亨利·沃德·比彻/Henry Ward Beecher
The bread which we solicit of God, he gives us through our own industry. Prayer sows it, and industry reaps it.
As industry is habitual activity in some useful pursuit, so, not only inactivity, but also all efforts without the design of usefulness, are of the nature of idleness. The supine sluggard is no more indolent than the bustling do nothing.
Men may walk much, and read much, and talk much, and pass the day without an unoccupied moment, and yet be substantially idle；because industry requires, at least the intention of usefulness. But gadding, gazing, lounging, mere pleasure-mongering, reading for the relief of ennui—these are as useless as sleeping, or dozing, or the stupidity of a surfeit.
There are many grades of idleness；and veins of it run through the most industrious life. We shall indulge in some descriptions ofthe various classes of idlers, and leave the reader to judge, if he be an indolent man, to which class he belongs.
Long ago the birds have finished their matins, the sun has advanced full high, the dew has gone from the grass, and labors of industry are far in progress, when our sluggard, awakened by his very efforts to maintain sleep, slowly merges to perform life's great duty of feeding—with him, second only in importance to sleep.
It is yet early spring；there is ice in the north；and the winds are hearty：his tender skin shrinks from exposure, and he waits for milder days. He sleeps long and late, he wakes to stupidity, with indolent eyes sleepily rolling over neglected work；neglected because it is too cold in spring, and too hot in summer, and too laborious at all times，—a great coward in danger, and therefore very blustering in safety. His hands run to waste, his fences are dilapidated, a shattered house—this is the very castle of indolence.
Another idler as useless, but vastly more active than the last, attends closely to every one's business, except his own. His wife earns the children's bread, and his；He knows all the stories of all the families that live in the town. If he can catch a stranger at the tavern in a rainy day, he pours out a strain of information, a pattering of words, as thick as the rain-drops out of doors. He has good advice to everybody, how to save, how to make money, how to do everything；but alas!But what useful thing do these busy buzzing idlers perform?