To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device upon the margin, or in the typography of a book -- to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or upon the floor -- to lose myself for an entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire -- to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower -- to repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind -- to lose all sense of motion or physical existence in a state of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in -- Such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to any thing like analysis or explanation.