while, if a man is more than well off, he is bored. Accordingly, while
the lower classes are engaged in a ceaseless struggle with need,
in other words, with pain, the upper carry on a constant and often
desperate battle with boredom.[1] The inner or subjective antagonism
arises from the fact that, in the individual, susceptibility to
pain varies inversely with susceptibility to boredom, because
susceptibility is directly proportionate to mental power. Let
me explain. A dull mind is, as a rule, associated with dull
sensibilities, nerves which no stimulus can affect, a temperament, in
short, which does not feel pain or anxiety very much, however great
or terrible it may be. Now, intellectual dullness is at the bottom of
that _vacuity of soul_ which is stamped on so many faces, a state of
mind which betrays itself by a constant and lively attention to all
the trivial circumstances in the external world. This is the true
source of boredom--a continual panting after excitement, in order to
have a pretext for giving the mind and spirits something to occupy
them. The kind of things people choose for this purpose shows that
they are not very particular, as witness the miserable pastimes they
have recourse to, and their ideas of social pleasure and conversation:
or again, the number of people who gossip on the doorstep or gape out
of the window. It is mainly because of this inner vacuity of soul that
people go in quest of society, diversion, amusement, luxury of every
sort, which lead many to extravagance and misery. Nothing is so good
a protection against such misery as inward wealth, the wealth of
the mind, because the greater it grows, the less room it leaves for
boredom. The inexhaustible activity of thought! Finding ever new
material to work upon in the multifarious phenomena of self and
nature, and able and ready to form new combinations of them,--there
you have something that invigorates the mind, and apart from moments
of relaxation, sets it far above the reach of boredom.