I had descended to the breakfast-room, at the usual hour, but no one appeared; I looked for a book, but found none but an almanac. The books were kept in the library—beyond all dispute their proper place, had I not been in a humor to think otherwise. The house was too hot, and the external air was too cold; and I was fain to betake myself to that last resort of the absolutely idle—a mechanical movement of the body up and down a given space. And, from the alcove where I walked, I heard the ticking of the timepiece; and, as I passed the window, I saw the hands advance; every time I had returned, they had gone a little farther. "Threescore years and ten," said I to myself; "and a third or fourth of it is nature's claim for indispensable repose—and many a day consumed on the bed of sickness—and many a year by the infirmities of age—and some part of all necessarily sacrificed to the recruiting of the health by exercise. And what do we with the rest?" Nothing answered me but the ticking of the clock, of which the hands were traversing between eight and nine. They had nearly met, at the appointed hour, when the party began to assemble within; and each one commenced, for aught I could discover, the functions of the day, for neither their appearance nor their remarks gave any intimation that they had been previously employed. One, indeed, declared the weather made her so idle she had scarcely found strength to dress herself; another confessed he had passed an additional hour in bed, because the day promised him so little to do up. One by one, as they dropped in, the seats at the breakfast-table were filled; and, as a single newspaper was all the apparent means of mental occupation, I anticipated some interesting conversation.
I waited and I watched. One ran the point of his fork into the table-cloth; another balanced her spoon on the tea-cup; a third told backwards and forwards the rings on her fingers, as duly as a friar tells his beads. As such actions sometimes are the symptoms of mental occupation, I began to anticipate the brilliant results of so much thinking. I cried, hem! in hopes to rouse them to expression—and not quite unsuccessfully: for one remarked, it was a wretched day; another wished it was fine; and a third hoped it shortly would be so. Meantime, the index of the clock went round; it was gaining close upon ten before all had withdrawn from the table. My eye followed one to the window-place; where, with her back to the wall, and her eyes fixed without, she passed a full half hour in gazing at the prospect without, or wishing, perhaps, the mist did not prevent her seeing it. A very young lady was so busy in pulling the dead leaves from a geranium, and crumbling them in her fingers, I could not doubt but some important purpose was in the task. A third resumed the newspaper he had read for a whole hour before, and betook himself, at last, to the advertisements. A fourth repaired to the alcove, gathered some flowers, picked them to pieces, threw them away again, and returned. "Cease thy prating, thou never-resting time-piece!" said I to myself, "for no one heeds thy tale. What is it to us that each one of thy tickings cuts a link from our brief chain of life? Time is the gift of Heaven, but man has no use for it!"
I had scarcely thought out the melancholy reflection, when a young lady entered with an elegant work-box, red without and blue within, and filled with manifold conveniences for the pursuance of her art. Glad was I most truly at the sight. By the use of the needle, the naked may be clothed; ingenuity may economize her means, and have more to spare for those who need it; invention may multiply the ways of honest subsistence, and direct the ignorant to the use of them. Most glad was I, therefore, that the signal of industry drew more than one wanderer to the same pursuit, though not till much time had been consumed in going in and out, and up and down, in search of the materials. All were found at last; the party worked, and I, as usual, listened. "I think this trimming," said one, "will repay me for my trouble, though it has cost me three months' work already, and it will be three months more before it is finished." "Indeed!" rejoined her friend; "I wish I were half as industrious; but I have been working six weeks at this handkerchief, and have not had time to finish it: now the fashion is passed, and I shall not go on." "How beautifully you are weaving that necklace! Is it not very tedious?" "Yes, almost endless; but I delight in the work, otherwise I should not do it, for the beads cost almost as much as I could buy it for." "I should like to begin one this morning," interposed a fourth, "but the milliner has sent home my bonnet so ill-trimmed, it will take me all the day to alter it: the bow is on the wrong side, and the trimming on the edge is too broad. It is very tiresome to spend all one's life in altering things we pay so much for." "I wish," said a little girl at the end of the table, "that I might work some trimmings for my frock, but I am obliged to do this plain work first. The poor lame girl in the village, who is almost starving, would do it for me for a shilling, but I must save my allowance this week to buy a French trinket I have taken a fancy to." "Poor thing! she is much to be pitied," said the lady of the trimming; "if I had time, I would make her some clothes."
