The greatest difficulty with most subjects is to do them well;
therefore, please to remember this is an apology. It is certain that
much may be judiciously argued in favour of diligence; only there is
something to be said against it, and that is what, on the present
occasion, I have to say. To state one argument is not necessarily to
be deaf to all others, and that a man has written a book of travels in
Montenegro, is no reason why he should never have been to Richmond.[8]

It is surely beyond a doubt that people should be a good deal idle in
youth. For though here and there a Lord Macaulay may escape from
school honours[9] with all his wits about him, most boys pay so dear
for their medals that they never afterwards have a shot in their
locker, "and begin the world bankrupt." And the same holds true during
all the time a lad is educating himself, or suffering others to
educate him. It must have been a very foolish old gentleman who
addressed Johnson at Oxford in these words: "Young man, ply your book
diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come
upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome
task." The old gentleman seems to have been unaware that many other
things besides reading grow irksome, and not a few become impossible,
by the time a man has to use spectacles and cannot walk without a
stick. Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty
bloodless substitute for life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady
of Shalott,[10] peering into a mirror, with your back turned on all
the bustle and glamour of reality. And if a man reads very hard, as
the old anecdote reminds us, he will have little time for thoughts.

If you look back on your own education, I am sure it will not be the
full, vivid, instructive hours of truantry that you regret; you would
rather cancel some lack-lustre periods between sleep and waking[11] in