"But nothing WORTH doing."
Whereupon Aunt Judy told No. 3 that he was just like Dr. Faustus. On
which, of course, No. 3 wanted to know what Dr. Faustus was like, and
Aunt Judy answered, that he was just like HIM, only a great deal
older and very learned.
"Only quite different, then," suggested No. 3.
"No," said Aunt Judy, "not QUITE different, for he came one day to
the same conclusion that you have done, namely, that there was
nothing to do, worth doing in the world."
"_I_ don't say the world, I only say here," observed No. 3; "there's
plenty to do elsewhere, I dare say."
"So you think, because you have not tried else where," answered Aunt
Judy. "But Dr. Faustus, who had tried elsewhere, thought everywhere
alike, and declared there was nothing worth doing anywhere, although
he had studied law, physic, divinity, and philosophy all through, and
knew pretty nearly everything."
"Then you see he did not get much good out of learning," remarked No.
3.
"I do see," was the reply.
"And what became of him?"
"Ah, that's the point," replied Aunt Judy, "and a very remarkable
point too. As soon as he got into the state of fancying there was
nothing to do, worth doing, in God's world, the evil spirit came to
him, and found him something to do in what I may, I am sure, call the
devil's world--I mean, wickedness."
"Oh, that's a story written upon Watts's old hymn," exclaimed No. 3,
contemptuously:-
"'For Satan finds some mischief still,
For idle hands to do.'