Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

120 An Apology for Idlers
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 fulfil important ofifices
towards the general result. You are no
doubt very dependent on the care of your
lawyer and stockbroker, of the guards and