struggle and the victory. And if a man has no opportunity to excite
himself, he will do what he can to create one, and according to his
individual bent, he will hunt or play Cup and Ball: or led on by this
unsuspected element in his nature, he will pick a quarrel with some
one, or hatch a plot or intrigue, or take to swindling and rascally
courses generally--all to put an end to a state of repose which is
intolerable. As I have remarked, _difficilis in otio quies_--it is
difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do.

SECTION 18. A man should avoid being led on by the phantoms of his
imagination. This is not the same thing as to submit to the guidance
of ideas clearly thought out: and yet these are rules of life which
most people pervert. If you examine closely into the circumstances
which, in any deliberation, ultimately turn the scale in favor of
some particular course, you will generally find that the decision is
influenced, not by any clear arrangement of ideas leading to a formal
judgment, but by some fanciful picture which seems to stand for one of
the alternatives in question.

In one of Voltaire's or Diderot's romances,--I forget the precise
reference,--the hero, standing like a young Hercules at the parting
of ways, can see no other representation of Virtue than his old tutor
holding a snuff-box in his left hand, from which he takes a pinch
and moralizes; whilst Vice appears in the shape of his mother's
chambermaid. It is in youth, more especially, that the goal of our
efforts comes to be a fanciful picture of happiness, which continues
to hover before our eyes sometimes for half and even for the whole of
our life--a sort of mocking spirit; for when we think our dream is to
be realized, the picture fades away, leaving us the knowledge that
nothing of what it promised is actually accomplished. How often this
is so with the visions of domesticity--the detailed picture of what
our home will be like; or, of life among our fellow-citizens or in
society; or, again, of living in the country--the kind of house we
shall have, its surroundings, the marks of honor and respect that will
be paid to us, and so on,--whatever our hobby may be; _chaque fou a
sa marotte_. It is often the same, too, with our dreams about one we
love. And this is all quite natural; for the visions we conjure up
affect us directly, as though they were real objects; and so they
exercise a more immediate influence upon our will than an abstract