ON REVERIE. 125 



fiiive attained eminence or power, by mental activity and 

 perseverance, and arc calculated to rouse the slumbering 

 mind to emulation and energy. And in like manner may 

 we dissolve the-spell of reveries, into which evil thoughts 

 arc apt to enter, by the pictures of a Saviour, or of a de- 

 parted or sainted friend. Who would not return, with a 

 blush, from whatever criminal conceptions he had hung 

 upon, when he encountered the eye, and fancied that be 

 beheld the frown of personages so sacred ? 



To propose a total preventive or cure for the disease I Reverie may 



have been considerinar, has neither been my aim nor my P^^^fP^ ^^ »!- 

 . , „„ . ^ , , . «. , , . , lowableasare- 



wisn. Ihe aim would be ineiFectuai, as long as mmdand laxation. 



body depend and reciprocally act on each other, as they 

 do in the present existence. — The wish would be the dic- 

 tate of that cold philosophy, which seeks to shut up One 

 jnlet of those few, harmless delights, that heaven has ap- 

 portioned to us, and that nature has commanded us to 

 husband. Yet this riot of fancy should be seldom and 

 carefully indulged. If it be sometimes allowable to slack- 

 en the reins, with which the mind is held attentive, never 

 let us throw them entirely away ; — for though it would 

 be pedantry to suggest, that since moments thus passed^ 

 are inconsistent with our active duties, they ought with- 

 out reservation, to be condemned ; — we ought, neverthe- 

 less, to beware of every relaxation, which pre-disposes 

 the mind to habitual inactivity. 



Stimuli may be increased to so intense a degree, that Few minds can 

 attention will be compelled to leave the fondest object on resist stimuli by 

 which it broods, and to obey their impulse. For although none can do It 

 we have read, that Archimedes was solving a problem perfectly, 

 during the sack of Syracuse, that Newton was often in- 

 sensible to his meals having been brought before him and 

 removed ; that Cicero calmly pursued his studies while 

 his mind was dejected by domestic grief and harassed by 

 public vexation ;— yet it is certain, that pain or hunger, 

 fear or sorrow, or joy, or any violent passion, will, in 

 most minds, overcome the deepest and most philosophical 

 abstraction. 



Little credit is due to the story of an Italian philoso- The mind can- 

 pher's being so wholly absorbed in contemplation, as to "«' overpower 

 be unconscious that he was upon the rack.— Let us call ^^^^^^^"' 



to 



