Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. Bring these fellows into the country, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how they pine for their desk or their study.
They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such folk: they cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold-mill. When they do not require to go to the office, when they are not hungry and have no mind to drink, the whole breathing world is a blank to them. If they have to wait an hour or so for a train, they fall into a stupid trance with their eyes open. To see them, you would suppose there was nothing to look at and no one to speak with; you would imagine they were paralysed or alienated; and yet very possibly they are hard workers in their own way, and have good eyesight for a flaw in a deed or a turn of the market. They have been to school and college, but all the time they had their eye on the medal; they have gone about in the world and mixed with clever people, but all the time they were thinking of their own affairs. As if a man' s soul were not too small to begin with, they have dwarfed and narrowed theirs by a life of all work and no play; until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub against another, while they wait for the train. Before he was breeched, he might have clambered on the boxes; when he was twenty, he would have stared at the girls; but now the pipe is smoked out, the snuffbox empty, and my gentleman sits bolt upright upon a bench, with lamentable eyes. This does not appeal to me as being Success in Life.
But it is not only the person himself who suffers from his busy habits, but his wife and children, his friends and relations, and down to the very people he sits with in a railway carriage or an omnibus. Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things. And it is not by any means certain that a man' s business is the most important thing he has to do. To an impartial estimate it will seem clear that many of the wisest, most virtuous, and most beneficent parts that are to be played upon the Theatre of Life are filled by gratuitous performers, and pass, among the world at large, as phases of idleness. For in that Theatre not only the walking gentlemen, singing chambermaids, and diligent fiddlers in the orchestra, but those who look on and clap their hands from the benches, do really play a part and fulfill important offices towards the general result. You are no doubt very dependent on the care of your lawyer and stockbroker, of the guards and signalmen who convey you rapidly from place to place, and the policemen who walk the streets for your protection; but is there not a thought of gratitude in your heart for certain other benefactors who set you smiling when they fall in your way, or season your dinner with good company? Colonel Newsome helped to lose his friend' s money; Fred Bayham had an ugly trick of borrowing shirts; and yet they were better people to fall among than Mr. Barnes. And though Falstaff was neither sober nor very honest, I think I could name one or two long-faced Barabbases whom the world could better have done without. Hazlitt mentions that he was more sensible of obligation to Northcote, who had never done him anything he could call a service, than to his whole circle of ostentatious friends; for he thought a good companion emphatically the greatest benefactor. I know there are people in the world who cannot feel grateful unless the favour has been done them at the cost of pain and difficulty. But this is a churlish disposition. A man may send you six sheets of letter-paper covered with the most entertaining gossip, or you may pass half an hour pleasantly, perhaps profitably, over an article of his; do you think the service would be greater, if he had made the manuscript in his heart' s blood, like a compact with the devil? Do you really fancy you should be more beholden to your correspondent, if he had been damning you all the while for your importunity? Pleasures are more beneficial than duties because, like the quality of mercy, they are not strained, and they are twice blest.
不管是在中学还是大学，教会还是市场，极度的忙碌都是缺乏活力的象征。而忙中偷闲的能力，暗示的则是一种广泛的爱好和强烈的个性。在我们身边有一种人，他们无精打采、十分陈腐，除了从事某一常规职业外，很少有生活的意识。假如把这些人带到乡村，或者让他们登上轮船，你就会发现，他们是多么渴望回到自己的书桌边或书房里。
他们没有好奇心，也不能自我挑战；他们不能享受随意发挥自己才能的纯粹乐趣。除非一定要用棍子抽打着，否则他们会无动于衷。与这样的人多说也无益，他们无法让自己悠然自乐，他们的本性就不够慷慨，只会浑浑噩噩地打发时间，而不利用时间拼命工作。当无须工作，既不饥饿又不口渴时，对他来说，这个充满生命的世界只是一片空白。如果不得不需要等上个把小时火车，他们就会双目圆睁、神情呆滞。看了他们，你就会猜想那里没有可看的风景，也没有可以交谈的人；也可能会觉得他们被吓呆或被疏离了。
然而，他们极有可能是在工作中兢兢业业的人，对契约中的瑕疵或市场的变动有着敏锐目光的人。他们上过中学，受过高等教育，但是总把目光放在奖章上；他们游历各国，与智人结交，但是总考虑一己之私。似乎是嫌自己起初的灵魂还不够渺小似的，他们一生只拼命工作，从不娱乐，以此来压缩自己的灵魂世界。直到了40岁，还是在那里没精打采地等火车，不想去与他人攀谈，也对娱乐没有一点儿兴趣。在他还是孩童时，他可能就在箱子上爬上爬下；到了20岁的时候，他可能是盯着姑娘看；但是到了现在，烟斗抽完了，鼻烟盒也空了的时候，我们这位先生却直挺挺地坐在长椅上，目光忧郁。这样的生活，我并不认为是成功的。
但是，他本人并不是唯一受到这种习惯折磨的人，还包括他的妻子、孩子、朋友和亲人，甚至与他同乘一车的人。一个人始终如一地献身于其所谓的事业，就会忽略其他许多事物。事业是他要做的最重要的事情，是不能用任何形式来确定的。公正地判定的话，这一点显而易见，那就是在人生的戏剧里，最聪明、最善良、最仁慈的角色都是由无偿的演员来扮演的。在世人们看来，那是悠闲的状态。因为在这出戏剧里，不仅有散步的绅士、歌唱的侍女，还有乐队里勤勉的小提琴手，而且有坐在长凳上鼓掌的观众，他们都真正扮演着一个角色，并对整体的效果发挥着重要作用。