Here again I was at a stand; and in vain did I torture my brains for another pursuit.  But why should I seek one?  In fortune I have a competence,—­why not be as independent in mind?  There are thousands in the world whose sole object in life is to attain the means of living without toil; and what is any literary pursuit but a series of mental labor, ay, and oftentimes more wearying to the spirits than that of the body.  Upon the whole, I came to the conclusion, that it was a very foolish thing to do any thing.  So I seriously set about trying to do nothing.

Well, what with whistling, hammering down all the nails in the house that had started, paring my nails, pulling my fire to pieces and rebuilding it, changing my clothes to full dress though I dined alone, trying to make out the figure of a Cupid on my discolored ceiling, and thinking of a lady I had not thought of for ten years before, I got along the first week tolerably well.  But by the middle of the second week,—­’t was horrible! the hours seemed to roll over me like mill-stones.  When I awoke in the morning I felt like an Indian devotee, the day coming upon me like the great temple of Juggernaut; cracking of my bones beginning after breakfast; and if I had any respite, it was seldom for more than half an hour, when a newspaper seemed to stop the wheels;—­then away they went, crack, crack, noon and afternoon, till I found myself by night reduced to a perfect jelly,—­good for nothing but to be ladled into bed, with a greater horror than ever at the thought of sunrise.

This will never do, said I; a toad in the heart of a tree lives a more comfortable life than a nothing-doing man; and I began to perceive a very deep meaning in the truism of “something being better than nothing.”  But is a precise object always necessary to the mind?  No:  if it be but occupied, no matter with what.  That may easily be done.  I have already tried the sciences, and made abortive attempts in literature, but I have never yet tried what is called general reading;—­that, thank Heaven, is a resource inexhaustible.  I will henceforth read only for amusement.  My first experiment in this way was on Voyages and Travels, with occasional dippings into Shipwrecks, Murders, and Ghost-stories.  It succeeded beyond my hopes; month after month passing away like days, and as for days,—­I almost fancied that I could see the sun move.  How comfortable, thought I, thus to travel over the world in my closet! how delightful to double Cape Horn and cross the African Desert in my rocking-chair,—­to traverse Caffraria and the Mogul’s dominions in the same pleasant vehicle!  This is living to some purpose; one day dining on barbecued pigs in Otaheite; the next in danger of perishing amidst the snows of Terra del Fuego; then to have a lion cross my path in the heart of Africa; to run for my life from a wounded rhinoceros, and sit, by mistake, on a sleeping boa-constrictor;—­this, this, said I, is life!  Even the dangers of the