Diversity of the author’s pursuits—Superficial acquirements contrasted with solid—Variety and change of study conducive to health—Breeding ideas—How to avoid ennui—The principles of memory and fear—The author’s theory respecting the former, and his motive for its introduction.

My pursuits from my earliest days have been (right or wrong) all of my own selection: some of them were rather of a whimsical character; others merely adopted pour passer le temps; a few of a graver and more solid cast. (The law was an indispensable one.) On the whole, I believe I may boast that few persons, if any, of similar standing in society adopted a greater variety of occupations than myself.

The truth is, I never suffered my mind to stagnate one moment; and unremittingly sought to bring it so far under my own controul, as to be enabled to turn its energies at all times, promptly and without difficulty, from the lightest pursuits to the most serious business, and vice versÂ; and, for the time being, to occupy it exclusively on a single subject. These are the arts of managing thought; a person who can do such things is never bilious!

My system (if such it may be called) led me to a dabbling in sciences, arts, and literature—just sufficient to feed my intellect with varieties, and keep my mind busy and afloat without being overloaded: thus, I dipped irregularly into numerous elementary treatises, embracing a great variety of subjects—among which, even theology, chemistry, physic, anatomy, architecture, the trades and mechanical arts, (to say nothing of politics) were included. In a word, I looked into every species of publication I could lay my hands on; and I never have been honoured by one second of ennui, or felt a propensity to an hour’s languor during my existence except when I was actually sick. My mind is never disordered, and my brain having plenty of occupation, I never had time to go mad!

This fanciful—the reader may, if he pleases, say superficial and frivolous species of learning and self-employment, would, I doubt not, be scouted with contempt by learned LL. Ds., Bachelors of Arts, Fellows of Colleges, Wranglers at Universities, &c. These gentlemen very properly saturate their capacities with more solid stuff, each imbibing, even to the dregs, one or two dignified, substantial sciences, garnished with dead languages, and served up to their pupils with a proper seasoning of pedantry and importance. Thus they enjoy the gratification of being wiser in something than their neighbours, without much troubling their organs of variety; a plan, I readily admit, more appropriate to learning and philosophy, and perhaps more useful to others: but at the same time, I contend that mine (and I speak with the experience of a very long life) is conducive in a greater degree to pleasure, to health, to happiness; and I shrewdly suspect far more convenient to the greater number of capacities.

A certain portion of external and internal variety, like change of air, keeps the animal functions in due activity, while it renders the mind supple and elastic, and more capable of accommodating itself with promptitude to those difficult and trying circumstances into which the vicissitudes of life may plunge it. I admire and respect solid learning; but even a superficial knowledge of a variety of subjects tends to excite that inexhaustible succession of thoughts which, at hand on every emergency, gives tone and vigour both to the head and heart, (not infrequently excluding more unwelcome visitors,) and is a decided and triumphant enemy to hanging, drowning, shooting, cutting of throats, and every other species of suicide except that which so frequently originates from being too rich—a misfortune which seldom falls to the lot of persons who follow the system I have recommended. I do really think, that if a very rich man, who meditated suicide, would for one moment reflect what sincere pleasure his heirs, executors, administrators, and personal representatives (probably his wife and children) would derive from his dangling from the ceiling, he would lock up his rope and become vastly more hospitable.

All my life I perceived the advantage of breeding ideas: the brain can never be too populous, so long as you keep its inhabitants in that wholesome state of discipline, that they are under your command, not you under theirs; and, above all things, never suffer a mob of them to come jostling each other in your head at the same time: keep them as distinct as possible, or it is a hundred to one they will make a blockhead of you at last.

From this habit it has ensued that the longest day is always too short for me. If in tranquil mood, I find my ideas as playful as kittens; if chagrined, consolatory fancies are never wanting. When a man can send the five orders of architecture to build castles in the firmament, of any shape, size or materials he may fancy, and furnish it accordingly, I think a permanent state of melancholy quite unnecessary. Should I grow weary of thoughts relating to the present, my memory carries me back fifty or sixty years with equal politeness and activity; and never ceases shifting time, place, and person, till it lights on some matter more agreeable.

