With Darn it was different. But Darn had the advantage of some practical training in business, having served as an intendant of the army in Switzerland under Massena, during which he also distinguished himself as an author. When Napoleon proposed to appoint him a councillor of state and intendant of the Imperial Household, Darn hesitated to accept the office. "I have passed the greater part of my life," he said, "among books, and have not had time to learn the functions of a courtier." "Of courtiers," replied Napoleon, "I have plenty about me; they will never fail. But I want a minister, at once enlightened, firm, and vigilant; and it is for these qualities that I have selected you." Darn complied with the Emperor's wishes, and eventually became his Prime Minister, proving thoroughly efficient in that capacity, and remaining the same modest, honourable, and disinterested man that he had ever been through life. Men of trained working faculty so contract the habit of labour that idleness becomes intolerable to them; and when driven by circumstances from their own special line of occupation, they find refuge in other pursuits. The diligent man is quick to find employment for his leisure; and he is able to make leisure when the idle man finds none. "He hath no leisure," says George Herbert, "who useth it not." "The most active or busy man that hath been or can be," says Bacon, "hath, no question, many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business, except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle with things that may be better done by others." Thus many great things have been done during such "vacant times of leisure," by men to whom industry had become a second nature, and who found it easier to work than to be idle. Even hobbies are useful as educators of the working faculty. Hobbies evoke industry of a certain kind, and at least provide agreeable occupation. Not such hobbies as that of Domitian, who occupied himself in catching flies. The hobbies of the King of Macedon who made lanthorns, and of the King of France who made locks, were of a more respectable order. Even a routine mechanical employment is felt to be a relief by minds acting under high-pressure: it is an intermission of labour--a rest--a relaxation, the pleasure consisting in the work itself rather than in the result.