CCCclvi LIFE OF BACON. 



prevented fatigue by stopping in due time:(c) by a 

 judicious intermission (d) of studies, and by never plodding 



by a strenuous contention work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and 

 make it pliant for other occasions. 



Somebody talked of happy moments for composition, and how a man 

 can write at one time and not at another. Nay,&quot; said Dr. Johnson, &quot; a 

 man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it.&quot; 



Johnson told us, almost all his Ramblers were written just as they were 

 wanted for the press ; that he sent a certain portion of the copy of an essay, 

 and wrote the remainder while the former part of it was printing. When it 

 was wanted, and he had fairly sat down to it he was sure it would be done. 



Dr. Johnson would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon 

 principle, and always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for it. A 

 friend one day suggested, that it was not wholesome to study soon after 

 dinner. Johnson said, &quot; Ah, sir, don t give way to such a fancy : at one 

 time of my life I had taken it into my head that it was not wholesome to 

 study between breakfast and dinner.&quot; 



Thou shalt find, that deferring breeds, besides the loss, an indisposition 

 to good ; so that what was before pleasant to thee, being omitted, to-morrow 

 grows harsh, the next day unnecessary, afterwards odious. To-day thou 

 canst, but wilt not; to-morrow thou couldst, but listest not; the next day 

 thou neither wilt, nor canst bend thy mind on these thoughts. So I have 

 seen friends, that, upon neglect of duty, grow overly, upon overliness ; 

 strange, upon strangeness, to utter defiance. 



Perhaps the two following rules may assist this defect. 



\ . Ascertain the cause of the disinclination, and counteract it. 



2. Form the habit of conquering your indisposition to study at particular 

 times. 



(c) We do not call for a perpetuity of this labour of meditation : human 

 frailty could never bear so great a toil. Nothing under heaven is capable 

 of a continual motion, without complaint : it is enough for the glorified 

 spirits above, to be ever thinking and never weary. The mind of man is 

 of a strange metal; if it be not used, it rusteth; if used hardly, it breaketh. 



For he would ever interlace a moderate relaxation of his mind with his 

 studies, as walking, or taking the air abroad in his coach, or some other 

 befitting recreation ; and yet he would lose no time, inasmuch as upon his 

 first and immediate return, he would fall to reading again, and so suffer no 

 moment of time to slip from him without some present improvement. 



Rawley. 



(d) Rawley. What a heaven lives a scholar in, that at once in one 

 close room can daily converse with all the glorious martyrs and fathers : 

 that can single out at pleasure either sententious Tertullian, or grave 



