Haste Without Self-Control
Hasty, uncontrolled actions destroy dignity and reveal lack of mastery over life.
Emerson, in his acute observations on manners, declares that there is nothing “so inelegant as haste,” meaning by this the haste which is a hurry. Haste which the occasion demands is never undignified. A fireman running to a fire is a rather inspiriting sight. We would despise him if he walked. It is rushing in the ordinary affairs of life, which demand deliberation, steadiness, control, that destroys dignity and so destroys good manners. The man in a hurry, we feel at once, is so because he is not master of the situation. He would not be compelled to gorge his breakfast, to walk so fast that he looks like an animated wagon-wheel, or to slight his work, if he had his affairs in control.--_Chautauquan._