girlhood dreams of her Yesterdays.





OCCUPATION

In a small, bare, room in a cheap city boarding house, the man cowered
like a wild thing, wounded, neglected, afraid; while over him, gaunt
and menacing, cruel, pitiless, insistent, stood a dreadful need--the
need of Occupation--the need of something to do.

In all the world there is no danger so menacing as the danger of
idleness: there is no privation so cruel, no suffering so pitiful, as
the need of Occupation: there is no demand so imperative, no necessity
so dreadful, as the want of something to do.

Occupation is the very life of Life. As nature abhors a vacuum so life
abhors idleness. To _be_ is to be occupied. Even though one spend
his days in seeking selfish pleasures still must he occupy himself to
live, for the need of something to do is most imperative upon those
who strive hardest to do nothing. As life and the deeds of men are
born in dreams so life itself is Occupation. A man _is_ the thing
he does. What the body is to the spirit; what the word is to the
thought; what the sunshine is to the sun; Occupation is to Dreams. One
of the Thirteen Truly Great Things of Life is Occupation.

From the cherry tree in the upper corner of the garden near the hedge,
the cherries had long ago been gathered. The pair of brown birds had