Gentleman of leisure

“ Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. ”

“ There is a striking parallelism, if not rather a substantial identity of motive, between the consumption which goes to the service of an anthropomorphic divinity and that which goes to the service of a gentleman of leisure—a chieftain or patriarch—in the upper class of society during the barbarian culture. ”

“ He should find some means of putting in evidence the leisure that is not spent in the sight of the spectators. This can be done only indirectly, through the exhibition of some tangible, lasting results of the leisure so spent—in a manner analogous to the familiar exhibition of tangible, lasting products of the labour performed for the gentleman of leisure by handicraftsmen and servants in his employ. ”

“ This growth of punctilious discrimination as to qualitative excellence in eating, drinking, etc. presently affects not only the manner of life, but also the training and intellectual activity of the gentleman of leisure. He is no longer simply the successful, aggressive male,—the man of strength, resource, and intrepidity. ”

“ It is worth while to remark that all that class of ceremonial observances which are classed under the general head of manners hold a more important place in the esteem of men during the stage of culture at which conspicuous leisure has the greatest vogue as a mark of reputability, than at later stages of the cultural development. The barbarian of the quasi-peaceable stage of industry is notoriously a more high-bred gentleman, in all that concerns decorum, than any but the very exquisite among the men of a later age. ”

“ In all grades and walks of life, and at any stage of the economic development, the leisure of the lady and of the lackey differs from the leisure of the gentleman in his own right in that it is an occupation of an ostensibly laborious kind. ”

“ This cultivation of the aesthetic faculty requires time and application, and the demands made upon the gentleman in this direction therefore tend to change his life of leisure into a more or less arduous application to the business of learning how to live a life of ostensible leisure in a becoming way. ”

“ A very industrious man, and setting, like all highly organized men, a high value on his time, he seemed the only man of leisure in town, always ready for any excursion that promised well, or for conversation prolonged into late hours. ”

“ My purpose is to provide for the leisure hours which must come to the busiest among us—no matter where we live or what sphere of life we occupy—an elevating source of enjoyment, which is at the same time calculated to strengthen those emotions that have so much influence in perpetuating a common love of country. ”

“ They are people of leisure, and, after their manner, of pleasure. How they swarm in the cafés in the Gate of the Sun—where they keep up the Moorish custom of calling waiters by two claps of the hands—or on the one great thoroughfare, Calle de Alcalá, or in the bull-ring of a Sunday! They are never at rest, yet never altogether active. They never sleep, or, if they do, others take their places in the public resorts. ”

“ But much of the services classed as household cares in modern everyday life, and many of the "utilities" required for a comfortable existence by civilised man, are of a ceremonial character. They are, therefore, properly to be classed as a performance of leisure in the sense in which the term is here used. ”

“ The only thing that cannot be denied these poor beasts of burden is their "vacation," as they call it, this ideal of leisure amid an overstrained century, where we may for once be idle, idiotic, and childish to our heart's content. ”

“ In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes. ”

“ So far as he is a servant in the full sense, and not at the same time a member of a lower order of the leisure class proper, his leisure normally passes under the guise of specialised service directed to the furtherance of his master's fulness of life. ”

“ I git tired o' sittin' around the hotel, doin' nuthin' but readin' the papers and trying to be what they call a gent of leisure. I was brought up on hard work, and outdoor life, and I just have to git back to it onct in a while. ”

“ All the conditions and circumstances, the ability to command leisure, the very climate itself, promoted hospitality, generosity, open-handedness, and that fine spirit of lavishness that seeks at any cost to give pleasure to others. ”

“ But we already have a considerable and increasing number of people who can command their own time if we have not a leisure class, and the sociologist might begin to study the effect of this leisureliness upon society. Are the people who, by reason of a competence or other accidents of good-fortune, have most leisure, becoming more agreeable? and are they devoting themselves to the elevation of the social tone, or to the improvement of our literature? ”

“ We may regret the loss of society; but, alas! what was the society of a crowd of visiters who regarded us merely as the keepers of a place of public resort, and whom we visited with similar sensations? If we formerly could command leisure to cultivate our minds and acquire polite accomplishments, did we, in reality, apply much leisure to these purposes, and is not our time now filled more to our satisfaction by employments of which we cannot doubt the usefulness? not to say that the moral virtues we are now called upon to exercise afford the truest cultivation to our minds. ”

