Preoccupation

“ Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know. ”

“ Let them remember that a time of distress is a time of dreadful temptation, and all the strength to resist is taken away; poverty presses, the soul is made desperate by distress, and what can be done? ”

“ What contribution have you or I given to human comfort or progress? Our days have been spent in vanity, emptiness, self-indulgence, and waste of good time. Each one of these poor girls in a single day has rendered up a nobler tale of work than you or I in ten years. ”

“ Here is where the sufferer must exert his will power, change completely his mental and physical habits and his surroundings. Occupation, changed habits, taking in of confidence, faith and courage thoughts—these changes are necessary to the victim of melancholia, or he will shatter on the danger rocks and go to pieces. ”

“ Our terrour in time improves into caution, and we learn to look round with vigilance and solicitude, to stop all the avenues at which misery can enter, and to perform or endure many things in themselves toilsome and unpleasing, because we know by reason, or by experience, that our labour will be overbalanced by the reward, that it will either procure some positive good, or avert some evil greater than itself. ”

“ Call upon men to make useless things, or things which you mean wantonly to destroy the day after to-morrow, or to which by the conditions you tolerate you make a fair length of life impossible—call upon labour to do those things, and you are either filling its spirit with misery and depression, or you are making it, in self-defence, callous and hard. ”

“ Royce, Studies of Good and Evil, 14, in discussing the Problem of Job, suggests the following solution: “When you suffer, your sufferings are God's sufferings, not his external work, not his external penalty, not the fruit of his neglect, but identically his own personal woe. ”

“ It has been prepared in weakness of body and in suffering, which have been to some extent relieved by the mental occupation thus afforded, but which may have nevertheless left their impress on the work. ”

“ In such cases the discontented, careworn look is by no means a certain indication of corresponding suffering, but there are too many others in which tempers that should have been generous, and faces that should have been noble, and aims that should have been high, are blurred and blunted by the real weight of real everyday care. ”

“ Surely, a fearful responsibility rested somewhere,—a stern necessity was laid on some one to cry put against the wickedness. If the strong ones were silent it might be because their experience had not been like her own. ”

“ You, perhaps, may say, that you endure the cares and anxieties inseparable from your state of life: that solicitude for the present and future well-being of yourselves and families embitters your days: that you labour from morning till night, and that, in spite of all your endeavours, you are frequently the victims of want, of wretchedness, of infirmities, and of other numberless evils. ”

“ We have the sensation now of being under rebuke, and of having to suffer for some time to come, after many years of welfare which seemed to have grown into a confirmed habit of prosperity. The sensation is very painful. ”

“ We requested them to give us a full and free expression of their feelings concerning the season's labors, to tell us all the causes of discouragement if there were any, and also the causes of encouragement, and those that I have already alluded to were the principal ones given. There have been in some instances indolence, carelessness and indisposition to work, and an inclination manifested to throw the labor upon those who are industrious and energetic. ”

“ What energies a difficult crisis called forth! How her spirit and self-possession bore up in the midst of danger and insult, and how she contrived to preserve her dignity even while compelled to make the most humiliating concessions! ”

“ The habit of self-control which I had early acquired, enabled me, however, to struggle against such feelings of sorrowful, hopeless despondency, and I would rouse myself, seeking constant, unceasing occupation in my daily duties, that I might strengthen my fainting spirit. ”

“ When and where the career of these germs of being, starting from points so wide asunder, are to meet, and how the balances of good and evil, of suffering and enjoyment of sinning and retribution, are to be adjusted at last? ”

“ Then when I considered the duties of the profession, and firmly determined to carry out all these duties, I also saw the degenerate condition of youth, and the many wrongs of this world by which adults spoil and distress youth. ”

“ How many precautions, what excessive labour, what endless solicitude, has he not been compelled to employ in this continued struggle; how many embarrassments, how many cares, has he not experienced in this eternal wrestling with his associates, whose penetration he dreads, whose scorn he fears will follow a true knowledge of his pursuits. Demand of him what he thinks of himself, he will shrink from the question. ”

“ We have, of course, a class of nervous invalids, whose condition is the result of the strain of business and pleasure; but another, and much larger class, whose condition is due to ignorance, misfortune and actual hardship. ”

“ But when they have succeeded in their object, they march steadily homeward, with a preoccupied demeanour, taking no notice of passing events, and being apparently absorbed in the one task of depositing their burden in its proper place. ”

“ If we consider it under its special, particular form, as peculiar to a given individual carrying on a given occupation and having given habits of life—an artisan, a labourer, a tradesman, a lawyer, a physician, etc.—the disturbed balance will appear to us as setting its mark on the individual’s professional activity and its products. The artisan will pass from a fury of work to excesses of idleness or drink ”

“ Thus that nervous anxiety to hastily repair broken fortunes, and to prevent still greater ruin and distress, embraces nearly all classes, and imprints upon all the movements of the social body a morbid character. ”

“ In such a crisis, two facts are prominent: the unusual range of activity offered to the individual—may he not traverse the whole scale of experience?—and the dependence of the individual upon himself. ”

