But a more refined operation of this pestilent indolence is its way of infusing into the mind the delusive belief that it can attain the objects of activity without its exercise.  Under this illusion, men expect to grow wise, as men who gamble in stocks expect to grow rich, by chance, and not by work.  They invest in mediocrity in the confident hope that it will go many hundred per cent. above par; and so shocking has been the inflation of the intellectual currency of late years, that this speculation of indolence sometimes partially succeeds.  But a revulsion comes,—­and then brass has to make a break-neck descent to reach its proper level below gold.  There are others whom indolence deludes by some trash about “fits” of inspiration, for whose Heaven-sent spasms they are humbly to wait.  There is, it seems, a lucky thought somewhere in the abyss of possibility, which is somehow, at some time, to step out of essence into substance, and take up its abode in their capacious minds,—­dutifully kept unoccupied in order that the expected celestial visitor may not be crowded for room.  Chance is to make them king, and chance to crown them, without their stir!  There are others still, who, while sloth is sapping the primitive energy of their natures, expect to scale the fortresses of knowledge by leaps and not by ladders, and who count on success in such perilous gymnastics, not by the discipline of the athlete, but by the dissipation of the idler.  Indolence, indeed, is never at a loss for a smooth lie or delicious sophism to justify inaction, and, in our day, has rationalized it into a philosophy of the mind, and idealized it into a school of poetry, and organized it into a “hospital of incapables.”  It promises you the still ecstasy of a divine repose, while it lures you surely down into the vacant dulness of inglorious sloth.  It provides a primrose path to stagnant pools, to an Arcadia of thistles, and a Paradise of mud.

But in a mind of any primitive power, intellectual indolence is sure to generate intellectual conceit,—­a little Jack Horner, that ensconces itself in lazy heads, and, while it dwarfs every power to the level of its own littleness, keeps vociferating, “What a great man am I!” It is the essential vice of this glib imp of the mind, even when it infests large intellects, that it puts Nature in the possessive case,—­labels all its inventions and discoveries “My truth,”—­and moves about the realms of art, science, and letters in a constant fear of having its pockets picked.  Think of a man’s having vouchsafed to him one of those awful glimpses into the mysteries of creation which should be received with a shudder of prayerful joy, and taking the gracious boon with a smirk of all-satisfied conceit!  One page in what Shakspeare calls “Nature’s infinite book of secrecy” flies a moment open to his eager gaze, and he hears the rustling of the myriad leaves as they close and clasp, only to make his spirit more abject, his vanity more ravenous, his hatred of rivals more rancorous and mean.  That grand unselfish love of truth, and joy in its discovery, by whomsoever made, which characterize the true seeker and seer of science and creative art, alone can keep the mind alive and alert, alone can make the possession of truth a means of elevating and purifying the man.