Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Love, Life & Work - Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natured Concerning - How to Attain the Highest Happiness for One's Self with the - Least Possible Harm to Others by Elbert Hubbard
page 40 of 103 (38%)
diplomacy. By following his inclinations and doing nothing, a
mysterious, skyey benefit accrues, which the lazy man hopes to have and
to hold for eternity.

Then the slaves who do no work on Sunday, point out those who do as
beneath them in virtue, and deserving of contempt. Upon this theory all
laws which punish the person who works or plays on Sunday have been
passed. Does God cease work one day in seven, or is the work that He
does on Sunday especially different from that which He performs on
Tuesday? The Saturday half-holiday is not "sacred"--the Sunday holiday
is, and we have laws to punish those who "violate" it. No man can
violate the Sabbath; he can, however, violate his own nature, and this
he is more apt to do through enforced idleness than either work or play.
Only running water is pure, and stagnant nature of any sort is
dangerous--a breeding-place for disease.

Change of occupation is necessary to mental and physical health. As it
is, most people get too much of one kind of work. All the week they are
chained to a task, a repugnant task because the dose is too big. They
have to do this particular job or starve. This is slavery, quite as
much as when man was bought and sold as a chattel.

Will there not come a time when all men and women will work because it
is a blessed gift--a privilege? Then, if all worked, wasteful consuming
as a business would cease. As it is, there are many people who do not
work at all, and these pride themselves upon it and uphold the Sunday
laws. If the idlers would work, nobody would be overworked. If this time
ever comes shall we not cease to regard it as "wicked" to work at
certain times, just as much as we would count it absurd to pass a law
making it illegal for us to be happy on Wednesday? Isn't good work an
DigitalOcean Referral Badge