"Drawing fine pictures of virtue in one's mind,"
said Bishop Butler, "is so far from necessarily or certainly
conducive to form a HABIT of it in him who thus employs himself,
that it may even harden the mind in a contrary course, and render
it gradually more insensible."
Amusement in moderation is wholesome, and to be commended; but
amusement in excess vitiates the whole nature, and is a thing to be
carefully guarded against. The maxim is often quoted of "All work
and no play makes Jack a dull boy;" but all play and no work makes
him something greatly worse. Nothing can be more hurtful to a
youth than to have his soul sodden with pleasure. The best
qualities of his mind are impaired; common enjoyments become
tasteless; his appetite for the higher kind of pleasures is
vitiated; and when he comes to face the work and the duties of
life, the result is usually aversion and disgust. "Fast" men waste
and exhaust the powers of life, and dry up the sources of true
happiness. Having forestalled their spring, they can produce no
healthy growth of either character or intellect. A child without
simplicity, a maiden without innocence, a boy without truthfulness,
are not more piteous sights than the man who has wasted and thrown
away his youth in self-indulgence.
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