"Action! the panacea of human ills; the sure resource of misery; the refuge of bad consciences; a maelstroom, in whose giddy vortex saints and villains may whirl alike. How like a madman some great criminal, some Macbeth, will plunge on through his slough of blood and treachery, frantic to dam out justice at every chink, and bulwark himself against fate; clinching crime with crime; giving conscience no time to stab; finding no rest; but still plunging on, desperate and blind! How like a madman some pious anchorite, fervent to win heaven, will pile torture on torture, fast, and vigil, and scourge, made wretched daily with some fresh scruple, delving to find some new depth of self-abasement, and still struggling on unsatisfied, insatiable of penance, till the grave devours him! Human activity!--to pursue a security which is never reached, a contentment which eludes the grasp, some golden consummation which proves but hollow mockery; to seize the prize, to taste it, to fling it away, and reach after another! This cell, where I thought myself buried and sealed up from knowledge, is, after all, a school of philosophy. It teaches a dreary wisdom of its own. Through these stone walls I can see the follies of the world more clearly than when I was in the midst of them. A dreary wisdom; and yet not wholly dreary. There is a power and a consolation in it. Misery is the mind-maker; the revealer of truth; the spring of nobleness; the test, the purger, the strengthener of the spirit. Our natures are like grapes in the wine press: they must be pressed to the uttermost before they will give forth all their virtue.