| | | | | Perhaps we ought to apologize for using a foreign label, but there is | no one English word which gives the full meaning of | désoeuvrement . | Only paraphrases and accumulations would convey the many subtle shades | contained in it; and paraphrases and accumulations are inconvenient as | headings. But if we have not the word, we have a great deal of the | thing; for désoeuvrement is an evil unfortunately not | confined to one country nor to one class; and even we, | with all our boasted | Anglo-Saxon energy, have people among us as unoccupied and purposeless | as are to be found elsewhere. Certainly we have nothing like the | Neapolitan lazzaroni who pass their lives in dozing in the sun; but | that is more because of our climate than our condition, and if our | désoeuvrés do not doze out of doors, | it by no means follows that | they are wide awake within. | No state is more unfortunate than this listless want of purpose which | has nothing to do, which is interested in nothing, and which has no | serious object in life; and the drifting, aimless temperament, which | merely waits and does not even watch, is the most disastrous that a | man or woman can possess. Feverish energy, wearing itself out on | comparative nothings, is better than the indolence which folds its | hands and makes neither work nor pleasure; and the most microscopic | and restless perception is more healthful than the dull blindness | which goes from Dan to Beersheba, and finds all barren. | If even death itself is only a transmutation of forces ~~ an active and | energizing change ~~ what can we say of this worse than mental death? | How can we characterize a state which is simply stagnation? Not all of | us have our work cut out and laid ready for us to do; very many of us | have to seek for objects of interest and to create our own employment; | and were it not for the energy which makes work by its own force, the | world would still be lying in barbarism, content with the skins of | beasts for clothing and with wild fruits and roots for food. But the | désoeuvrés know nothing of the pleasures of energy; | consequently | none of the luxuries of idleness ~~ only its tedium and monotony. Life | is a dull round to them of alternate vacancy and mechanical routine; a | blank so dead that active pain and positive sorrow would be better for | them than the passionless negation of their existence. They love | nothing; they hope for nothing; they work for nothing; to-morrow will | be as to-day, and to-day is as yesterday was; it is the mere passing | of time which they call living ~~ a moral and mental hybernation broken | up by no springtime waking. | Though by no means confined to women only, this disastrous state is | nevertheless more frequently found with them than with men. It is | comparatively rare that a man ~~ at least an Englishman ~~ | is born with so | little of the activity which characterizes manhood as to rest content | without some kind of object for his life, either in work or in | pleasure, in study or in vice. But many women are satisfied to remain | in an unending désoeuvrement , | a listless supineness that has not | even sufficient active energy to fret at its own dullness. | We see this kind of thing especially in the families of the poorer | class of gentry in the country. If we except the Sunday school and | district visiting, neither of which commends itself as a pleasant | occupation to all minds ~~ both in fact needing a little more active | energy than we find in the purely désoeuvré class ~~ | what is there for | the unmarried daughters of a family to do? There is no question of a | profession for any of them. Ideas travel slowly in country places, and | root themselves still more slowly, even yet; and the idea of woman's | work for ladies is utterly inadmissible by the English gentleman who | can leave a modest sufficiency to his daughters ~~ just enough to live | on in the old house and in the old way, without a margin for luxuries, | but above anything like positive want. There is no possibility then of | an active career in art or literature; of going out as a governess, as | a hospital nurse, or as a Sister. There is only home, with the | possible and not very probable chance of marriage as the vision of | hope in the distant future. And that chance is very small and very | remote; for the simple reason ~~ there is | no-one to marry. | There are the young collegians who come down in reading parties; the | group of Bohemian artists, if the place be picturesque and not too far | from London; the curate; and the new doctor, fresh from the hospitals, | who has to make his practice out of the poorer and more outlying | clientele of the old and established practitioners of the | place. But collegians do not marry, and long engagements are | proverbially | hazardous; Bohemian artists are even less likely than they to trouble | the surrogate; and the curate and the doctor can at the best marry | only one apiece of the many who are waiting. The family keeps neither | carriages nor horses, so that the longest tether to which life can be | carried, with the house for the stake, is simply the three or four | miles which the girls can walk out and back. And the visiting list is | necessarily comprised within this circle. There is then, absolutely | nothing to occupy nor to interest. The whole day is spent in playing | over old music, in needlework, in a little desultory reading, such as | is supplied by the local book society; all without other object than | that of passing the time. The girls have had nothing like a thorough | education in anything; they are not specially gifted, and what brains | they have are dormant and uncultivated. There is not even enough | housework to occupy their time, unless they were to send away the | servants. Besides, domestic work of an active kind is vulgar, and | gentlemen and gentlewomen do not allow their daughters to do it. They | may help in the housekeeping; which means merely giving out the week's | supplies on Monday and ordering the dinner on other days, and which is | not an hour's occupation in the week; and they can do a little amateur | spudding and raking among the flower-beds when the weather is fine, if | they care for the garden; and they can do a great deal of walking if | they are strong; and this is all that they can do. There they are, | four or five well-looking girls perhaps, of marriageable age, fairly | healthy and amiable, and with just so much active power as would carry | them creditably through any work that was given them to do, but with | not enough