The Young Man and the World | Page 8

summer. You see, I have a 'deal' which I am about to close; it
demands my personal attention. It would be treason to my business to
leave this summer."
Yes, quite true, no doubt. But so has Nature a "deal" on with this same
business man; and it will be treason to Nature if he does not go away
and let Nature's ministers attend him. If he has got to be false to his
business or to Nature, he had better be false to the former. It is a fine
thing to be true to one's business. But be sure that you are really true to
your business; and that means that, first of all, you shall look to your
health. Your business demands that. Good health is good "business."
I knew a business man who was so true to his business that he was
unfaithful to himself. The machinery of his superb mind had been
running at highest speed for ten months. It needed a rest--oil on the
heated bearings, a reburnishing of the soiled steel, a rest from the high
tension. He would have given just such care to an automobile, or an
engine, or any inanimate mechanism. He would have given much
greater care to his horse.
But did he give it to himself? No. He had a "deal" on of large
proportions; that "deal" must be consummated before attending to the
mind and body that put it through. So the lever was pulled back another
notch; the machine was driven to its highest burst of speed and power,
and the "deal" was a success.
Mark now what followed. The next day this splendid man did not feel
very well--a headache. And on the following day there was an eternal
end to all his "deals." I do not call that good business. Therefore, my
friend, the sea, the mountains, the forests; therefore Nature, with her
medicine for body and mind and soul.

"Turn yourself out to pasture," said a wise old country doctor to an
exhausted city man. Certainly, that's the thing to do--"turn yourself out
to pasture."
Singular advice for young men, you will say, this counseling of
restraint, calmness, and the husbanding of his powers. Yes; but I would
prevent you from exhausting yourself. No nervous prostration at forty;
no arrested development at fifty; no mental vacuity at fifty-five. Too
many Americans cease to count after middle life. They have wasted
their ammunition and are sent to the rear--there is no longer use for
them on the firing-line. Youth is so strong that it wastes power like a
millionaire of vitality. But you will need all this dissipated energy later
on--every ounce of it.
And so, while I would have you labor to the last limit of your strength
while you are about your work, I would also have you regain the
strength thus consumed. I would have you let Nature fill up your empty
batteries. Hence the suggestion of vacations, a level mind, and books of
serenity.
While you do work, pour your full strength into every blow; but having
done your best do not spoil it by lying awake over it. No
half-heartedness in your task, however. If you try to save yourself while
you are about your business--if you "try to do things easy"--you will
neither work well nor rest well nor do anything else well.
I know there are those who cannot, for long, quit work--those who
"have their noses to the grindstone," to borrow one of those
picture-sentences of the people. In the far off end to which evolution
tends, civilization will doubtless reach the point where every human
being may have his solid month of play, repose, and
recuperation--though this cannot be, of course, while nation competes
with nation. A universal industrial agreement alone can compass that
happy end. And do we not here perceive, afar off, one of the vast and
glorious tasks for the statesmen of the future?
Meanwhile, if every man may not have an entire season of holiday, he
may have every day his hour of fun and rest. For every man that, at

least, is possible. And, too, he whom necessity drives hardest
owns--absolutely owns--for himself one day in seven. Not so bad after
all, is it? Not the ideal condition, but still quite tolerable. Fifty-two days
in three hundred and sixty-five, nearly two months in the year, already
given every man by the usage of our Christian civilization for the
purpose of "rest from all his work"; and with divine example
encouraging and instructing him in its use.
A man can get along on these two months distributed at the intervals of
one in every seven days. He can get along, that is, if he really
rests--really gives himself up to the sane joy of