“ Counter habit, taken on usually from their first conscious thoughts, will motivate them to sip of this and that; to plan for variety of employment without regard for bread-winning results and their social rehabilitation. ”

“ Are we the slaves of appetite? Here is the place for learning the art of self-government. Are we fretful? Here we may learn patience: for a great fund of patience is often demanded; and the more so as we are apt, here, to be off our guard, and to yield to our unhappy feelings. ”

“ Thus, in the ordinary affairs of life, difficulties which threaten to impede our progress when viewed in long perspective, and from which the faint-hearted turn back in despair, when fairly encountered and grappled with, may often be overcome with half the labour and pain we contemplated. ”

“ The severest training and self-denial,—a superiority to the servitude of indulgence,—are the indispensable conditions even of genial spirits, of unclouded energies, of tempers free from morbidness,—much more of the practised and vigorous mind, ready at every call, and thoroughly furnished unto all good works. ”

“ Do it for your own sakes; for proper employment will diffuse serenity over the anxious faces you are too apt to see. Do not fancy that the conventions of society can ever prevail over the will, it may be the freak, of Nature. ”

“ My health is seldom impaired, though my feelings are wounded every day by such circumstances as I have frequently related—so that I have a mixture of pleasure and pain in the exercise of my profession, which I ardently wish I may soon have an honorable opportunity of changing for some silent, sweet domestic occupation. ”

“ The uncertainty and vanity of human pursuits have for ever been a subject of remark.
And, if we examine the motives of human conduct and see the fallacious objects of human hope, we always perceive the constant attendance of pain, misery, and woe. ”

“ If you must overwork,—and there are such cases, though they are not so common as we think,—accept the condition as a part of the discipline of life, rest whenever you can, and say and think as little about it as you can. ”

“ A considerable portion of this numerous class, not less perhaps than a fourth of the whole, are subject to gusts of passion and violence, or are addicted to disgusting propensities, which render them unfit to remain in the workhouse.... ”

“ One secret of the happiness of some occupations is, perhaps, that they lift one away from petty cares and petty spites, without trying the brain or strength unduly, as some other kinds of mental labour must do. ”

“ Obedience, discipline, respect for authority and traditions, consideration for others, fear of punishment, fear of consequences, fear of God,—these great check-weights to self-interest, self-seeking, have lost in weight and substance to such an extent that they no longer turn the scales and point the way. If our diagnosis is on the whole correct, we have finished with the first part of the problem. ”

“ The extent and reality of the distress they suffer, the impossibility of expecting such masses of people to be eternally patient and forbearing, to restrain all their natural impulses, and endure tamely severe privations when they are encouraged and stimulated to do otherwise, and are thus accessible to every sort of internal and external temptation,—all these considerations may well beget a serious presentiment of danger. ”

“ Those who have spent their youth in criminal excesses, and have prepared for themselves, as the comforts of their age, corporal debility, and mental remorse, may well inveigh against such pleasures as vain and futile, and unproductive of lasting satisfaction. ”

“ In action? By being idle ? — slow or impatient about my work ? Have I not been in evil or dangerous company ? Done any immodest action ? Been too free in my manners ? Been rude, cross, or disobedient towards my parents or superiors ? Been unkind, insolent, malicious, cruel or unjust towards my neighbor ? ”

“ In proportion as they grow hardened in their business, and as the habit of unjust and rapid gains develops low instincts and ferocious ambitions, the expression of their face softens, or, rather, becomes neutralized. ”

“ We should strive to fill each moment with as little sacrifice or subordination, as mere means or conditions to the future, as possible, for fear of affectation and insincerity. But yet the hardier and sounder the nature, the more we may address training to barely nascent intuitions, with a less ingredient of immediate satisfaction, and the deeper the higher element Of interest will be grounded in the end. ”

“ Consequently he neglected many of his life’s duties, either in regard to social work or to the ordinary daily tasks. If he wishes to be well, he must return to the fulfilment of his particular obligations. ”

“ Thousands and hundreds of thousands of men and women have hard work, mental strain, fret and anxiety, daily, and for years together;—indeed, scarcely do anything to lighten the tension in this direction. ”

“ Such men found high and low stations equally unable to satisfy the wishes of a distempered mind, and were unable to shelter themselves in the closest retreat from disappointment, solicitude, and misery. ”

“ Diminished inclination for work, an insanely increased demand for the luxuries of life, the accepted ideas of morality shaken to their foundations by scandalous examples of triumphant vice and villainy—these were the blessings that remained after the so-called impetus following on the "Downfall." ”

“ I have seen many a character faltering under the constant petty care of how to live, which stood firm like a rock under the storm of a quaking world, therefore I should not be surprised to find yet some few joining in those attacks, as I have neither means nor time to care for the wants of individuals, not even of my own children. ”

“ Returning from their silences, these torture-quickened youths found work to do—work that people could not understand. The people invariably thought there must be a trick about the giving—that the eager one wanted hidden results for self.... ”

“ And perhaps your children are sickly, and rob you of rest by night, or your health is so poor that you feel no energy, or spirits to make exertions. And perhaps you never have had any training in domestic affairs, and cannot understand how to work yourself, nor how to direct others. ”