It is natural to feel grief or indignation when
any thing necessary or useful is wantonly wasted,
or negligently destroyed; and therefore my
correspondent cannot be blamed for looking with
uneasiness on the waste of life. Leisure and curiosity
might soon make great advances in useful knowledge,
were they not diverted by minute emulation
and laborious trifles. It may, however, somewhat
mollify his anger to reflect, that perhaps none of the
assembly which he describes, was capable of any
nobler employment, and that he who does his best,
however little, is always to be distinguished from
him who does nothing. Whatever busies the mind
without corrupting it, has at least this use, that it
rescues the day from idleness, and he that is never
idle will not often be vicious.