cojinc'cted with Litcrqture, 235 



Nothing can be more absurd than an attempt 

 to unite a life of literature and of gaiety. — 

 The remembrance of ghiring objects and tu- 

 multuous pleasures, perpetually obtruding itself, 

 on the mind, will soon convince the scholar, 

 that his efforts to make thought and dissipation 

 of thought meet in the same mind are vain. — 

 The recollection of past, or anticipation of 

 approaching frivolities^ makes abstraction ar 

 painful and violent, I may safely affirm, an 

 impossible exertion. The conceptions of an 

 effeminate imagination unsettle the mind ; — 

 they float upon and confuse the ideas supplied 

 by study. 



Indeed a habit of study and abstraction is 

 the most powerful precaution that can be 

 adopted against the intrusions; of reverie.—^ 

 Reverie resembles the enemy of mankind* 

 liesist it, and it will flee from you. The oftener 

 tmd the more vigorously you oppose it, the less 

 frequently will it recur, and tJie weaker will 

 be its attacks* While the idler and the man 

 of pleasure cannot pcmse even a few pages of 

 a novel without mental weariness and wander- 

 ing ;— the student will in time bring his mind 

 to the ability of prosecuting for tnauy hbursj 

 the deepest reasoning, seldom interrupted by 

 reverie, and never overcome; 



When speaking of the force of habit, we 



Ggl2 



