"And, who art thou that braggest of thy life of idleness; complacently showest thy bright gilt equipages; sumptuous cushions; appliances for the folding of the hands to more sleep? Looking up, looking down, around, behind, or before, discernest thou, if it be not in Mayfair alone, any _idle_ hero, saint, god, or even devil? Not a vestige of one. 'In the heavens, in the earth, in the waters under the earth, is none like unto thee.' Thou art an original figure in this creation, a denizen in Mayfair alone. One monster there is in the world: the idle man. What is his 'religion?' That nature is a phantasm, where cunning, beggary, or thievery, may sometimes find good victual." * * * * * "The 'wages' of every noble work do yet lie in heaven, or else nowhere. Nay, at bottom dost thou need any reward? Was it thy aim and life-purpose, to be filled with good things for thy heroism; to have a life of pomp and ease, and be what men call 'happy' in this world, or in any other world? I answer for thee, deliberately, no? "The brave man has to give his life away. Give it, I advise thee--thou dost not expect to _sell_ thy life in an adequate manner? What price, for example, would content thee?... Thou wilt never sell thy life, or any part of thy life, in a satisfactory manner. Give it, like a royal heart--let the price be nothing; thou hast then, in a certain sense, got all for it!" Well said! we again repeat, O Diogenes Teufelsdrockh! * * * * * _Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work_. * * * * * End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine--Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843, by Various