And so they worked, and so they talked, till I and the time-piece had counted many an hour which they took no account of, when one of them yawned, and said, "How tedious are these wet days; it is really impossible to spin out one's time without a walk." "I am surprised you find it so," rejoined the lady of the beads; "I can rarely take time for walking, though keeping the house makes me miserably languid."
And so the morning passed. It was nearly two o'clock, and the company dispersed to their apartments. I pretend not to know what they did there; but each one returned between three and four in an altered dress. And then half an hour elapsed, in which, as I understood from their impatience, they were waiting for dinner; each in turn complaining of the waste of time occasioned by its delay, and the little use it would be to go about any thing when it was so near. And as soon as dinner was over, they began to wait for tea with exactly the same complainings. And the tea came, and, cheered by the vivifying draught, one did repair to the instrument, and began a tune; one did take up a pencil, and prepare to draw; and one almost opened a book. But, alas! the shades of night were growing fast:—ten minutes had scarcely elapsed, before each one resigned her occupation, with a murmur at the darkness of the weather; and, though some persons suggested that there were such things as lamps and candles, it was agreed to be a pity to have lights so early in the midst of summer, and so another half hour escaped.
The lights, when they came, would have failed to relumine an expectation in my bosom, had not their beams disclosed the forms of various books, which one and another had brought in for the evening's amusement. Again I watched and again I listened. "I wish I had something to do, mamma," said the little girl. "Why do you not take a book, and read?" rejoined her mother. "My books are all up stairs," she replied; "and it is so near bedtime, it is not worth while to bring them down." "This is the best novel I ever read," said a lady, somewhat older, turning the leaves over so very fast, that those who are not used to this manner of reading, might suppose she found nothing in it worthy of attention. "I dare say it is," said another, whose eyes had been fixed for half an hour on the same page of Wordsworth's Poems; "but I have no time to read novels." "I wish I had time to read any thing," said a third, whom I had observed already to have been perusing attentively the title-page of every book on the table, publisher's name, date, and all; while a fourth was too intensely engaged in studying the blue cover of a magazine, to make any remark whatever.
And now I was much amused to perceive with what frequency eyes were turned upon the dial-plate, through all the day so little regarded. Watches were drawn out, compared, and pronounced too slow. With some difficulty, one was found that had outrun its fellows, and, determined to be right, gave permission to the company to disperse, little more than twelve hours from the time of their assembling, to recover, as I supposed, during the other twelve, dressing and undressing included, the effect of their mental and bodily exertions.
"So!" I exclaimed, as soon as I found myself alone, "twelve times round yonder dial-plate those little hands have stolen, and twelve times more they may now go round unheeded. They who are gone to rest, have a day less to live, and record has been made in heaven of that day's use. Will He who gave, ask no reckoning for his gifts? The time, the thoughts, the talents; the improvement we might have made, and made not; the good we might have done, and did not; the health, and strength, and intellect, that may not be our's to-morrow, and have not been used to-day; will not conscience whisper of it ere they sleep to-night? The days of man were shortened upon earth by reason of the wickedness the Creator saw. Threescore years and ten are now his portion, and often not half the number. They pause not; they loiter not: the hours strike on, and they may even go, for it seems they are all too much."
The young, with minds as yet unstored, full of error, full of ignorance in all that it behooves them most to know, unfit alike as yet for earth or heaven—the old, whose sum of life is almost told, and but a brief space remaining to repair their mistakes and redeem the time they have lost—the simple and ungifted, who, having from nature but little, need the more assiduity to fulfill their measure of usefulness, and make that little do the most it may—the clever and highly talented, who have an almost appalling account to render for the much received—they all have time to waste. But let them remember, time is not their own; not a moment of it; but is the grant of Heaven; and Heaven gives nothing without a purpose and an end. Every hour that is wasted, fails of that purpose; and in so far as it is wasted or ill-spent, the gift of Heaven is misused, and the misuse is to be answered for. Methinks I would be allowed to whisper nightly in the ears of my young friends as they lie down to rest, "How many minutes have you lost to-day, that might have been employed in your own improvement, in our Maker's service, or for your fellow-creature's good?"
