How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, and a
host of swell friends that do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha'pence for; with
expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and
ostentation, and with - oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all! - the dread of what will my neighbour think,
with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal's iron crown
of yore, makes to bleed and swoon the aching head that wears it!
It is lumber, man - all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at
the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment's freedom from
anxiety and care, never gain a moment's rest for dreamy laziness - no time to watch the windy shadows
skimming lightly o'er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the
great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies
lilies white and yellow, or the sombre- waving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchis, or the blue forget-menots.
Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely
home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love
you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to
drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so
much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to
work.
(He is not talking about a boat... He is talking about life)
Labels: books, excerpts, life, philosophy
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