Anyone who fishes and shoots knows that the joy of
securing a fish or a partridge is entirely out of proportion to any
advantages resulting. A lawyer could make money enough in a single
week to buy the whole contents of a fishmonger's shop, but this
does not give him half the satisfaction which comes from fishing
day after day for a whole week, and securing perhaps three salmon.
The fact is that the old savage mind, which lies behind the
rational and educated mind, is having its fling; it believes itself
to be staving off starvation by its ingenuity and skill, and it
unbends like a loosened bow.
We may be enjoying our work, and we may even take glad refuge in it
to stave off depression, but we are then often adding fuel to the
fire, and tiring the very faculty of resistance, which hardly knows
that it needs resting.
The smallest change of scene, of company, of work may effect a
miraculous improvement when we are feeling low-spirited and
listless. It is not idleness as a rule that we want, but the use of
other faculties and powers and muscles.
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