"
He could not see it. He said he was engaged on an essay upon the famous
_quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_ of St Vincent de Lerins. This
was the more provoking because he showed himself able to do better things
if he had liked.
I was then at work upon my burlesque "The Impatient Griselda," and was
sometimes at my wits' end for a piece of business or a situation; he gave
me many suggestions, all of which were marked by excellent good sense.
Nevertheless I could not prevail with him to put philosophy on one side,
and was obliged to leave him to himself.
For a long time, as I have said, his choice of subjects continued to be
such as I could not approve. He was continually studying scientific and
metaphysical writers, in the hope of either finding or making for himself
a philosopher's stone in the shape of a system which should go on all
fours under all circumstances, instead of being liable to be upset at
every touch and turn, as every system yet promulgated has turned out to
be.
He kept to the pursuit of this will-o'-the-wisp so long that I gave up
hope, and set him down as another fly that had been caught, as it were,
by a piece of paper daubed over with some sticky stuff that had not even
the merit of being sweet, but to my surprise he at last declared that he
was satisfied, and had found what he wanted.
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