The most general survey shows us that the two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.  We may go further, and say that in the degree in which we are fortunate enough to get away from the one, we approach the other.  Life presents, in fact, a more or less violent oscillation between the two.  The reason of this is that each of these two poles stands in a double antagonism to the other, external or objective, and inner or subjective.  Needy surroundings and poverty produce pain; while, if a man is more than well off, he is bored.  Accordingly, while the lower classes are engaged in a ceaseless struggle with need, in other words, with pain, the upper carry on a constant and often desperate battle with boredom.[1] The inner or subjective antagonism arises from the fact that, in the individual, susceptibility to pain varies inversely with susceptibility to boredom, because susceptibility is directly proportionate to mental power.  Let me explain.  A dull mind is, as a rule, associated with dull sensibilities, nerves which no stimulus can affect, a temperament, in short, which does not feel pain or anxiety very much, however great or terrible it may be.  Now, intellectual dullness is at the bottom of that vacuity of soul which is stamped on so many faces, a state of mind which betrays itself by a constant and lively attention to all the trivial circumstances in the external world.  This is the true source of boredom—­a continual panting after excitement, in order to have a pretext for giving the mind and spirits something to occupy them.  The kind of things people choose for this purpose shows that they are not very particular, as witness the miserable pastimes they have recourse to, and their ideas of social pleasure and conversation:  or again, the number of people who gossip on the doorstep or gape out of the window.  It is mainly because of this inner vacuity of soul that people go in quest of society, diversion, amusement, luxury of every sort, which lead many to extravagance and misery.  Nothing is so good a protection against such misery as inward wealth, the wealth of the mind, because the greater it grows, the less room it leaves for boredom.  The inexhaustible activity of thought!  Finding ever new material to work upon in the multifarious phenomena of self and nature, and able and ready to form new combinations of them,—­there you have something that invigorates the mind, and apart from moments of relaxation, sets it far above the reach of boredom.

[Footnote 1:  And the extremes meet; for the lowest state of civilization, a nomad or wandering life, finds its counterpart in the highest, where everyone is at times a tourist.  The earlier stage was a case of necessity; the latter is a remedy for boredom.]