THIS is a busy world, and repose was not made for man, except in his old age. Let philosophers, who know less of themselves than they do of the world, complain of the folly of mankind, in never being satisfied with the situation in which Providence hath placed them, and thus losing the present in the anticipation of the future. Let them sneer at their baffled hopes, when, arriving at the summit they have been toiling for years to gain, they find it a barren waste, dreary and desolate, unlike the peaceful vale below. Why is it that philosophers study to become wiser than they are, since the acquisition of knowledge no more leads to the happiness of themselves or others, than does the acquisition of wealth and honors? It is, that they may become wiser than the rest of mankind, just as a man labors for wealth that he may become richer and more powerful. In short, it is that they may be happier than they are-happier than the rest of their fellow-creatures. What a dead sea of a world would this be, if we all knew to a certainty that we were quite as happy as our neighbors! All would then be at ease, and all equally miserable. But let my story exemplify my meaning.

I was born and brought up in the Castle of Indolence. My father was a philosopher in his way, for he hated the world, and despised his fellow creatures, for no other reason that I could ever learn, but that, having toiled the best part of his life to get rich, and, finding that his wealth added nothing to his happiness, he took it in dudgeon,

and quarreled outright with this "Mundane Terrene." I have heard that his first impulse towards money-making was the hope of gaining a young lady who had been long the object of his affections, but who disliked his poverty more than she liked his person. He married her at last, but they had waited too long. My father was forty-five, and my mother only ten years younger. At these years it requires a good deal of rubbing to smooth the asperities of old habits. The first disappointment of my father was in finding that he had been laboring fifteen years to get a wife, who actually sometimes contradicted him, as he verily believed, without reason. What is the use of money, said he, if it don't make a man always right? But though he was not exactly satisfied with his bargain, he loved my mother, and when she died, he was still more disappointed than at his marriage. He shut himself up in an old garret, where he continued to exist, and his money to accumulate, till I grew almost an old man myself, when he died, leaving me a fortune I knew not what to do with, any more than a child.

I was about twelve years old at the death of my mother, and more than thirty when my father died almost at the period of fourscore and ten. From the time he shut himself up in his garret, I became in some degree my own master in all things, except spending money, which, though my father despised, yet he hoarded with the devotion of a miser. He let me do just as I pleased, provided my bills did not

amount to more than was absolutely necessary. I went to school, but only when and where I pleased; I floated about with the wind and tide like a lazy ship at anchor; I learned no profession; I knew nothing of the business of the world, and I did nothing, except just what I pleased. I hated study-I hated exercise-I hated noise-I hated company-and, above all, I hated trouble. I read, it is true, a piece of a book here, and a piece there, and not unfrequently I had half a dozen works in hand at once, none of which I ever finished. So variable and fastidious was my appetite for books, that I sometimes spent whole mornings at the public library, without being able to select one to my satisfaction.

If I had any decided taste, it was for drawing; but this, like all my other propensities, was under the dominion of a busy idleness, that would not admit of anything like a constant attention to one object, but led me, by a sort of irresistible influence, from doing nothing in one place, to doing nothing in another. Sometimes, after sitting for hours in a becalmed state in my room, I would suddenly seize my hat with an effort, and sally forth in a quick step, resolutely determined to do something, I knew not what; but before I got to the next corner my impulse evaporated; I became again perfectly becalmed, and, after stopping for a while to consider where under heaven I should go, quietly returned to my room again -again to meditate another sally. It can hardly be conceived, except by a kindred spirit, what a delight it was for me to have anything to do, that did not involve either labor or trouble, both which I received with a horror unsurpassable. Nay, I could not bear to see any person hard at work; and my bones imbibed the same sympathy with his labors that those of Sancho Panza did with the sore bruises his sage master received in his misadventure with the Yanguesian car

