Idleness

[...] idleness is not, as is idly supposed, an empty thing. Idleness can be, and should be, a particularly full thing. [...] Idleness, or leisure [...] is indeed our opportunity of seeing the vision of all things, our royal audience for hearing [...] the stories of all created things. In that hour, if we know how to use it, the [tree] tells its story to us, the stone in the road recites its memoirs, the lamp-post and the paling expatriate on their autobiographies. For as the most hideous nightmare in the world is an empty leisure, so the most enduring pleasure is a full leisure. We can defend ourselves, even on the Day of Judgment, if our work has been useless, with pleas of opportunity, competition, and inheritance. But we cannot look either God or devil in the face if our idleness has been useless.

-November 7, 1901, Daily News