I have too much to do ever to be
bored, and indeed the day is seldom long enough for all I have
designed. Best of all, my work, though abundant, is seldom pressing. I
have hardly ever anything to do that must be done that moment. With
some people that would end in putting off everything till the last
moment, but that is not the case with me. The greatest luxury I know is
to have accumulated stores of work on which one can draw; and my
tendency is, if ever a piece of work is entrusted to me, to do it at
once. I have few gregarious instincts, I suppose. I like eating alone,
reading alone, and walking alone. There is also a good deal to be said
for learning to enjoy solitude, for it is the one luxury that a man
without any close home ties can command. An independent bachelor is
sure, whether he likes it or not, to have, as life goes on, more and
more enforced solitude--that is, if he detests living in a town. I have
not even nephews and nieces whom it would be natural to see something
of; and thus it is a wise economy to practise for solitude.
From the point of view of work, too, it is undeniably delightful. I
need never suspend a train of thought; I can write till I have finished
a subject. There is never the abominable necessity of stopping in the
middle of a sentence, with the prospect of having laboriously to
recapture the mood; and it is the same with reading.
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