Perhaps you are wondering who exactly I mean by the ‘busy’? There is no reason to assume I mean only those whom the dogs have dragged down to their level, those crowded by admirers or haters who are always envious of others, those who are torn between domesticity and commerce, or those whom the judge’s gavel keeps occupied in gaining notoriety that will slowly eat away at them.

Even the leisured man is busy; in his mansion or on his couch, alone, withdrawn from the world where the only source of worry is himself. Truly, such people are not living in leisure but are busy being idle.

Would you call a man obsessing over the purity of his gold at leisure? Who sits in a public arena watching a fight? Who divides his mules into pairs determined by age and color? Who decides which athletes eats last?

What would you say of those men who waste time getting their hair cut once week, debating how each lock should appear, while every stray strand is drawn from one side to the other over his forehead?

How angry they get if the barber makes a mistake, as if he were shearing a man! How they become enflamed if any of their mane is cropped unevenly, if the right ringlets do not fall into place just so!

Which of these fops would care more if his country was in disarray than his hair? Who is not more worried about having his head look good rather than it be safe?

Who would not prefer to be well-groomed rather than well-mannered? Would you call such an image-obsessed person at leisure?

And what about those who are busy in composing, hearing and reciting songs, modulating the voice nature gave them to suit the current music trend, busy snapping their fingers to the beat, or humming a solemn tune which is supposed to sound sad?

They have no leisure. They too are busy doing nothing.

And the parties they throw, ye gods! How carefully they place the silver, how splendidly attired are their handsome slave-boys, how they gorge on fatty wild boar and rich game birds, at what speed do their slick attractive servants tend to people’s needs, how deftly are the plump offerings carved into delectable slices, how discreetly do the liveried boys wipe the drool from the mouths of the inebriated.

This is how they live the good life, but their evil side is ever present and they can neither eat nor drink without such conspicuous consumption.

These types are not so much the leisured class as the ‘littered class’ – hand-carried from one inconsequential meeting to the next in a cushioned chair and litter, and always perfectly punctual for their pampered voyage about town - as if it were against the law to miss an appointment. They must be reminded when to bathe, when to swim, when to dine; so cushy are their lives that their diseased minds are incapable of prompting them to eat!

I hear that a certain member of this ‘littered’ class when raised by hand from his bath-tub and settled into his throne asked: “Am I sitting down now?”

Do you think this same fellow knows whether he is alive or dead? It’s hard to say if I pity him more if he was fully aware of his existence, or if he was just faking it. 

They truly forget so much, but they also feign obliviousness too. Expensive vices fuel their blissful ignorance. Such a life of luxurious despair is beneath human dignity. All these people do is provide material for mimes to mock them with.

Truly, they take more than they give, and indulge in such an incredible multitude of vices these days, in this aspect alone are they truly talented, that at this point we can say that even the most accurate and uproarious mimes are not really doing their antics justice.

Incredible. A man so lost in luxury that he must trust another man’s word to verify whether he is sitting down!

Such a man is thus not at leisure and a different term is required. Like a patient who has passed on, he has ceased to live, but is unaware that he is dead. A man who is half-alive, who needs someone to tell him the current posture of his own body, how can he be the master of his time?