doctrine is simply stupid. What the Philistines call wasted time is
often rich in the most varied experience to the intelligent. If all that
we have learned in idle moments could be suddenly expelled from our
minds by some chemical process, it is probable that they would be worth
very little afterwards. What, after such a process, would have remained
to Shakespeare, Scott, Cervantes, Thackeray, Dickens, Hogarth,
Goldsmith, Moliere? When these great students of human nature were
learning most, the sort of people who write the foolish little books
just alluded to would have wanted to send them home to the dictionary or
the desk. Toepffer and Claude Tillier, both men of delicate and observant
genius, attached the greatest importance to hours of idleness. Toepffer
said that a year of downright loitering was a desirable element in a
liberal education; whilst Claude Tillier went even farther, and boldly
affirmed that "le temps le mieux employe est celui que l'on perd."

Let us not think too contemptuously of the miscalculators of time, since
not one of us is exempt from their folly. We have all made
miscalculations, or more frequently have simply omitted calculation
altogether, preferring childish illusion to a manly examination of
realities; and afterwards as life advances another illusion steals over
us not less vain than the early one, but bitter as that was sweet. We
now begin to reproach ourselves with all the opportunities that have
been neglected, and now our folly is to imagine that we might have done
impossible wonders if we had only exercised a little resolution. We
might have been thorough classical scholars, and spoken all the great
modern languages, and written immortal books, and made a colossal
fortune. Miscalculations again, and these the most imbecile of all; for
the youth who forgets to reason in the glow of happiness and hope, is
wiser than the man who overestimates what was once possible that he may
embitter the days which remain to him.

LETTER III.

TO A MAN OF BUSINESS WHO DESIRED TO MAKE HIMSELF BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH
LITERATURE, BUT WHOSE TIME FOR READING WAS LIMITED.

Victor Jacquemont on the intellectual labors of the Germans--Business
may be set off as the equivalent to one of their pursuits--Necessity
for regularity in the economy of time--What may be done in two hours a
day--Evils of interruption--Florence Nightingale--Real nature of
interruption--Instance from the Apology of Soc