No Excuses

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I didn't have time to read for pleasure during term. I have since reconsidered that position, after a well-deserved rebuke from C.S. Lewis. Lewis is developing rather a habit of rebuking me at appropriate moments, and I'm grateful that he doesn't mince words:

"Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes. Periclean Athens leaves us not only the Parthenon but, significantly, the Funeral Oration.

"The insects have chosen a different line: they have sought first the material welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae."

~ "Learning in Wartime"


I'm not planning to devote myself to personal study while my degree goes up in flames, but I do want knowledge and beauty now, and I'll never have them if I'm always holding out for the next holiday. If that means less sleep sometimes, so be it.

This afternoon Joe M. told me the true story of a Harvard student who was called before the Dean for not doing his work. The student explained that he didn't feel well. "Young man," replied Dean Briggs, "Most of the great accomplishments of this world were achieved by people who didn't feel well."