"We spend one half of it in regretting the things
we did in the other half!"
"And the secret of enjoying it," he continued, resuming his cheerful
tone, "is intensity!"
"But not in the modern aesthetic sense, I presume? Like the young lady,
in Punch, who begins a conversation with 'Are you intense?'"
"By no means!" replied the Earl.
"What I mean is intensity of thought--a concentrated attention.
We lose half the pleasure we might have in Life, by not really attending.
Take any instance you like: it doesn't matter how trivial the pleasure
may be--the principle is the same. Suppose A and B are reading the same
second-rate circulating-library novel. A never troubles himself to
master the relationships of the characters, on which perhaps all the
interest of the story depends: he 'skips' over all the descriptions of
scenery, and every passage that looks rather dull: he doesn't half attend
to the passages he does read: he goes on reading merely from want of
resolution to find another occupation--for hours after he ought to have
put the book aside: and reaches the 'FINIS' in a state of utter
weariness and depression! B puts his whole soul into the thing--on the
principle that 'whatever is worth doing is worth doing well':
he masters the genealogies: he calls up pictures before his 'mind's eye'
as he reads about the scenery: best of all, he resolutely shuts the
book at the end of some chapter, while his interest is yet at its
keenest, and turns to other subjects; so that, when next he allows
himself an hour at it, it is like a hungry man sitting down to dinner:
and, when the book is finished, he returns to the work of his daily
life like 'a giant refreshed'!"
"But suppose the book were really rubbish--nothing to repay attention?"
"Well, suppose it," said the Earl.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209