those which threaten
us. And even if we should see ourselves sufficiently sheltered on all sides,
weariness of its own accord would not fail to arise from the depths of the
heart wherein it has its natural roots and to fill the mind with its poison.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for
weariness from the peculiar state of his disposition; and so frivolous is he
that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such
as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient to amuse him.

But will you say what object has he in all this? The pleasure of bragging
tomorrow among his friends that he has played better than another. So others
sweat in their own rooms to show to the learned that they have solved a
problem in algebra, which no one had hitherto been able to solve. Many more
expose themselves to extreme perils, in my opinion as foolishly, in order to
boast afterwards that they have captured a town. Lastly, others wear
themselves out in studying all these things, not in order to become wiser,
but only in order to prove that they know them; and these are the most
senseless of the band, since they are so knowingly, whereas one may suppose
of the others that, if they knew it, they would no longer be foolish.

This man spends his life without weariness in playing every day for a small
stake. Give him each morning the money he can win each day, on condition he
does not play; you make him miserable. It will perhaps be said that he seeks
the amusement of play and not the winni