Take the case of work alone.

Man is an idle animal.

He is at least as intelligent as the ant; but generations of advisers have in vain recommended him the ant's example.

Of those who are found truly indefatigable in business, some are misers; some are the practisers of delightful industries, like gardening; some are students, artists, inventors, or discoverers, men lured forward by successive hopes; and the rest are those who live by games of skill or hazard--financiers, billiard-players, gamblers, and the like.

But in unloved toils, even under the prick of necessity, no man is continually sedulous.