The Deadliest of the Sins
The Deadliest of the Sins
(Pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth were classified as “seven deadly sins” by the medieval theologians. Robertson Davies, on receiving his honorary degree at Queen’s University, tells his fellows why he thinks sloth is the deadliest of all the seven. Although this selection is a speech, it requires some effort to make out the speaker’s reasoning.）
1. What shall we talk about, you and I, who are getting our first degrees from Queen’s today?
The problem is a little easier than is usually the case, because we are both going into new jobs. I have been an author for many years, and I intend to go on being one. But being an author isn’t a job – it is a state of mind; also, it is not a gainful occupation except in a rather restricted sense. I have been earning my living as a journalist for twenty years, and now I am giving up that sort of work to take a different sort of job in a university. I shall be very green at it, and I expect I shall do a lot of things the wrong way. Perhaps I shall be a failure, but I have failed at several things already, and somehow I have lived through it. Failure at a specific task is always disagreeable. and sometimes it is humiliating. But there is only one kind of failure that really breaks the spirit, and that is failure in the art of life itself. That is the failure that one does well to fear.
2. What is it like, this failure in the art of life? It is the failure which manifests itself in a loss of interest in really important things. It does not come suddenly, there is nothing dramatic about it, and thus it works with a dreadful advantage; it creeps upon us, and once it has us in its grip, it is hard for us to recognize what ails us. 3. It is not for nothing that this failure was reckoned by medieval theologians as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I suppose you know what they were. Wrath, Gluttony, Envy, Avarice, and Lechery are not very hard to recognize and are perilously easy
(Pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth were classified as “seven deadly sins” by the medieval theologians. Robertson Davies, on receiving his honorary degree at Queen’s University, tells his fellows why he thinks sloth is the deadliest of all the seven. Although this selection is a speech, it requires some effort to make out the speaker’s reasoning.）
1. What shall we talk about, you and I, who are getting our first degrees from Queen’s today?
The problem is a little easier than is usually the case, because we are both going into new jobs. I have been an author for many years, and I intend to go on being one. But being an author isn’t a job – it is a state of mind; also, it is not a gainful occupation except in a rather restricted sense. I have been earning my living as a journalist for twenty years, and now I am giving up that sort of work to take a different sort of job in a university. I shall be very green at it, and I expect I shall do a lot of things the wrong way. Perhaps I shall be a failure, but I have failed at several things already, and somehow I have lived through it. Failure at a specific task is always disagreeable. and sometimes it is humiliating. But there is only one kind of failure that really breaks the spirit, and that is failure in the art of life itself. That is the failure that one does well to fear.
2. What is it like, this failure in the art of life? It is the failure which manifests itself in a loss of interest in really important things. It does not come suddenly, there is nothing dramatic about it, and thus it works with a dreadful advantage; it creeps upon us, and once it has us in its grip, it is hard for us to recognize what ails us. 3. It is not for nothing that this failure was reckoned by medieval theologians as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I suppose you know what they were. Wrath, Gluttony, Envy, Avarice, and Lechery are not very hard to recognize and are perilously easy