'Tis an honest injury to nature to steal from her some hours of repose;
unsufferable to the soul to let the golden hours of the morning pass
without advantage, seeing she is then more capable of culture, and seems
to be renewed as well as the day. It were an excellent posture to paint
Caesar in, as he swum with a book in the one hand, and a sword in the
other; since he made his tent an academy, and was at leisure to read the
physiognomy of the heavens in military tumults. This shows he knew how
to prize time, and hated idleness as much as a superior; and indeed, to
speak to Christians, we ought to look how we spend our hours here,
knowing they are but the preludium of that which shall be no time but
Eternity.
Judgement is long ere it be settled, experience being the best nurse of
it, and we see seldom learning and wisdom concur, because the former is
got _sub umbra_, but business doth winnow observations, and the better
acquaintance with breathing volumes of men; it teacheth us both better
to read them and to apply what we have read....
Health ought to be nicely respected by a student. For the labours of the
mind are as far beyond them of the body, as the diseases of the one are
above the other; and how can a spirit actuate when she is caged in a
lump of fainting flesh? Unseasonable times of study are very obnoxious,
as after meals, when Nature is wholly retired to concoction; or at night
times, when she begins to droop for want of rest, hence so many rheums,
defluxions, catarrhs, &c., that I have heard it spoken of one of the
greatest ambulatory pieces of learning at this day, that he would redeem
(if possible) his health with the loss of half his learning.--JOHN HALL.
_Horae Vacivae._