The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/Spare Moments

by Anna Cora Mowatt

SPARE MOMENTS.

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pare moments are the gold-dust of time!" Like a chime of silver bells those words ring in our ears as we hover about thee, gentle-hearted Mabel,—violet that perfumes all the house!—and watch thee, and marvel at thee, day after day. Marvel at the spirit of accomplishing that seems thy helpful, yet unobtrusive attendant; at the soundless motions of that invisible but inseparable companion, as she walks by thy side, and lends her cunning to thy hands, and infuses her spirit of achieving into thy brain.

Our Mabel is never fussy, never bustling, never hurried. She never flies, with a whirlwind rush, from occupation to occupation, and creates a tornado-like atmosphere around her. She never goes pantingly about, her quickened breath and hastened step giving the impression that she is driven by the whip of some pursuing, inexorable Duty. In short, she never seems oppressively busy. You never hear from her pleasant lips the ejaculation, "so much to do!" as an excuse for neglecting this or that matter which ought to have received attention; or as a reason for refusing a service to a friend; or for declining to aid in some project for the general advantage; or for joining in some harmless amusement; or for allowing herself what she styles "indulgence work"—work for the gratification of taste, belonging rather to the school of fancy than of use. Yet Mabel achieves more than anybody else in her home circle. She plans more, begins more; plenty of us plan and begin, but most of us linger on that threshold, while she finishes, and passes quietly on to new tasks.

Mabel seldom talks of what she means to do, or what she has done. She does not flauntingly thrust her superior industry in the faces of her associates, who, if not positively indolent, yet lack her wonderful faculty of accomplishing. She does not, in the faintest degree, resemble those excitably energetic individuals who are always crying out to their neighbors, (if not in words, quite as audibly by their deeds,) "How idle and useless you are, and how busy and valuable I am! Why do you not take pattern of me?"

Indeed, Mabel would be quite startled if any one suggested, in her presence, that she was a model for others. She is wholly unconscious that her delicate feet are making "footprints in the sands of time," into which other feet may profitably tread.

Occupation does not seem to weary her any more than the lustrous stars are wearied by moving regularly and harmoniously in their appointed cycles; while the dolce far niente of the Italians would be more fatiguing to her than the most uninviting labor.

But it was not this circumstance, strange as the fact appears, which excited our admiration and wonder. The puzzling question is, how comes it that her work always brings forth a richer fruition. than the industry of others? To all appearance, she moves less quickly than some of her companions. Certes, her needle does not fly faster, nor her pen run more fleetly, nor her eyes speed over the pages of a book more rapidly than theirs. Nor are her feet swifter, nor have her hands a more quicksilver motion. Still, when scanning eyes take a silent account of what has been achieved each day, it is always placid, unpretentious Mabel who can show the largest positive results. How and why is this?

For a space that question remained unanswered in our mind. But, watching our sweet Mabel as she glided noiselessly through her day, we plucked the secret out of this mystery. It lay in Mabel's use of her "spare moments," little "odds and ends" of time, intervals between anticipated events, pauses which people generally allow to slip by unfilled, while they are waiting for what is about to happen; the summons to a meal not punctually served; the arrival of a belated friend; the coming of a dilatory carriage; the opening of the mail; the cessation of unwelcome rain; or a hundred similar daily occurrences. It is Mabel's thorough appreciation of the value of time, and the economical employment of these usually neglected, uncounted moments, which enable her thus to surpass others in undertaking largely, and accomplishing proportionately; and have revealed to us the full interpretation of that poetically expressed but practical truth, "Spare moments are the golddust of time."