ou have restored your
perspective. You have corrected your vision, so that you see things in
their just proportion. One reason why men waste energy so prodigally
is that their intense pursuit of their business makes them lose all
sense of the proportion of things. That which is of little consequence
appears, to the distorted vision, of immense importance; and as much
energy is wasted in trifles as should be expended on great affairs.
This process keeps up until really first-class men are reduced to very
small men.

Let a man go each year to the everlasting mountains; to the solitude
of the ancient forests; to the eternal ocean with its manifestation of
power and repose. Let him sit by its solemn shore listening to it sing
that song which for a million years before our civilization was
thought of it had been singing, and which for a million years after
our civilization has become merely a line in history it will continue
to sing, and he will realize how unimportant are the things which only
a few weeks before seemed to him of such vast moment. Perhaps the
words of the old Khayyam will come to him:

"And fear not lest Existence, closing your
Account and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour."

Or,

"When You and I behind the Veil are passed,
Oh! but the long, long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As the sea's self should heed a pebble cast."

Then you will come back to your work and see things in their proper
dimensions. You will expend your energy on things that require it, and
you will smile at the things that do not deserve your attention, and
pass them by. You will substitute duty for ambition, and you will go
your way with sanity for perhaps ten months. Then you will need again
the elemental lesson of the forest, the mountain, or the sea.

I do not mean that you shall take a vacation until you have deserved
it. What right have you to rest before you have labored--before you
have earned a thread that clothes you or a mouthful that nourishes
you. There are men whose whole lives are a vacation. These words are
not for them. From my viewpoint, such men might as well be dead. The
men upon whom I am urging the wisdom of taking periods for
recuperation are those who have been pulling with the team and keeping
their traces taut. And I assume that you who read are one