Putting Everything in the Right Place

Yes. I remember how piqued she was when I asked her for something which had been brought into the house, and she could not give it me.

When I saw her annoyance, I consoled her.

“Do not be at all disheartened, my wife, that you cannot give me what I ask for. It is plain poverty, (1) no doubt, to need a thing and not to have the use of it. But as wants go, to look for something which I cannot lay my hands upon is a less painful form of indigence than never to dream of looking because I know full well that the thing exists not.

Anyhow, you are not to blame for this. It was my fault for handed over to you the things without assigning them their places.

Had I done so, you would have known not only where to put but where to find them.

After all, order is the most serviceable and beautiful in human life.

For instance, a chorus is a band of human beings, who dance and sing together. It each member acted by himself then confusion follows. The spectacle has lost its charm.

How different when each and all together act and recite (4) with orderly precision, the limbs and voices keeping time and tune.

Then, indeed, these same performers are worth seeing and worth hearing.

This is the same for an army. My wife is an army. When lacking order there is confusion, making it an easy prey to enemies, courting attack. To friends my wife would be a bitter spectacle of wasted power.

The members of a confused army will be a hindrance to each other. ‘slow march’ side by side with ‘double quick,’ ‘quick march’ at cross purposes with ‘stand at ease’;

Wagons will block cavalry. Asses will foul wagons. Baggage-bearers and hoplites will jostle together as a hopeless jumble.

Such an army will not be in a condition to fight.

The front-line troops will retreat as the enemy advances and will trample down the heavy infantry in reserve.

A well-organised army in battle order is a splendid sight for friendly eyes and an eyesore to the enemy.

For who, being of their party, but will feel a thrill of satisfaction as he watches the serried masses of heavy infantry moving onwards in unbroken order?

who but will gaze with wonderment as the squadrons of the cavalry dash past him at the gallop? And what of the foeman?

will not his heart sink within him to see the orderly arrangements of the different arms= (8) here heavy infantry and cavalry, and there again light infantry, there archers and there slingers, following each their leaders, with orderly precision.

As they tramp onwards thus in order, though they number many myriads, yet even so they move on and on in quiet progress, stepping like one man, and the place just vacated in front is filled up on the instant from the rear.

Different styles of troops are drawn up in separate divisions: hoplites, cavalry, and peltasts, archers, and slingers.

Or picture a trireme, crammed choke-full of mariners. Their enemies fear them because their gallant ship sails so swiftly. Despite all their crowding, the ship’s crew cause each other no distress.

This is because they sit in order for:

• the bending of the oar
• the stroke recovery
• stepping on board
• quick disembarkation.

Disorder is when a husbandman stows away in one place wheat, barley, and pulse. When he needs barley meal, or wheaten flour, or some condiment of pulse, he must pick and choose instead of laying his hand on each thing separately sorted for use.

And so my wife, to avoid this confusion let us select and assign the appropriate place for each set of things. This shall be the place where we will put the things. We will instruct the housekeeper to take them from there and to put them back again there.

If anything is gone, the gaping space will cry out as if it asked for something back.

The mere look and aspect of things will say what wants mending. The fact of knowing where each thing is will be like having it put into one’s hand at once to use without further trouble or debate.

What strikes me as the finest and most accurate arrangement of goods and furniture it was ever my fortune to set eyes on;

I boarded the great Phoenician merchantman as a sightseer. I saw an endless quantity of goods and gear of all sorts, all separately packed and stowed away within the smallest compass.

I need scarce remind you (he said, continuing his narrative) what

A ship needs a vast amount of wooden spars and cables (17) to get to moorings.

; or again, in putting out to sea; (18) you know the host of sails and cordage, rigging (19) as they call it, she requires for sailing.

The quantity of engines and machinery of all sorts she is armed with in case she should encounter any hostile craft; the infinitude of arms she carries, with her crew of fighting men aboard.

Then all the vessels and utensils, such as people use at home on land, required for the different messes, form a portion of the freight.

Besides all this, the hold is heavy laden with merchandise and cargo for sale.

All these things are packed there in a space but little larger than a fair-sized dining-room.

The several sorts were so well-arranged that there could be no entanglement of one with other, nor were searchers needed.

If all were snugly stowed, all were alike get-at-able, much to the avoidance of delay if anything were wanted on the instant.

The pilot’s mate was so well acquainted with the place for everything that, even off the ship, he could tell you where each set of things was laid and how many there were of each.

He also knew everything which could possibly be needed for the service of the ship.

While he was inspecting his ship, he told me: I am inspecting the way things are lying aboard the ship. In case of accidents, I will know if anything is missing, or not lying snug and shipshape. When God makes a storm, there is no time left to go about searching for what you need or to give out anything which is not snug and shipshape in its place. God threatens and chastises sluggards. (30)

Apparently, he inspected when he had nothing better to do by way of amusement.

Those who sail the sea in small ships can discover space and place for everything, despite the violent tossings of the sea, they keep order. Even while their hearts are full of fear, they find everything they need.

While we, with all our ample storerooms with diverse objects in our mansion on solid ground fail to discover fitting places, of easy access for those objects!

It would be good to have a fixed and orderly arrangement of all furniture and gear. Hhow easy also in a dwelling-house to find a place for every sort of goods, in which to stow them as shall suit each best—needs no further comment.

The separate atoms shape themselves to form a choir. All the space between gains beauty by their banishment.

Even so some sacred chorus, dancing a roundelay in honour of Dionysus, not only is a thing of beauty in itself, but the whole interspace swept clean of dancers owns a separate charm.

A remarkable word, as significant of the complete rhythm whether of sound or motion, that was so great a characteristic of the Greek ideal and much more equally to the point.

Just as a chorus, the while its dancers weave a circling dance. Contrasting with the movement and the mazes of the dance, a void appears serene and beautiful.

This, my wife, can be tested by direct experiment without cost at all or even serious trouble.

You do not need to think how hard it will be to discover some one who has wit enough to learn the places for the several things and memory to take and place them there.

We know that the goods of various sorts contained in the whole city far outnumber ours many thousand times.

Yet you have only to bid any one of your domestics go buy this, or that, and bring it you from market, and not one of them will hesitate. The whole world knows both where to go and where to find each thing.

Merely because they lie in an appointed place.

If you leave your place to look for someone who also left his place to look for you, you both shall not find each other.

This is because no one appointed a place for one was to await the other.