This victory, however, has different degrees of glory
as of difficulty; it is more, heroick as the objects of guilty
gratification are more familiar, and the recurrence of solicitation more
frequent. He that, from experience of the folly of ambition, resigns his
offices, may set himself free at once from temptation to squander his
life in courts, because he cannot regain his former station. He who is
enslaved by an amorous passion, may quit his tyrant in disgust, and
absence will, without the help of reason, overcome by degrees the desire
of returning. But those appetites to which every place affords their
proper object, and which require no preparatory measures or gradual
advances, are more tenaciously adhesive; the wish is so near the
enjoyment, that compliance often precedes consideration, and, before the
powers of reason can be summoned, the time for employing them is past.
Indolence is therefore one of the vices from which those whom it once
infects are seldom reformed. Every other species of luxury operates upon
some appetite that is quickly satiated, and requires some concurrence of
art or accident which every place will not supply; but the desire of
ease acts equally at all hours, and the longer it is indulged is the
more increased.
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