REVEALS—
ITSELF—
GRADUALLY.
The sloth is an admirable creature in many respects. Chiefly, he has a glorious gift of inaction—a thing too little esteemed and insufficiently cultivated in these times. If it is sweet to do nothing, as we have it on the unimpeachable authority of a proverb, therefore it must be actually noble to do nothing on scientific principles, as does the sloth. The objectionably moral and energetic class of philosopher is always ready to enlist the ant, the bee, and similarly absurdly busy creatures as practical sermons on his side; and that the indolent philosopher has never retaliated with the sloth is due merely to the fact that he is indolent, practically as well as theoretically. Yet the sloth has well-esteemed relations. Consider other proverbs. "Sloth," says one, "is the mother of necessity." Then another. "Necessity," says this second, "is the mother of invention." Whence it plainly follows that sloth is invention's grandmother—although nobody would think it to look at the sloth here, in house number forty-seven.
"WOT? NOT A COPPER?"
Now there are persons who attempt to deprive the sloth of the credit due to his laziness by explaining that his limbs are not adapted for use on the ground. This is a fact, although it is mean to use it to discredit so fine a reputation. The sloth is indeed a deal more active when he is hanging upside down by his toes—but then that is all a part of his system, since it is plain that his greatest state of activity is merely one of suspended animation. It is only when he is in a state of suspense that the sloth is really happy, and this is only one aspect of the topsy-turviness of his entire nature. Hanging horizontally, head and tail downward, is his normal position in society, and this is apt to lead to a belief among the unthinking that he must have lived long in Australia and there become thoroughly used to holding on to the world in his usual attitude; but his actual home is Central and South America—not altogether "down under" but merely on the slope.