I had naturally very feeble sight: at fifty years of age, to my extreme surprise, I found it had strengthened so much as to render the continued use of spectacles unnecessary; and now I can peruse the smallest print without any glass, and can write a hand so minute, that I know several elderly gentlemen of my own decimal who cannot conquer it even with their reading-glasses. For general use I remark, that I have found my sight more confused by poring for a given length of time over one book, than in double that time when shifting from one print to another, and changing the place I sat in, and of course the quality of light and reflection: to a neglect of such precautions I attribute many of the weak and near visions so common with book-worms.

But another quality of inestimable value which I did and still do possess, thank Heaven! in a degree which, at my time of life, if not supernatural, is not very far from it—is a memory of the most wide-ranging powers: its retrospect is astonishing to myself, and has wonderfully increased since my necessary application to a single science has been dispensed with. The recollection of one early incident of our lives never fails to introduce another; and the marked occurrences of my life from childhood to the wrong side of a grand climacteric are at this moment fresh in my memory, in all their natural tints, as at the instant of their occurrence.

Without awarding any extraordinary merit either to the brain, or to those human organs generally regarded as the seat of recollection, or rather retention of ideas, I think this fact may be accounted for in a much simpler way—more on philosophical than on organic principles. I do not insist on my theory being a true one; but as it is, like Touchstone’s forest-treasure, “my own,” I like it, and am content to hold by it “for better, for worse.”

The two qualities of the human mind with which we are most strongly endowed in childhood are those of fear and memory; both of which accompany us throughout all our worldly peregrinations—with this difference, that with age the one generally declines, while the other increases.

The mind has a tablet whereon Memory begins to engrave occurrences even in our earliest days, and which in old age is full of her handy-work, so that there is no room for any more inscriptions. Hence old people recollect occurrences long past better than those of more recent date; and though an old person can faithfully recount the exploits of his schoolfellows, he will scarcely recollect what he himself was doing the day before yesterday.

It is also observable that the recollection, at an advanced period, of the incidents of childhood, does not require that extent of memory which at first sight may appear essential; neither is it necessary to bound at once over the wide gulf of life between sixty years and three.

Memory results from a connected sequence of thought and observation: so that intervening occurrences draw up the recollection as it were to preceding ones, and thus each fresh-excited act of remembrance in fact operates as a new incident. When a person recollects well (as one is apt to do) a correction which he received in his childhood, or whilst a schoolboy, he probably owes his recollection not to the whipping, but to the name of the book which he was whipped for neglecting; and whenever the book is occasionally mentioned, the whipping is recalled, revived, and perpetuated in the memory.

I once received a correction at school, when learning prosody, for falsely pronouncing the word semisopitus; and though this was between fifty and sixty years ago, I have never since heard prosody mentioned but I have recollected that word, and had the schoolmaster and his rod clearly before my eyes. I even recollect the very leaf of the book whereon the word was printed. Every time I look into a book of poetry, I must of course think of prosody, and prosody suggests semisopitus, and brings before me, on the instant, the scene of my disgrace.

This one example is sufficient for my theory, and proves also the advantage of breeding ideas, since, the more links to a chain, the farther it reaches.

The faculty of memory varies in individuals almost as much as their features. One man may recollect names, dates, pages, numbers, admirably, who does not well remember incidents or anecdotes; and a linguist will retain fifty thousand words, not one-tenth part of which a wit can bury any depth in his recollection.

This admission may tend to excite doubts and arguments against the general application of my theory: but I aim not at making proselytes; indeed I have only said thus much to anticipate observations which may naturally be made respecting the extent to which my memory has carried the retention of bygone circumstances, and to allay the scepticism which might perhaps otherwise follow.