MY DEAR ----,--It is no en the Voyage from St. Helena asy task in this
world to distinguish between what is great in it, and what is mean; and
many and many is the puzzle that I have had in reading History (or the
works of fiction which go by that name), to know whether I should laud
up to the skies, and endeavor, to the best of my small capabilities, to
imitate the remarkable character about whom I was reading, or whether
I should fling aside the book and the hero of it, as things altogether
base, unworthy, laughable, and get a novel, or a game of billiards, or
a pipe of tobacco, or the report of the last debate in the House, or any
other employment which would leave the mind in a state of easy vacuity,
rather than pester it with a vain set of dates relating to actions which
are in themselves not worth a fig, or with a parcel of names of people
whom it can do one no earthly good to remember.