trifling a one, even down to a jest-book; it is still better than doing
nothing.

Nor do I call pleasures idleness, or time lost, provided they are the
pleasures of a rational being; on the contrary, a certain portion of your
time, employed in those pleasures, is very usefully employed. Such are
public spectacles, assemblies of good company, cheerful suppers, and even
balls; but then, these require attention, or else your time is quite
lost.

There are a great many people, who think themselves employed all day, and
who, if they were to cast up their accounts at night, would find that
they had done just nothing. They have read two or three hours
mechanically, without attending to what they read, and consequently
without either retaining it, or reasoning upon it. From thence they
saunter into company, without taking any part in it, and without
observing the characters of the persons, or the subjects of the
conversation; but are either thinking of some trifle, foreign to the
present purpose, or often not thinking at all; which silly and idle
suspension of thought they would dignify with the name of ABSENCE and
DISTRACTION. They go afterward, it may be, to the play, where they gape
at the company and the lights; but without minding the very thing they
went to, the play.

Pray do you be as attentive to your pleasures as to your studies. In the
latter, observe and reflect upon all you read; and, in the former, be
watchful and attentive to all that you see and hear; and never have it
to say, as a thousand fools do, of things that were said and done before
their faces, that, truly, they did not mind them, because they were
thinking of something else. Why were they thinking of something else? and