Whomsoever he meets he stays with idle questions, and lingering
discourse; how the days are lengthened, how kindly the weather is, how
false the clock, how forward the spring, and ends ever with, What shall
we do? It pleases him no less to hinder others than not to work himself.
When all the people are gone from church, he is left sleeping in his
seat alone. He enters bonds, and forfeits them by forgetting the day;
and asks his neighbour when his own field was fallowed, whether the next
piece of ground belong not to himself. His care is either none or too
late. When winter is come, after some sharp visitations, he looks on his
pile of wood, and asks how much was cropped the last spring. Necessity
drives him to every action, and what he cannot avoid he will yet defer.
Every change troubles him, although to the better, and his dulness
counterfeits a kind of contentment. When he is warned on a jury, he had
rather pay the mulct than appear. All but that which Nature will not
permit he doth by a deputy, and counts it troublesome to do nothing, but
to do anything yet more. He is witty in nothing but framing excuses to
sit still, which if the occasion yield not he coineth with ease. There
is no work that is not either dangerous or thankless, and whereof he
foresees not the inconvenience and gainlessness before he enters; which
if it be verified in event, his next idleness hath found a reason to
patronize it. He had rather freeze than fetch wood, and chooses rather
to steal than work; to beg than take pains to steal, and in many things
to want than beg.
Pages:
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178