7.  Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate state between pleasure and pain, and very much unbecoming any part of our life after we are out of the nurse’s arms.  Such an aversion to labour creates a constant weariness, and one would think should make existence itself a burden.

8.  The indolent man descends from the dignity of his nature, and makes that being which was rational, merely vegetative; his life consists only in the mere increase and decay of a body, which, with relation to the rest of the world, might as well have been uninformed, as the habitation of a reasonable mind.

9.  Of this kind is the life of that extraordinary couple, Harry Tersett and his lady. Harry was, in the days of his celibacy, one of those pert creatures who have much vivacity and little understanding; Mrs. Rebecca Quickly, whom he married, had all that the fire of youth and a lively manner could do towards making an agreeable woman.

10.  These two people of seeming merit fell into each other’s arms; and passion being sated, and no reason or good sense in either to succeed it, their life is now at a stand; their meals are insipid, and time tedious; their fortune has placed them above care, and their loss of taste reduced them below diversion.

11.  When we talk of these as instances of inexistence, we do not mean, that in order to live it is necessary we should always be in jovial crews, or crowned with chaplets of roses, as the merry fellows among the ancients are described; but it is intended by considering these contraries to pleasure, indolence and too much delicacy, to shew that it is prudent to preserve a disposition in ourselves, to receive a certain delight in all we hear and see.

12.  This portable quality of good-humour seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with; in such a manner, that there are no moments lost; but they all pass with so much satisfaction, that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load) that of time, is never felt by us.

13. Varilas has this quality to the highest perfection, and communicates it wherever he appears:  the sad, the merry, the severe, the melancholy, shew a new cheerfulness when he comes amongst them.  At the same time no one can repeat any thing that Varilas has ever said that deserves repetition; but the man has that innate goodness of temper, that he is welcome to every body, because every man thinks he is so to him.

14.  He does not seem to contribute any thing to the mirth of the company; and yet upon reflection you find it all happened by his being there.  I thought it was whimsically said of a gentleman, That if Varilas had wit, it would be the best wit in the world.  It is certain when a well corrected lively imagination and good-breeding are added to a sweet disposition, they qualify it to be one of the greatest blessings, as well as pleasures of life.