effort. But what does most people's
leisure yield?--boredom and dullness; except, of course, when it is
occupied with sensual pleasure or folly. How little such leisure is
worth may be seen in the way in which it is spent: and, as Ariosto
observes, how miserable are the idle hours of ignorant men!--_ozio
lungo d'uomini ignoranti_. Ordinary people think merely how they shall
_spend_ their time; a man of any talent tries to _use_ it. The reason
why people of limited intellect are apt to be bored is that their
intellect is absolutely nothing more than the means by which the
motive power of the will is put into force: and whenever there is
nothing particular to set the will in motion, it rests, and their
intellect takes a holiday, because, equally with the will, it requires
something external to bring it into play. The result is an awful
stagnation of whatever power a man has--in a word, boredom. To
counteract this miserable feeling, men run to trivialities which
please for the moment they are taken up, hoping thus to engage the
will in order to rouse it to action, and so set the intellect in
motion; for it is the latter which has to give effect to these motives
of the will. Compared with real and natural motives, these are but as
paper money to coin; for their value is only arbitrary--card games and
the like, which have been invented for this very purpose. And if there
is nothing else to be done, a man will twirl his thumbs or beat the
devil's tattoo; or a cigar may be a welcome substitute for exercising
his brains. Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is
card-playing,[1] and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign
that it is bankrupt in thought. Because people have no thoughts to
deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!
But I do not wish to be unjust; so let me remark that it may certainly
be said in defence of card-playing that it is a preparation for the
world and for business life, because one learns thereby how to make a
clever use of fortuitous but unalterable circumstances (cards, in this
case), and to get as much out of them as one can: and to do this a man
must learn a little dissimulation, and how to put a good face upon a
bad business. But, on the other hand, it is exactly for this reason
that card-playing is so demoralizing, since the whole object of it is
to employ every kind of trick and machination in order to win
what belongs to another. And a habit