OE, GLIMPSES BENEATH THE WATERS. 



I would remind all those suffering from inactivity 

 of mind, of the wholesome dread of that kind of 

 mental torpor entertained by the Gymnosophists ; 

 who, as Apuleus tells us, when they met at meals, 

 required that each should be able to narrate the 

 particulars of some discovery, or original thought, 

 or good action, or it was deemed that he did not 

 exhibit a sufficient reason for being allowed to con- 

 sume a share of the viands, and he was conse- 

 quently excluded from the repast. "Were each of our 

 most idle sea-side loungers to impose upon himself 

 the necessity of a discovery, or an original thought, 

 before he considered himself entitled to dine, that 

 torpor, so deadening to the natural capacities of his 

 mind, would soon give way to a state of mental 

 activity, which, were it only from the brightness of 

 the contrast, would be found highly agreeable, to say 

 nothing of its advantages, or of the elevating and 

 refining trains of thought to which it would neces- 

 sarily give rise. 



I know of nothing more likely to stimulate the 

 mind to healthy exertion, and take it out of the 

 immediate track of common interests and pleasures, 

 the monotony of which is so oppressive, than the 

 study of natural history in some of its least explored 

 fields, especially its extraordinary development in 



