labor. Our little gods are the men who are ceaselessly forthputting.

 

Most of all we deify capital, which never rests, but goes on producing day and night.

 

We are so occupied in getting ready to live that we have lost the art of living.

 

With us a man is a fool if he sets about to enjoy himself before he has laid up a fortune. We count the woman happy when she has married money, and the child accursed when he has no inheritance.

 

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Every morning we arise from our beds and charge bloodthirstily into the struggle. We all do it, millionaires and paupers⁷. In his office the trust magnate sits at his scheming until his nerves are loosed, his arteries⁸ hardened, and his soul caked. The slaves of Rome never worked so hard as many of our laborers⁹ in mines and factories.

 

“After the Semitic fashion,” says Remy de Goncourt, “you make even the women work. Rich and poor, all alike, you know nothing of the joys of leisure.”

 

There ought to be two leisure classes, yea three: all children under twenty-one, all women, and all men over sixty.

 

The work of the world could be easily done by males between the ages of twenty-one and sixty. To accomplish this, all that is needed is to abolish militarism, that insane burden of men in idleness, abolish all piled-up 54 wealth-units that keep husky males workless, and abolish our worship of activity.

 

Then there would be plenty of work for every man to keep him from want, and plenty of leisure for every man to preserve in him a living soul.

 

If I were czar of the world, no woman should work except as she might elect for her amusement; no child should do aught but play.

 

Among savages¹⁰ the women do all the work. In the coming civilization they shall do none. The progress of the race is the progress of the female from toil to leisure.

 

Every woman is a possible mother. She should have only to grow and to be strong. She should be the real aristocracy, the real Upper Class, to give culture and beauty to life. She should have time to attend to the duties of her eternal priesthood.

 

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As for man, little by little, he also would lift himself from the killing¹¹ grind of monotonous¹² exertion¹³. For he would make Steam and Electricity, and other giants not yet discovered, do the dirty work.

 

To bring all this to pass, you do not need to devise any cunning scheme of government, nor to join any party or specious¹⁴ ism. You need do only one thing.

 

And that is to establish Justice.

 

The end of fraud and wrong is fevered toil. The end of justice is the superior product of skill and genius, and their mother, leisure.

1 rebound   

v.弹回；n.弹回，跳回

参考例句：

• The vibrations accompanying the rebound are the earth quake.伴随这种回弹的振动就是地震。
• Our evil example will rebound upon ourselves.我们的坏榜样会回到我们自己头上的。

2 toil   

vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事

参考例句：

• The wealth comes from the toil of the masses.财富来自大众的辛勤劳动。
• Every single grain is the result of toil.每一粒粮食都来之不易。

3 margin   

n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘

参考例句：

• We allowed a margin of 20 minutes in catching the train.我们有20分钟的余地赶火车。
• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。

4 redeeming   

补偿的，弥补的

参考例句：

• I found him thoroughly unpleasant, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. 我觉得他一点也不讨人喜欢，没有任何可取之处。
• The sole redeeming feature of this job is the salary. 这份工作唯其薪水尚可弥补一切之不足。

5 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

6 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

7 paupers   

n.穷人( pauper的名词复数 )；贫民；贫穷

参考例句：

• The garment is expensive, paupers like you could never afford it! 这件衣服很贵，你这穷鬼根本买不起！ 来自互联网
• Child-friendliest among the paupers were Burkina Faso and Malawi. 布基纳法索，马拉维，这俩贫穷国家儿童友善工作做得不错。 来自互联网

8 arteries   

n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道

参考例句：

• Even grafting new blood vessels in place of the diseased coronary arteries has been tried. 甚至移植新血管代替不健康的冠状动脉的方法都已经试过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This is the place where the three main arteries of West London traffic met. 这就是伦敦西部三条主要交通干线的交汇处。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 laborers   

n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工

参考例句：

• Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言

10 savages   

未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There're some savages living in the forest. 森林里居住着一些野人。
• That's an island inhabited by savages. 那是一个野蛮人居住的岛屿。

11 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

12 monotonous   

adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的

参考例句：

• She thought life in the small town was monotonous.她觉得小镇上的生活单调而乏味。
• His articles are fixed in form and monotonous in content.他的文章千篇一律，一个调调儿。

13 exertion   

n.尽力，努力

参考例句：

• We were sweating profusely from the exertion of moving the furniture.我们搬动家具大费气力，累得大汗淋漓。
• She was hot and breathless from the exertion of cycling uphill.由于用力骑车爬坡，她浑身发热。

14 specious   

adj.似是而非的；adv.似是而非地

参考例句：

• Such talk is actually specious and groundless.这些话实际上毫无根据，似是而非的。
• It is unlikely that the Duke was convinced by such specious arguments.公爵不太可能相信这种似是而非的论点。