152 LIVING LONG BY LIVING MUCH. 



with the winged career of a Chatterton, a Kirke White, a 

 Shelley, a Keats, and other brilliant Ephemerae, of a poetic 

 sky, and say if life be computed by the amount of actual 

 living by state, which, to mind, often annihilates and stands 

 in the place of time, by spiritual measurement instead of by 

 finger calculation whether the balance of longevity, in its 

 proper sense, may not incline rather to the span of twenty 

 than of sixty years. 



We are all accustomed to talk of variety as though it were 

 a spur to time ; yet must we all have noticed that time is 

 seemingly prolonged (especially in retrospect) by the occur- 

 rence of incident. The year wherein much has transpired, 

 whether for weal or wo, always seems longer than those 

 wherein nothing has happened to disturb the even tenour of 

 our way ; and the less varied be the common character of our 

 paths through life, the more swiftly do we seem to traverse them, 

 even if we complain of dullness by the way. But it is number 

 and variety, of ideas and feelings which, yet more than those 

 of incident, serve to make the most of time ; consequently, if 

 we desire to live much in other words, to live long we 

 should lose no occasions of cultivating growths of thought 

 and interest. Instead of passing in the wearying swiftness of 

 half-conscious apathy through the scenes and by the objects of 

 nature, let us invoke all the exhilarating and life-giving influ- 

 ences which their bountiful Designer intended them to convey. 

 Let us do this always, though we may find it most easy in 



