On Doing Nothing by J.B. Priestley Summary of the essay

अनुक्रम (Contents)

On Doing Nothing by J.B. Priestley Summary | Summary of the essay on doing nothing by J.B. Priestley

On Doing Nothing by J.B. Priestley Summary – J.B. Priestley has been staying with a friend of his, an artist and delightfully lazy fellow at his cottage among the Yorkshire fells. They had been lucky enough to enjoy a spell of really warm weather. Day after day they had set off in the morning. They had taken the nearest moorland path. They had climbed leisurely until they had reached somewhere about two thousand feet above the sea level and had spent long golden afternoons lying flat on their backs doing nothing. The moor land afforded them good many things of pleasure and delight.

Day after day they enjoyed the scenery of the moon. There they did not do any kind of extreme business of professional routine. As a matter of fact they enjoyed the pleasures of doing nothing. They smoked, great quantities of tobacco. They are sandwiches and chocolate and drank the refreshing water of springs and streams Occasionally they exchanged a remark or two. They had no plans to execute. They had no projects to work. They had no serious thoughts in their minds. They had no hopes. They had no cares and no fears of any kind oppressed them. They did not indulge in boasting which is the usual pastime of two friendly males in confidence. Then considered themselves as Gods, occupied in doing nothing, their minds being totally void.

When their hour of idling was done, they came into the world of men and newspaper owners only to discover that they had been denounced for their idleness by an Emporium owner who has also a bit of a public man. He said that he hated laziness more than anything else and considered it to the greatest of sins. He also delivered judgment on persons who wasted time. They were a pleasing spectacle at any time. Unfortunately Mr. Selfridge had probably already made up his mind about the sinfulness of laziness and was not open to conviction.

The author is of opinion that all the evil in this world is brought about by persons who are always up and doing but do not know when they ought to be upon and when doing. The devil is the busiest creature in the universe and is becoming angry at the nothing even for a moment. There are advocates of strenuous life. They maintain that there must be no time wasted. Something must be done. There are politicians and religious preachers who are hammering their brains about political and religious theories. If the present politicians give upon their notions that laziness is a crime and go away and pass their time in doing nothing they would certainly gain something. Similarly the religious sect which hold conferences and spend their time in condemning the length of ladies skirts and noisiness of dance bands are doing no useful work. They would be better employed lying flat on their backs somewhere starting at the sky and recovering their mental health.

The idea that laziness is the primary sin and the accompanying doctrine of strenuous life are very prevalent in America. But curiously enough most of the great American writers have not hesitated to praise idleness and it has been often their faculty for doing nothing and praising it. But every man cannot enjoy the pleasures of doing nothing. He must have reserve to draw upon must be able to plunge into strange slow rivers of dream and reverie must be at heart a poet. Wordsworth knew the value of doing nothing, he were alive today he would tell us that the whole world be better off if it spent every possible moment lying flat on its back on amour doing nothing.

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