ESOTERIC PERIPATETICISM. 191 



ing of itself. It is like money, good only 

 for what it will buy. One must not play 

 the miser, even with time. *' There is that 

 withholdeth more than is meet, but it tend- 

 eth to poverty." Who does not know men 

 so penurious of minutes, so everlastingly 

 preoccupied, that they seldom spend an 

 hour to any good purpose, confirming the 

 paradox of Jesus, " He that loveth his life 

 shall lose it " ? And between a certain two 

 sisters, was not the verdict given in favor of 

 the one who (if we take the other's word 

 for it) was little better than an idler? The 

 saunterer has laid to heart this lesson. On 

 principle, he devotes a part of his time to 

 what his virtuous townsmen call doing 

 nothing. " What profit hath a man of all 

 his labor?" A pertinent inquiry; but I am 

 not aware that the author of it ever sug- 

 gested any similar doubt as to the net re- 

 sults of well-directed idleness. A laborious, 

 painstaking spirit is commendable in its 

 place ; it would go hard with the world to 

 get on without it ; but the fact remains 

 that some of the very best things of this 

 life things unseen and (therefore) eter- 

 nal are never to be come at industriously. 



