hours to private intellectual pursuits. Writing for the press cannot be
recommended as a permanent resource to anyone qualified to accomplish
anything in the higher departments of literature or thought: not only on
account of the uncertainty of this means of livelihood, especially if
the writer has a conscience, and will not consent to serve any opinions
except his own; but also because the writings by which one can live are
not the writings which themselves live, and are never those in which the
writer does his best. Books destined to form future thinkers take too
much time to write, and when written come, in general, too slowly into
notice and repute, to be relied on for subsistence. Those who have to
support themselves by their pen must depend on literary drudgery, or at
best on writings addressed to the multitude; and can employ in the
pursuits of their own choice, only such time as they can spare from
those of necessity; which is generally less than the leisure allowed by
office occupations, while the effect on the mind is far more enervating
and fatiguing. For my own part I have, through life, found office duties
an actual rest from the other mental occupations which I have carried on
simultaneously with them. They were sufficiently intellectual not to be
a distasteful drudgery, without being such as to cause any strain upon
the mental powers of a person used to abstract thought, or to the labour
of careful literary composition. The drawbacks, for every mode of life
has its drawbacks, were not, however, unfelt by me. I cared little for
the loss of the chances of riches and honours held out by some of the
professions, particularly the bar, which had been, as I have already
said, the profession thought of for me. But I was not indifferent to
exclusion from Parliament, and public life: and I felt very sensibly the
more immediate unpleasantness of confinement to London; the holiday
allowed by India House practice not exceeding a month in the year, while
my taste was strong for a country life, and my sojourn in France had
left behind it an ardent desire of travelling. But though these tastes