'The Prospect of Doing Nothing'

A reader writes: “Johnson, Montaigne and Burton all idlers - all desert island books - makes sense being idle on an island. Burton was the penultimate idler - Gordon’s companions - idlers? - Pepys was a hard working man but Lamb although a hard worker is a perfect idler - Boswell definitely an idler, Sterne was a busy fellow, however.”

The staccato manner is characteristic of this reader. A bit of unpacking may be necessary: “Gordon’s companions” refers to books I’ve cited several times over the years -- George Stuart Gordon’s Companionable Books (1927) and More Companionable Books (1947). Most of the writers named above are among Gordon’s companions. My reader also included a link to Matthew Wardour’s essay “Reflections of an Idler” in the August issue of New English Review. His model for idleness, of course, is Dr. Johnson.

For the title of his third series of periodical essays Johnson chose The Idler, publishing them in the London weekly Universal Chronicle from 1758 to 1760. Earlier Johnson had written The Rambler (1750-52) and The Adventurer (1752-54) – in total, more than four hundred essays written on deadline, sometimes two a week. While writing The Idler he was also working on his edition of Shakespeare and wrote Rasselas – hardly our picture of idleness.

An idler is not a bum or shirker. He’s not refusing to work or do something productive. On the contrary, he may be quite industrious. He’s a man at ease with himself and is unlikely to take himself seriously. He has many interests and a robust sense of curiosity, but as Johnson says in his first Idler essay, he has “no rivals or enemies.” Consider his opposite: restless, agitated, easily distracted, argumentative, impulsive, never satisfied or grateful, probably meddlesome. He won’t mind his own business. He is forever under self-imposed pressure to fill the time allotted him. Like nature, he abhors a vacuum. Even if he is an adult, he plays games on his smartphone.

The Idler was a stylistic and philosophical advance for Johnson. These essays feel more casual than those in The Rambler series. There’s a newfound gentleness in them, a greater indulgence of human folly, though they remain on occasion satirical. They are conversational, closer in tone to the Johnson we know thanks to Boswell. Wardour describes Johnson’s idler and the rest of his tribe sympathetically:

“[T]he idler is not always held back by his temperament; he also possesses some advantages. Most of all, he is not easily bored. Indeed there are few things more agreeable to him than the prospect of doing nothing, which is why the coronavirus shut-down, and the quieter, slower way of life it necessitates, may be quite agreeable to him (if he is fortunate enough to have the means to enjoy it). He tends to have an unusual tolerance for things others find boring. I, for one, enjoy reading long books, especially those which care less about plot and instead pursue a longer, windier road.”

Thus, Wardour's fondness for Montaigne, Burton & Co. I wonder if Wardour is familiar with Yoshida Kenkō (1284-1350), the Japanese Buddhist monk whose best-known work is Essays in Idleness. He wrote: “To while away the idle hours, seated the livelong day before the ink slab, by jotting down without order or purpose whatever trifling thoughts pass through my mind, truly this is a queer and crazy thing to do!” He means that as an endorsement.