ad of tyranny. Our liberty is
a serious object; it weighs upon our minds. Now any weight upon the mind
is so much taken from our happiness; hilarity may attend on poverty, but
not so well on a serious, forecasting disposition. Our regard to the
future makes us both personally industrious and politically anxious;
a temper not to be amused with the relaxations of the Parisian in his
_cafe_ on the boulevards, or with the Sunday merry-go-round of the
light-hearted Dane. Our very pleasures have still a sadness in them.

Then, again, what are to be our amusements? By what recreative
stimulants shall we irradiate the gloom of our idle hours and vacation
periods? Doubtless there have been many amusements invented by the
benefactors of our species--society, games, music, public
entertainments, books; and in a well-chosen round of these, many
contrive to pass their time in a tolerable flow of satisfaction. But
they all cost something; they all cost money, either directly, to
procure them, or indirectly, to be educated for them. There are few very
cheap pleasures. Books are not so difficult to obtain, but the enjoying
of them in any high degree implies an amount of cultivation that cannot
be had cheaply.

Moreover, look at the difficulties that beset the pursuit of amusements.
How fatiguing are they very often! How hard to distribute the time and
the strength between them and our work or our duties! It needs some art
to steer one's way in the midst of variety of pleasures. Hence there
will always be, in a cautious-minded people, a disposition to remain
satisfied with few and safe delights; to assume a sobriety of aims that
Helps might call dulness, but that many of us call the middle path.

* * * * *

[FALLACY OF PRESCRIBING TASTES.]

II. A second error against the limits of the human powers is the
prescribing to persons indiscriminately, certain tastes, pursuits, and
subjects of interest, on the ground that what is a spring of enjoyment
to one or a few may be taken up, as a matter of course, by others with
the same relish. It is, indeed, a part of happiness to have some taste,
occupation, or pursuit, adequate to charm and engross us--a ruling
passion, a favourite study. Accordingly, the victims of dulness and
_ennui_ are often advised to betake themselves to something of this
potent character. Kingsley, in his little book on the "Wonders of the
Shore," endeavoured to convert mankind at large in