14
THE BATTALION.
tate upon questions of every description of great importance
that afford not one spark of interest to a man who is accus
tomed to read what conduces to his intellectual gratification.
Such a man is incapable of discussing the obscure questions
that determine the most important actions in public and
private life. He may try to to investigate these abhorred but
vital principles, but his mental organism, not disciplined for
such labor, he cannot confine himself to such drudgery, and
he is compelled, and often with great natural talents, to
abandon higher investigations to those who are prepared to
enter upon them. In the study of mathematics the student
is compelled to bend all his energies to attain the desired
knowledge. Language is scantily employed. There is no
interval of high sounding words and rhetorical phrases, but
it is a concentrated mass of sound ideas, arranged in the most
logical succession according to the most consummate system.
There are no flights of fancy to tickle the taste; there are no
places of refuge for those flying from subtile points. But it is
the province of uncorrupted reason. It enters into the very
essence of things, and does not concern itself with the clothing
of words that conceals so many sublime truths from the view.
If a man undertakes to master such a science, his attention
must be fixed and unswerving. Aversion to mental exertion
must be divested in the beginning, or he will fail before he
reaches the threshold of the magnificent edifice. When ap
parently unfathomable mysteries stare him on every page he
must accustom himself to work under the most unpropitious
circumstances. He will sometimes find some demonstration
beyond his reach ; the bright rays of hope may disappear
amid a cloud of disappointment, still, if his resolution is
steel-clad, he eventually succeeds. This inspires a man witn
confidence in his own powers. He thinks that if he can
solve- the unintelligible and mysterious problems of math
ematics, he can safely defy the subtility of any subject to
evade a successful scrutiny. His mind and attention are
completely under subjection, for he will never have again to
survey any field of intellectual investigation so wearisome