tormenting him:

"The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices,
Make instrument to scourge us."

True happiness is never found in torpor of the faculties, (5) but in
their action and useful employment. It is indolence that
exhausts, not action, in which there is life, health, and
pleasure. The spirits may be exhausted and wearied by employment,
but they are utterly wasted by idleness. Hense a wise physician
was accustomed to regard occupation as one of his most valuable
remedial measures. "Nothing is so injurious," said Dr. Marshall
Hall, "as unoccupied time." An archbishop of Mayence used to say
that "the human heart is like a millstone: if you put wheat under
it, it grinds the wheat into flour; if you put no wheat, it grinds
on, but then 'tis itself it wears away."

Indolence is usually full of excuses; and the sluggard, though
unwilling to work, is often an active sophist. "There is a lion in
the path ;" or "The hill is hard to climb;" or "There is no use
trying--I have tried, and failed, and cannot do it." To the
sophistries of such an excuser, Sir Samuel Romilly once wrote to a
young man:- "My attack upon your indolence, loss of time, &c., was
most serious, and I really think that it can be to nothing but
your habitual want of exertion that can be ascribed your using
such curious arguments as you do in your defence. Your theory is
this: Every man does all the good that he can. If a particular
individual does no good, it is a proof that he is incapable of
doing it. That you don't write proves that you can't; and your
want of inclination demonstrates your want of talents. What an