“ People are always saying to themselves, “I would do this, and I would do that, if I had leisure.” Now, there is no condition in which the chance of doing any good is less than in the condition of leisure. ”

“ Of course not all, nor the majority, have those scientific, artistic, literary, or scholarly interests which make leisure the one thing valuable to their possessors. Many look upon the last half of life chiefly as a period for enjoyment of other sorts; for travel, for social relaxation in the company of their life-time friends; a time for the cultivation of all manner of personal idiosyncrasies and special tastes, and the pursuit of every imaginable form of recreation ”

“ What shall he, or rather, what can he, do with his leisure? For leisure more or less almost every young man has,—and it is of young men, and especially of the very young men, that we are benevolently writing. ”

“ And now, by force of money, having got rid of the sea and land beggars, you are at liberty to examine at your leisure the wonders of the place. There is not the least need for a guide to attend the stranger, unless the latter have a mind to listen to a parcel of legends, which may be well from the mouth of a wild simple peasant who believes in his tales, but are odious from a dullard who narrates them at the rate of sixpence a lie. Fee him and the other beggars, and at last you are left tranquil to look at the strange scene with your own eyes, and enjoy your own thoughts at leisure. ”

“ Methinks I hear some of you say, Must a Man afford himself no Leisure? I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor Richard says, Employ thy Time well, if thou meanest to gain Leisure; and, since thou are not sure of a Minute, throw not away an Hour. ”

“ But if one does not stay while staying, better let him go where he is [125] gone the while. One enjoys a visitor who has much leisure in him, in her especially,—likes to take his friends by sips sweetly, not at hasty draughts, as they were froth and would effervesce forthwith and subside. ”

“ The latter-day leisure-class festivities and entertainments may continue in some slight degree to serve the religious need and in a higher degree the needs of recreation and conviviality, but they also serve an invidious purpose ”

“ It is, therefore, in great part, to be classed as a vicarious leisure performed for the supernatural powers with whom negotiations are carried on and whose good-will the service and the professions of subservience are conceived to procure. ”

“ Since, then, leisure is the flower, or rather the fruit, of existence, as it puts a man into possession of himself, those are happy indeed who possess something real in themselves. But what do you get from most people's leisure?—only a good-for-nothing fellow, who is terribly bored and a burden to himself. ”

“ It was therefore a very natural point of old feudal etiquette, that a gentleman who received a visit, though it were of his sovereign, should not leave his roof, but should wait his arrival at the door of his house. No house, though it were the Thuilleries, or the Escurial, is good for anything without a master. And yet we are not often gratified by this hospitality. Every body we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. ”

“ It is, indeed, complimentary to feel that we are, in all the easy indolence of leisure, enjoying the hours of one whose minutes are valued as guineas; our own value insensibly rises at the thought, and we associate ourselves in our estimate of the great man. ”

“ The results of leisure activity are two sorts of human excellence or perfection: those private excellences by which a man perfects his own nature and those public excellences which can be translated into the performance of his moral or political duty—the excellence of a man in relation to other men and to society. Hence I would define leisure activities as those activities desirable for their own sake (and so uncompensated and not compulsory) and also for the sake of the excellencies, private and public, to which they give rise. ”

“ And I may say that as to that leisure, as I should in no case do any harm to any one with it, so I should often do some direct good to the community with it, by practising arts or occupations for my hands or brain which would give pleasure to many of the citizens; in other words, a great deal of the best work done would be done in the leisure time of men relieved from any anxiety as to their livelihood, and eager to exercise their special talent, as all men, nay, all animals are. ”

“ The third is some form of work which justifies our existence to our own country and makes us good citizens. The fourth thing is some degree of leisure and the use of it in some way that makes us happy. To succeed in making a good use of our leisure will not compensate for failure in any one of the other three things to which I have referred, but a reasonable amount of leisure and a [Pg 5] good use of it is an important contribution to a happy life. ”

“ The enjoyment and the bent derived from habitual contemplation of the life, ideals, speculations, and methods of consuming time and goods, in vogue among the leisure class of classical antiquity, for instance, is felt to be "higher," "nobler," "worthier," than what results in these respects from a like familiarity with the everyday life and the knowledge and aspirations of commonplace humanity in a modern community. ”

“ He manages to collect round him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country-seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of all kinds, are at hand. He puts no constraint, either upon his guests or himself, but, in the true spirit of hospitality, provides the means of enjoyment, and leaves every one to partake according to his inclination. ”