It is the curse of those entirely engrossing pursuits, which excite
all our enthusiasm, and task every energy, and of which the
statesman's and the soldier's callings are the best examples, that,
when they fail us, we can find no substitute. All things else are, by
comparison, stale, flat, and unprofitable. Can the brandy drinker
cheer himself with draughts of small beer? Screw up his nervous
energies to their accustomed tone with slops?
Tired to death of fox-hunting, pleasant shooting, and country
neighbors; all the means of excitement around him exhausted, L'Isle
lounged in the library at C----d Hall, with half a dozen open but
discarded volumes before him, revolving in his mind all possible means
of occupation. At one time he would resolve to travel the world over,
and get up a personal narrative, attractive as that of Humboldt, and
views of nature, that should look through nature's surface to the
recognition of Nature's God, whom the philosopher seems never to have
found in all his works. At another time, in order more effectively to
counteract the ill effects, on mind and habits, of the soldier's
exciting and unsettled life, he resolves to subject himself to still
severer regimen: not to go rambling about the world, an idling
philosopher, but to tie himself down to one spot, and take violently
to a course of high farming; grow the largest turnips, breed the
fattest South-downs, and the heaviest Devonshires, and carry off
agricultural prizes as substitutes for additional Waterloo medals.
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