Staunton Spectator

The intense devotion of Americans to"business" is proverbial. We are by far the hardest working people in the world. Though compelled by no such necessity as drives the inhabitants of the densely populated countries of the old world to their daily tasks for their bread, nevertheless the majority of us work more hours than they, with a more intense and perpetual strain upon brain and muscles, and with fewer intermissions from labors, for recreation and amusement. We are taught from childhood that work is the "chief end of man." The "dignity of labor" is among the earliest lessons we receive. With us, not merely is labor honorable, but most of us hold that it is about the only thing that is so. Even wealth and rank, while they are coveted and worshipped, borrow their respectability -- as we may see it we will look a little below the surface of our social philosophy -- from the idea that they are embodied expressions of labor. It is acquired rather than inherited wealth, which confers honor among us. While me may envy, we have at the same time a lurking contempt for the wearer of "ancestral purple and linen," unless he forswears the immunity from toil which they confer and becomes a worker.

Now all this would be very well, if our passion for labor, or rather ambition to secure its rewards, did not convert us into slaves. It is quite right that idleness should be disreputable, and industry held in high honor. But it is not right to brand all recreation and amusement as idleness. It is bad policy, as well as bad morality, to give all our time to work and none to play. -- Both body and mind are injured, and life is shortened thereby. What an army do we see in our streets of paralytics, dyspeptics, consumptives, and other victims of disease -- men not yet passed middle age, who have retired from active business with fortunes, only to drag out a few months or years of miserable existence -- all capacity for enjoying the fruits of their past toil destroyed by having made that toil a slavery. -- The sight is a melancholy one. A few hours spent daily in recreation, with the burden of business laid down and the mind unbent from its tension, would have preserved to them their health, without diminishing their gains.

We are a race of dyspeptics. A man with a perfectly sound digestion is the exception rather than the rule among us; and the principle reason is, that we scarcely do anything but work and eat. Even sleeping is regarded as time wasted -- "It is the early bird that catches the worm," and it is our motto that the "worm" we must have.

Now we entirely reject this doctrine, that work is the "chief end of man." Labor in and of itself has no "dignity." So far from it, it was imposed upon the race originally as a penalty for sin. and the best that can be said of it now is, that by a kind arrangement of Providence the penalty has been softened down into a means of redeeming us from other and more destructive consequences of the fall. By excess, it may be restored to all its characteristics of a curse. -- When it breaks down bodily health, and dwarfs the soul, instead of being dignified and honorable, it is vulgar and mean, unless it be imposed by a necessary from which there is no escape without guilt. Our first duty in this world is to grow a sound mind in a healthy body, and this is our truest dignity. Whatever impedes these ends, whether it be labour, "business," or anything thing else, should be condemned. -- Our highest obligation is to serve God. But who can serve him acceptably with a softened brain or a crick in the back? We are condemned to love our neighbor as ourselves. But with a "duodenum or an agitated pilorous," as Sidney Smith describes a dyspepsis, we can love neither ourselves nor our neighbor. Hence, sound bodily health is an indispensable condition, not merely of intellectual growth and vigor, but as well as of the normal harmony of the soul; just as indispensable conditions of sound bodily health are diversity of employments, and an alternation of labour and recreation.

It is not necessary to urge our readers to be industrious. There is not the slightest danger that they will not work hard enough. The danger is all on the other side. There is far greater necessity to urge them to spend more time in recreation, and we accordingly, seriously and earnestly do so. While you are "diligent in business," do not consider "business" the "whole duty of man." Look upon it rather as a necessity from which you have a perfect right to escape if you can. Esteem innocent diversions, sports, amusements and recreations as lawful, nay, as truly duties as hoeing potatoes or selling tape. And by all means to it, whatever may be the fancied demands of business, that you give to recreation all the time necessary to secure sound health.