dragging up the tedious hill? And as we sat on
the turf, and looked down the misty glen, did we not read the lesson
there engraven? How good and _human_ the idea was, the idea of setting
up that graven stone in the wilderness; how full of sympathy is that
inscription for all the weakness and weariness of humanity! Once, in the
ardor of youth, there shone before me a golden star in heaven, and on
the deep azure around it "_Ohne Hast, ohne Rast_," in letters of steady
flame; but now I see more frequently a plain little stone set up in the
earth, with the inscription, "Rest, and be thankful!"

Is not the stone just a little like a grave-stone, my friend? Perhaps it
is. But if we take rest when we require it during life, we shall not
need the grave's rest quite so soon.

LETTER VII.

TO AN ARDENT FRIEND WHO TOOK NO REST.

The regret for lost time often a needless one--Tillier's doctrine
about _flanerie_--How much is gained in idle hours--Sainte-Beuve's
conviction that whatever he did he studied the infinite book of the
world and of life--Harness--Free play of the mind necessary--The
freedom of a grain of desert-sand--The freedom of the wild bee.

If we asked any intellectual workman what he would do if his life were
to be lived over again, I believe the answer, whatever its form, would
amount ultimately to this: "I would economize my time better." Very
likely if the opportunity were granted him he would do nothing of the
sort; very likely he would waste his time in ways more authorized by
custom, yet waste it just as extravagantly as he had done after his own
original fashion; but it always seems to us as if we could use the time
better if we had it over again.

It seems to me in looking back over the last thirty years, that the only
time really wasted has been that spent in laborious obedience to some
external authority. It may be a dangerous doctrine which Claude Tillier
expressed in an immortal sentence, but dangerous or not, it is full of
intellectual truth: "Le temps le mieux employe est celui que l'on
perd."[11] If what we are accustomed to consider lost time could be
removed, as to its effects at least, from the sum of our existence, it
is certain that we should suffer from a great intellectual
impoverishment. All the best knowledge of mankind, to begin with, is
acquired in hours which hard-working people consider lost hours--in
hours, that is, of pleasure and recreation. Deduct all that we have
le