riers. It was a relief to me when my pencil wanted cutting-the honing of my razor was a perfect luxury-and helping my landlady to shell peas the delight of my soul. But these could not last forever: my principal resources were to consider what I should do, to do nothing, and to whistle quick tunes to make myself believe that I was in a great hurry. I formed a close intimacy with a middle-aged person, who had left off business, and had much ado to live without it, for the sole purpose of having an antagonist at backgammon; and we used to spend whole days in playing and disputing whether chance or skill had most to do in winning the game, taking different sides just as luck happened to be in favor of one or the other. This was a great relief to me while it lasted, but one day my antagonist gammoned me six times in succession. This was the most serious misfortune that had ever yet befallen me; I fell into a great passion, and made so many bitter reflections on my antagonist for his confounded luck, that he put on his hat, left the room, and never played with me afterwards. He was an irreparable loss to me, being almost the only philosophically idle man of my acquaintance. this I took to playing by myself, and was for a long time tolerably happy in always taking the winning hand against my old antagonist, who had the cruelty to gammon me six times running. But use wears off the keen edge of pleasure, as it does of a knife, and I grew tired at last, even of being always on the winning side.

After

Just at this time Providence threw a furious chess-player in my way, which I looked upon as the greatest blessing I ever received. He undertook to teach me, and I accepted his offer with gratitude. The game seemed made on purpose for me, producing, at first, exactly that gentle interest and excitement, so congenial to my soul. It was delightful to have something to do.

ting horse!" exclaimed I in inexpressible horror, "I'd as soon ride a race through the city of Gotham." "Very well, then get married; there is nothing like real evils to banish imaginary ones, and matrimony is a sovereign cure." "The remedy is worse than the disease," replied I, and left him in condign despair.

The horrors of a life of perfect ease now crowded thickly upon me, and I became the most miserable of all miserable men, that have nothing to trouble them. I grew fat, lethargic, and was teased with a perpetual desire to eat. I ate till eating became a burden; and slept till sleep was little better than a nightmare, bringing all the horrors of indigestion in her train. I rolled from side to side, I tried to find a soft place in the bed, I rubbed my feet and hands together to restore the circulation of my blood, and tried to think about something to relieve my mind from vague and undefinable horrors. But what can a man think about, who has nothing to trouble him but himself? I became at last unwilling, or more truly, afraid, to go to bed, lest I should be hag-ridden, and quarreled with my fellow boarders, who, having something to do by day, could not afford to sit up with me all night. The consequence of this loss of rest was that, when I sat still a few minutes during the day, I was sure to fall asleep in my chair. It was one warm summer day, the crisis of my fate, when, having taken a huge walk of half a mile to see a picture of Leslie's, I returned overwhelmed with lassitude, and fell asleep in my chair when I awoke, I found a piece of paper pinned to my sleeve, on which I read the following linesThey say Tom is dead, but the truth I deny, So cease all his friends to be grieved; How can it be said that a man can quite die, Who ne'er in his life has quite lived? I never knew who played me this trick, but I shall ever feel grateful for the lesson, severe as it was. It

mortified my pride; it roused my anger; it inflamed my vanity-in short, it created a turmoil, a complete bouleversement in my system; the atoms were set in motion, the waters had broken loose, nature was convulsed, and subsided into a newly-constituted world. I started up with a degree of energy unknown for many a year; paced the room with unnatural activity, and asked myself if it were possible that I had passed forty years of my life without quite living; that I had been thus far a burden to myself, useless to the world, and an object of laughter to my companions. The struggle was a painful one, and put me into a fine perspiration-but I felt all the better for it. That night I had something to think of besides my aches and infirmities, and the night-mare eschewed my couch. I made up my mind to begin the world anew, and, falling fast asleep, did not awake till the broad beams of morning darted into my windows. I made an unheard-of effort, and, getting up, dressed myself, and was actually down stairs before breakfast was over-whereupon they predicted an earthquake.

From this day I resolved to do something and be useful. "I'll let them see," quoth I, "I can quite live as well as other people. I will qualify myself to defend my country; there is a speck of war in the horizon, and every citizen ought to be prepared." I enrolled myself in a volunteer corps, the captain of which, having a mistress in a distant part of the town, always marched us home that way after every turnout, which was every day. The reader may possibly form some remote conception of what I underwent in the service of my country, though he can never realize the extent of my sufferings. Conceive the idea of a man of my habits carrying a musket of fourteen pounds three hours before breakfast, and marching through thick and thin, mud, dirt, and glory, three miles to pass muster before Dulcinea's win