If his tasks should enable him to live, but, at the same time, bereave him of all satisfaction, they inflicted injury, and were to be shunned as worse evils than death.
I asked to what species of pleasure he alluded, with which the business of a clerk was inconsistent.
He answered that he scarcely knew how to describe it.

He read books when they came in his way.

He had lighted upon few, and, perhaps, the pleasure they afforded him was owing to their fewness; yet he confessed that a mode of life which entirely forbade him to read was by no means to his taste.

But this was trivial.

He knew how to value the thoughts of other people, but he could not part with the privilege of observing and thinking for himself.