It was not the work itself which was such a
trial, but the time it consumed. At best, I had but a clear space of
an hour, or an hour and a half at home, and to slave merely for this
seemed such a mockery! Day after day sped swiftly by, made up of
nothing but this infernal drudgery, and I said to myself--Is this
life? But I made up my mind that NEVER WOULD I GIVE MYSELF TONGUE.
I clapped a muzzle on my mouth. Had I followed my own natural bent,
I should have become expressive about what I had to endure, but I
found that expression reacts on him who expresses and intensifies
what is expressed. If we break out into rhetoric over a toothache,
the pangs are not the easier, but the worse to be borne.
I naturally contracted a habit of looking forward from the present
moment to one beyond. The whole week seemed to exist for the Sunday.
On Monday morning I began counting the hours till Sunday should
arrive. The consequence was, that when it came, it was not enjoyed
properly, and I wasted it in noting the swiftness of its flight. Oh,
how absurd is man! If we were to reckon up all the moments which we
really enjoy for their own sake, how few should we find them to be!
The greatest part, far the greatest part, of our lives is spent in
dreaming over the morrow, and when it comes, it, too, is consumed in
the anticipation of a brighter morrow, and so the cheat is prolonged,
even to the grave.
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