away whole years; and travel through time as through a country
filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry
over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or
imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.

If we divide the life of most men into twenty parts, we shall find
that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chasms, which are
neither filled with pleasure nor business. I do not, however,
include in this calculation the life of those men who are in a
perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always
engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do an
unacceptable piece of service to these persons, if I point out to
them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life.
The methods I shall propose to them are as follow.

The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation
of the word. That particular scheme which comprehends the social
virtues may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find
a man in business more than the most active station of life. To
advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are
duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man
has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party;
of doing justice to the character of a deserving man; of softening
the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced;
which are all of them employments suited to a reasonable nature, and
bring great satisfaction to the person who can busy himself in them
with discretion.

There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for those
retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and