Thomas More to Peter Giles, sendeth greeting:
Only to write plainly the matter as I heard it spoken; that indeed
was a thing light and easy to be done. Howbeit to the dispatching
of this so little business, my other cares and troubles did leave almost
less than no leisure. While I do daily bestow my time about law matters;
some to plead, some to hear, some as an arbitrator with mine award to determine,
some as an umpire or a judge, with my sentence to discuss. Whiles
I go one way to see and visit my friend; another way about mine own private
affairs. Whiles I spend almost all the day abroad among others, and
the residue at home among mine own, I leave to myself, I mean to my book,
no time. For when I am come home, I must commune with my wife, chat
with my children, and talk with my servants. All the which things,
I reckon and account among business, forasmuch as they must of necessity
be done; and done must they needs be, unless a man will be a stranger in
his own house. And in any wise a man must so fashion and order his
condition, and so appoint and dispose himself, that he be merry, jocund
and pleasant among them, whom either nature hath provided, or chance hath
made, or he himself hath chosen, to be the fellows and companions of his
life; so that with too much gentle behavior and familiarity, he do not
mar them, and by too much sufferance of his servants, maketh them his masters.
Among these things now rehearsed stealeth away the day, the month, the
year, [sic] When do I write, then? And all this while, have
I spoken no word of sleep, neither yet of meat, which among a great number
doth waste no less time than doth sleep, wherein almost half the lifetime
of man creepeth away. I therefore do win and get only that time which
I steal from sleep and meat. Which time, because it is very little,
and yet somewhat it is, therefore have I once at the last, though it be
long first, finished Utopia; and have sent it to you, friend Giles, to
read and peruse."
Source: Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History. Vol. 1, no. 1 (1902).
Entered by Ronald
Schechter