Engage
This amusement engaged me so much that [friends] were obliged to force me from it; and thus it is with every inclination I give into, it continues to augment, till at length it becomes so powerful, that I lose sight of everything except the favorite amusement. Years have not been able to cure me of that fault, nay, have not even diminished it... behold me, like an old dotard, infatuated with another, to me useless study, which I do not understand, and which even those who have devoted their youthful days to the acquision of, are constrained to abandon, at the age I am beginning it.
- J. J. Rouseau, *Confessions*