6072. IDLENESS - USE - HEN[RIK] BENZELSTIERNA.* It was made known to me by experience, that idleness is the devil's pillow, because idleness is like a sponge which draws to itself dirty water of various sorts, inasmuch as he who is in idleness, speaks, and therefore thinks, about all things in the world, pure and impure, and hence receives the devil of all impure things - since man inclines to these things and there is not anything to drive them away. Only the love of uses repels them for this holds the mind in its delight, and thus regards all other things as outside itself. This was seen in the case of H[enrik] B[enzelstierna], who loved ease. Owing to his delight in it, he attracted to himself very many evils, and suffered himself to be led by the delights thereof, thus by the spirits who were in them. * Usually written Benzelius. At the time of his death, in 1758, he was Archbishop of Upsal. -TR.