“An essay.”
“On what?”
“The Value of Idleness.”
“You’ll do that well,” said he, and he told the gardener to take up to the mill all that I required.
So here am I, writing the Value of Idleness in the little oak-beamed loft of an old mill.
To do nothing is to be receptive of everything. Idleness of the body alone will serve you not at all. It is only when the mind—but to follow the mood, to understand the drift of this philosophy of idleness, you must see, as I see it, this old white mill in which I sit and write.
Last night, as we walked out in the garden, the moon was in her chariot, whirling in a mad race through the heavens. In and out of a thousand clouds she rode recklessly.
She carries news, thought I, and were she the daughter of Nimshi, she could not drive more furiously.
And there, under her shifting light, with great arms raised appealingly into the wind, stood the old wind-mill, just at the end of the little red-brick path which runs through an avenue of gnarled apple trees.