a new method of working their way together through the time which might
otherwise have hung heavy on their hands. There are reasons for taking
particular notice here of the occupation that amused them. You will find
it has a bearing on something that is still to come.

Gentlefolks in general have a very awkward rock ahead in life--the
rock ahead of their own idleness. Their lives being, for the most part,
passed in looking about them for something to do, it is curious to
see--especially when their tastes are of what is called the intellectual
sort--how often they drift blindfold into some nasty pursuit. Nine
times out of ten they take to torturing something, or to spoiling
something--and they firmly believe they are improving their minds, when
the plain truth is, they are only making a mess in the house. I have
seen them (ladies, I am sorry to say, as well as gentlemen) go out,
day after day, for example, with empty pill-boxes, and catch newts, and
beetles, and spiders, and frogs, and come home and stick pins through
the miserable wretches, or cut them up, without a pang of remorse, into
little pieces. You see my young master, or my young mistress, poring
over one of their spiders' insides with a magnifying-glass; or you meet
one of their frogs walking downstairs without his head--and when you
wonder what this cruel nastiness means, you are told that it means
a taste in my young master or my young mistress for natural history.
Sometimes, again, you see them occupied for hours together in spoiling
a pretty flower with pointed instruments, out of a stupid curiosity
to know what the flower is made of. Is its colour any prettier, or its
scent any sweeter, when you DO know? But there! the poor souls must get
through the time, you see--they must get through the time. You dabbled
in nasty mud, and made pies, when you were a child; and you dabble in
nasty science, and dissect spiders, and spoil flowers, when you grow up.
In the one case and in the other, the secret of it is, that you have got