that common-place human beings can only get their ideas upon any
subject into shape and order by writing them down, or (at least)
expressing them in words to some one besides themselves. You have
a walk of an hour, before you: you resolve that you will see your
way through some perplexed matter as you walk along; your mind is
really running upon it all the way: but when you have got within
a hundred yards of your journey's end, you find with a start that
you have made no progress at all: you are as far as ever from
seeing what to think or do. With most people, to meditate means
to approach to doing nothing at all as closely as in the nature of
humanity it is possible to do so. And in this sense of it, summer
days, after your work is over, are the time for meditation. So,
indeed, are quiet days of autumn: so the evening generally, when
it is not cold. 'Isaac went out to meditate in the field, at the
eventide.' Perhaps he thought of the progress of his crops, his
flocks, his affairs: perhaps he thought of his expected wife: most,
probably he thought of nothing in particular; for four thousand
years have left human nature in its essence the selfsame thing. It
would be miserable work to moon through life, never thinking except
in this listless, purposeless way: but after hard work, when you
feel the rest has been fairly earned, it is very delightful on
such a day and in such a scene as this, to sit down and muse. The
analogy which suggests itself to me is that of a carriage-horse,
long constrained to keep to the even track along hard dusty roads,
drawing a heavy burden; now turned free into a cool green field
to wander, and feed, and roll about untrammelled. Even so does
the mind, weary of consecutive thinking--of thinking in the track
and thinking with a purpose--expatiate in the license of aimless
meditation.