No people ever were so fond of amusement, and so easily amused. It seems to be the chief object of their lives, and they contrive to draw it from a thousand sources, in which no other people ever thought it could be found. I do not know where I met with the following lines; they are natural and easy, and seem expressive of the conduct and sentiments of the whole French nation.
M’amuser n’importe comment,
Fait toute ma philosophie.
Je crois ne perdre aucun moment
Hors le moment où je m’ennuie;
Et je tiens ma tâche finie,
Pourvu qu’ainsi tout doucement;
Je me defasse de la vie.
Our countrymen who have applied to letters, have prosecuted every branch of science as successfully as any of their neighbours. But those of them who study mere amusement, independent of literature of any kind, certainly have not been so happy in their researches as the French. Many things which entertain the latter, seem frivolous and insipid to the former. The English view objects through a darker medium. Less touched than their neighbours with the gaieties, they are more affected by the vexations of life, under which they are too ready to despond. They feel their spirits flag with the repetition of scenes which at first were thought agreeable. This stagnation of animal spirits, from whatever cause it arises, becomes itself a cause of desperate resolutions, and debating habits.
A man of fortune, therefore, who can acquire such a relish for science, as will make him rank its pursuits among his amusements; has thereby made an acquisition of more importance to his happiness, than if he had acquired another estate equal in value to his first. I am almost convinced, that a taste of this kind is the only thing which can render a man of fortune (especially if his fortune be very large) tolerably independent and easy through life. Whichsoever of the roads of science he loves to follow, his curiosity will continually be kept awake. An inexhaustible variety of interesting objects will open to his view,—his mind will be replenished with ideas,—and even when the pursuits of ambition become insipid, he will still have antidotes against tædium, and (other things being supposed equal) the best chance of passing agreeably through life, that the uncertainty of human events allows to man.