+The sloven and the dude are both slaves; but in different
ways.+--Slovenliness is slavery to the hideous and repulsive.
Fastidiousness is slavery to this or that particular style or fashion.
The freedom and mastery of neatness consists in the ability to make as
attractive as possible just such material as one's means place at his
disposal with the amount of time and effort he can reasonably devote to
them.
THE PENALTY.
+Fastidiousness belittles: slovenliness degrades. Both are
contemptible.+--The man who does not care enough for himself to keep the
dirt off his hands and clothes, when not actually engaged in work that
soils them, cannot complain if other people place no higher estimate
upon him than he by this slovenliness puts upon himself. The woman whose
soul rises and falls the whole distance between ecstasy and despair
with the fit of a glove or the shade of a ribbon must not wonder if
people rate her as of about equal consequence with gloves and ribbons.
These vices make their victims low and petty; and the contempt with
which they are regarded is simply the recognition of the pettiness and
degradation which the vices have begotten.
CHAPTER III.
Exercise.
When the body is well fed and clothed, the next demand is for exercise.
Our powers are given us to be used; and unless they are used they waste
away. Nothing destroys power so surely and completely as disuse. The
only way to keep our powers is to keep them in exercise. We acquire the
power to lift by lifting; to run, by running; to write, by writing; to
talk, by talking; to build houses, by building; to trade, by trading. In
mature life our exercise comes to us chiefly along the lines of our
business, domestic, and social relations. In childhood and youth, before
the pressure of earning a living comes upon us, we must provide for
needed exercise in artificial ways. The play-impulse is nature's
provision for this need. It is by hearty, vigorous play that we first
gain command of those powers on which our future ability to do good work
depends.
THE DUTY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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