e world had toiled for years upon years, as he did not
toil for one week's days successively.... It would not do, except for
short intervals, and it came to me that my best service was to get out
from under. I told him so, and the manliness of his acceptance choked
me. I told him to go away, but to come again later if he mastered
Inertia in part.... It was not all his fault. From somewhere, an income
reached him regularly, a most complete and commanding curse for any boy.

... I do not believe in long vacations. Children turned loose to play
for ten weeks without their tasks, are most miserable creatures at the
end of the first fortnight. They become more at ease as the vacation
period advances, but that is because the husk is thickening, a most
dangerous accretion. The restlessness is less apparent because the body
becomes heavy with play. It all must be worn down again, before the
fitness of faculty can manifest.

If one's body is ill from overexertion, it must rest; if one's mind is
ill from nervousness, stimulation, or from excessive brain activity, it
must rest; but if one's soul is ill, and this is the difference, nothing
but activity will help it, and this activity can only be expressed
through the body and mind. Surplus rest of body or mind is a process of
over-feeding, which is a coarsening and thickening of tissue, which in
its turn causes Inertia, and this word I continually capitalise, for it
is the first devil of the soul.

Before every spiritual illumination, this Inertia, in a measure, must be
overcome. If you could watch the secret life of the great workers of the
world, especially those who have survived the sensuous periods of their
lives, you would find them in an almost incessant activity; that their
sleep is brief and light, though a pure relaxation; that they do not eat
heartily more than once a day; that they reach at times _a great calm_,
another dimension of calm entirely from that which has to do with animal
peace and repletion. It is the peace of intensive production--and the
spectacle of it is best seen when you lift the super from a hive of
bees, the spirit of which animates every moving creature to one
constructive end. That which emanates from this intensity of action is
calm, is harmony, and harmony is rest. A man does not have to sink into
a stupor in order to rest. The hours required for rest have more to do
with the amount of food one takes, and the amount of tissue one tears
down fr