originative energy to make them create work for themselves | out of nothing. | In their quiet uneventful sphere, with the circumscribed radius and | the short tether, it would be very difficult for any women but those | few who are gifted with unusual energy to create a sufficient human | interest; to ordinary young ladies it is impossible. They can but | make-believe, even if they try ~~ and they don't try. | They can but raise | up shadows which they would fain accept as living creatures if they | give themselves the trouble to evoke anything at all, and they don't | give themselves the trouble. They simply live on from day to day in a | state of mental somnolency ~~ hopeless, désoeuvrées , | inactive; just drifting down the smooth slow current of time, | with not a ripple nor an eddy by the way. | Quiet families in towns, people who keep no society and live in a | self-made desert apart though in the midst of the very vortex of life, | are alike in the matter of désoeuvrement ; and we find | exactly the same history with them as we find with their country | cousins, though | apparently their circumstances are so different. They cannot work and | they may not play; the utmost dissipation allowed them is to look at | the outside of things ~~ to make one of the fringe of spectators lining | the streets and windows on a show day, and this but seldom; or to go | once or twice a year to the theatre or a concert. So they too just | lounge through their life, and pass from girlhood to old age in utter | désoeuvrement and want of object. Year by year the lines | about their eyes deepen, their smile gets sadder, their cheeks grow | paler; while | the cherished secret romance which even the dullest life contains gets | a colour of its own by age, and a firmness of outline by continual | dwelling on, which it had not in the beginning. Perhaps it was a dream | built on a tone, a look, a word ~~ may be it was only a half-evolved | fancy without any basis whatever ~~ but the imagination of the poor | désoeuvrée has clung to the dream, and the uninteresting | dullness of | her life has given it a mock vitality which real activity would have | destroyed. | This want of healthy occupation is the cause of half the hysterical | reveries which it is a pretty flattery to call constancy and an | enduring regret; and we find it as absolutely as that heat follows | from flame, that the mischievous habit of bewailing an irrevocable | past is part of the désoeuvrée condition in the present. | People who have real work to do cannot find time for | unhealthy regrets, and | désoeuvrement is the most fertile source | of sentimentality to be | found. | The désoeuvrée woman of means and middle age, grown | grey in her want of purpose and suddenly taken out of her | accustomed groove, is perhaps | more at sea than any others. She has been so long accustomed to the | daily flow of certain lines that she cannot break new ground and take | up with anything fresh, even if it be only a fresh way of being idle. | Her daughter is married; her husband is dead; her friend who was her | right hand and manager-in-chief has gone away; she is thrown on her | own resources, and her own resources will not carry her through. She | generally falls a prey to her maid, who tyrannizes over her, and a | phlegmatic kind of despair, which darkens the remainder of her life | without destroying it. She loses even her power of enjoyment, and gets | tired before the end of the rubber which is the sole amusement in | which she indulges. For désoeuvrement has that fatal reflex | action which everything bad possesses, and its strength is | in exact ratio with its duration. | Women of this class want taking in hand by the stronger and more | energetic. Many even of those who seem to do pretty well as | independent workers, men and women alike, would be all the better for | being farmed out; and désoeuvrées women | especially want extraneous | guidance, and to be set to such work as they can do, but cannot make. | An establishment which would utilize their faculties, such as they | are, and give them occupation in harmony with their powers, would be a | real salvation to many who would do better if they only knew how, and | would save them from stagnation and apathy. But society does not | recognize the existence of moral rickets, though the physical are | cared for; consequently it has not begun to provide for them as moral | rickets, and no Proudhon has yet managed to utilize the | désoeuvrés members of the State. When they | do find a place of retreat and | adventitious support, it is under another name. | The retired man of business, utterly without object in his new | conditions, is another portrait that meets us in country places. He is | not fit for magisterial business; he cannot hunt nor shoot nor fish; | he has no literary tastes; he cannot create objects of interest for | himself foreign to the whole experience of his life. The idleness | which was so delicious when it was a brief season of rest in the midst | of his high-pressure work, and the country which was like Paradise | when seen in the summer only and at holiday time, make together just | so much blank dullness now that he has bound himself to the one and | fixed himself in the other. When he has spelt over every article in | the Times , pottered about his garden and his stables, and | irritated both gardener and groom by interfering in what he does | not understand, the day's work is at an end. He has nothing | more to do but eat his dinner and sip his wine, | doze over the fire for a couple of hours, and | go to bed as the clock strikes ten. | This is the reality of that long dream of retirement which has been | the golden vision of hope to many a man during the heat and burden of | the day. The dream is only a dream. Retirement means | désoeuvrement ; | leisure is tedium; rest is want of occupation truly, but want of | interest, want of object, want of purpose as well; and the prosperous | man of business, who has retired with a fortune and broken energies, | is bored to death with his prosperity, and wishes himself back to his | desk or his counter ~~ back to business and something to do. | He wonders, | on retrospection, what there was in his activity that was distasteful | to him; and thinks with regret that perhaps, on the whole, it is | better to wear out than to rust out; that | désoeuvrement is a worse state than work at | high pressure; and that life with a purpose is a | nobler thing than one which has nothing in it but idleness: ~~ whereof | the main object is how best to get rid of time.