Freshness gives an indescribable flavor to our work, whatever it may be. It does not matter how able a book is, if it has not the charm of originality and spontaneity; if we see in it the marks of great effort or straining for effect, we do not care for it; it does not hold our attention. It is the same with a picture, a statue, a song, or a poem, — a work of any kind. If it lacks originality, we will have none of it. But, if the book, the picture, or the poem is vigorous and spontaneous, if it throbs with life, if it has the freshness and fragrance of new-mown hay, or of flowers just opened, we enjoy it with our whole souls.
The great trouble with many people's work is that it is stale, labored, and heavy. It lacks vitality, vivacity; it bears evidence of a depleted mind and an exhausted body. It is easy to trace the tired feeling which an author has dragged all through the pages of his book. It can be seen in the imperfect combinations of color, the tameness and lack of life in the figures upon the canvas of the worn-out artist. The results of an overworked brain, or a brain that is weakened by vicious living, are all marked with the fatal stamp of inferiority.
It makes all the difference in the world, in results, whether you come to your work every day with all your powers intact, with all your faculties up to the standard; whether you come with the entire man, so that you can fling your whole life into your task, or with only a part of yourself; whether you do your work as a giant or as a pigmy. Most people bring only a small part of themselves to their tasks. They cripple much of their ability by irregular living, bad habits in eating, injurious food, and lack of sleep. They do not come to their tasks every morning whole men; a part of themselves, and often a large part, is somewhere else. They were trying to have a good time. They bring weakness instead of power, indifference and dullness instead of enthusiasm and alertness, to the performance of the most important duties of their lives. The man who comes to his work in the morning unrefreshed, languid, and listless cannot do a good, honest day's work, and, if he drags rotten days into the year, how can he expect a sound career or a successful achievement?
Good work is not entirely a question of will-power, — often this is impaired by a low physical standard. The quality of the work cannot be up to high-water mark when every faculty, every function, and every bit of your ability is affected by your physical and mental condition. You may be sure that your weakness, whatever its cause, will appear in your day's work, whether it is making books or selling them, teaching school or studying, singing or painting, chiseling statues or digging trenches.
Beauty is a child of freshness. No artist with ebbing force, with his mental and physical powers exhausted, can produce any work that will please or live. No worker in art, in literature, or in any field of effort, can greatly benefit the world if he is not in a condition to do strong, fresh work, stamped with the power of his own individuality.
Many writers, artists, and musicians — persons in all walks of life — have wondered at their waning popularity, when those who knew them could see the deterioration in their work, and its cause, in the dropping ideal, the letting down of standards, the failure to keep themselves fresh, vigorous, and strong. A man might as well wonder why his horse, which he has been riding all day, without rest, food, or water, and goading with whip and spur, should lag in speed or not feel as supple, elastic, and fresh in the evening as when he started out in the morning.
What should we think of a great singer who, after a night of dissipation, should work hard all day, go without food, sleep or rest, and yet expect to appear before the public the same evening and achieve a triumph in the most difficult role she had ever attempted? We should surely think she must be insane. We should expect that any woman of ordinary common sense would do everything in her power to keep her physical and mental condition up to the highest point of excellence for such an occasion. We should expect that she would take care to get all the sleep and rest possible, that she would avoid excitement, worry, and every form of mental and physical dissipation which would sap her energies or reduce her vitality, so that she might come to her task with all the freshness, spontaneity, and enthusiasm possible.
This is what we should naturally look for from anyone preparing for any important task. It is fresh faculties — fresh brain, nerve, and muscle cells — that do fresh strong work, work which has the flavor of immortality. When the vitality is low, when the faculties are jaded, when hope has hauled down her flag, and despair and melancholia are in the ascendant, we can produce nothing that will live! There is no immortality in our work. Death is written all over it.
It is a man's duty to keep all his powers up to such a standard that he can fling himself into his task with all the freshness and enthusiasm of which he is capable. Then his work will spell something; his life will have a meaning.
Had one the power to analyze the cause of his non-success, many a failure could see these things standing out all over his career, — insufficient sleep, lack of exercise in the open air, lack of change and recreation, irregularity and want of system in his method of living.
The youth who would get the most out of life, who would reach the highest expression in his work and retain his freshness, vigor, and enthusiasm to the last, must lead a regular life.
The moment there is a falling off in the ideal, or any letting down of standards, a decline in physical or mental force, the deterioration expresses itself at once in everything one does.
Every day's work should be a supreme event in every life. We should come to it as carefully prepared as the prima donna, who is trying to hold the world's supremacy in song, comes before her audience. Then our work would breathe out the vigor and vitality and freshness which we put into it. Then life would be glorified, and the work of the world illuminated, transformed.