advantages of a careful home training, has superadded the culture and discipline of the academy and college and professional school, is far less able to endure the weariness of inactivity than one who is uneducated and sensual. The coarsegrained, unthinking fisherman can lounge by the hour, or even pass weeks in a kind of negative, animal existence, and not be conscious of any special unhappiness. Endue him with a keen, active, and cultivated mind; fire his ambition by rivalry; raise him to a respectable station; and an hour of absolute idleness would be to him absolute torture. While, then, with Sancho Panza, we say, "blessings on the man who invented sleep," we invoke blessings still greater on him who invented work.

Work is the best of all methods of relief from the trials of life. Work is God's angel of mercy to his suffering children. It does not, indeed, take the place of the Christian faith; it rather becomes a part of, and is identified with it and gives it life. Work is a relief from the weariness of disappointment and from the unsatisfied ambition to which literary men, of all others, are especially subject. The nearer we are to the mountain top the harder the ascent becomes, and the fiercer blow the winds. The higher we rise in the social scale, severer grows the struggle. The greatest minds are the hardest to be satisfied. No class are so little content with such things as they have as our leaders in the world of thought. Hence, they especially need the relief that only activity can afford.

"When Molly puts the kettle over the fire, you might as well say 'Don't boil,' as to tell me not to work," said Sir Walter Scott, when his physician commanded him to remit his excessive tasks. His extreme illustration represents the experience of all thoughtful minds everywhere. It is safe to say that the life of the great novelist was lengthened and not shortened by the relief that composition afforded him from the sorrows and disappointments that clouded his latter days.

Dr. Johnson found in literary labor a relief from the weariness of melancholy, VOL. VI.-35

and for that reason toiled much harder and longer than he would have been prompted to do by his native indolence.

Those, indeed, who have not specially studied literary biography may be surprised to learn that many, if not most of the best works of human genius, have been wrought as a relief from the weariness of disappointed ambition, blighted love, personal bereavement, domestic affliction, or inpaired health. But such is the record of history.

Socrates, as all the world knows, sought in the walks of philosophy a relief from the worst kind of domestic disquietude. Dante would probably have never written his Inferno but for the hell that raged about him and even within him, and for the pining and love for Beatrice that knew no satisfaction. The songs of Petrarch would have been unknown to-day had they not been inspired by passion as morbid and consuming as it was deep and tender. Ariosto wrote amid a succession of disappointments and trials that might have early crushed out his life had he not sought relief in letters. Camoens wrote his "Lusiad" to beguile the tedium of five years' imprisonment. What were all the brilliant though unhealthy writings of Rousseau but the safety-valves of his morbid and powerful nature, that would otherwise have driven him to selfdestruction.

Coming down to English history, we find that some of its brightest lights of literature would never have shone at all but for the necessities and the inspiration of sorrow. It was partly the imperiousness of an unloved and unlovable spouse that drove Addison to the composition of the standard models of English Essays. It was disappointment and envy, engendering melancholy, that made Pope the poet and oracle of his day. It was melancholy and partial insanity that gave us the "Night Thoughts" of Young. It was the cruelty of a long imprisonment that gave us "Pilgrim's Progress." And so if we traverse the whole world of genius, scientific and mechanical as well as literary, we shall find that the greatest of intellectual creations would never have been

attempted save as a relief from the weariness of some form of sorrow.

It has long been proverbial that some of our finest poems were composed as the outlets of some sudden tide of grief, rushing in on the sensitive and impassioned soul. All have heard of the romantic story connected with that beautiful and immortal hymn,

"I would not live alway,

I ask not to stay;"

and, as one reads or hears its musical strains, he can but feel that if grief must afflict humanity it were well that it should visit first of all those gifted souls who can find relief in song.

If any of the flowers of humanity must be bruised and crushed, it were well that they should be the choicest and purest, that will give forth the sweetest and richest fragrance.

Mental labor especially is a relief from the weariness that comes from ill-health and physical weakness. It is impossible to estimate how much of the literary wealth of the world has been due to

the physical sufferings or disabilities of authors.

Homer and Milton would probably never have given us their great epics had their senses all been perfect. Virgil was /thought to be too feeble to lead any act

ive life, and worked all his days in pain. Schiller, we are told, was always a sufferer, and at his literary tasks he is represented by Carlyle as offering up the

troubled moments of his existence on the golden altar of Eternity."

Campbell wrote every day in pain. Cowper endured at times excruciating agonies, yet rarely excused himself from his daily literary task. Hannah More was a great sufferer during her literary career, and even believed that ill-health made her more industrious. Baxter was diseased in all his organs, and wrote the work that gave him immortality during a severe and protracted illness.

Robert Hall was at times tormented with neuralgia, for which he sought and found relief in study. Paley's "Natural Theology" was composed during an attack of painful sickness. The memory of

our own Prescott is yet too green with us to render it necessary to say, that but for his blindness he would probably have been unknown to fame.

These instances, and many more that might be cited, are refutations of the common idea that physical health is essential to the best forms of mental activity. While there is a measure of truth in the old maxim, "mens sana in corpore sano," yet it must be admitted that many of the greatest works of genius have been performed by those whose bodies at least were far from being sound.

Indeed it may well be questioned whether a certain measure of physical feebleness and delicacy does not impart a kind of unnatural intensity and brilliancy to the mind. The records of literary biography show clearly that authors have often been the most original and imaginative when the nervous system was wrought upon by pain.

But any one form of mental labor itself in time becomes a weariness and demands relief. What, then, is the next best method of rest? Is it physical inactivity? Is it sleep? By no means! He who is simply wearied by one kind of mental toil does not need the luxury of sleep. This he may have when he has earned it, and not

before.

We name as the second method of rest a change of activity. We are to keep on laboring as hard as before, but a new set of faculties are to be called into action. In this, as in all other matters that pertain to our well-being, we cannot do better than take lessons of the great teacher and model-Nature.

Chemists tell us that the plants we have in our homes in the day time exhale oxygen and inhale carbonic acid, and at night they reverse the process, taking in oxygen and giving off carbonic acid. This beautiful fact of vegetative life illustrates, better than any abstract reasoning, what we mean by a change of labor. The strongest and most enduring cannot labor consecutively at any single task for more than six hours without becoming so wearied as to demand rest. But when the flesh thus becomes wearied we are

not to lie down or give up, but, like the house-plants, we are to change our activity. We are to rest by calling into exercise a different set of faculties, and to continue this process of change until the whole nature is wearied, and seeks for the rest of inactivity. Amateurs and professional gymnasts recognize this principle and act upon it. They do not occupy the prescribed hours for exercise with one form of movement, but vary it with dumb-bells, vaulting, leaping, running, swinging, and lifting, until all the muscles of the body become pleasantly and uniformly wearied. The methods of changing labor are as numberless as are human activities. We may find rest by mental labor itself, which is equally severe, perhaps, though entirely different in its nature from that by which we are wearied. Clergymen can divide their time between writing sermons, pastoral visitations, attending meetings, and delivering popular lectures. Dr. Bacon used to say that it was always a recreation for him to write an essay for the New Englander. Lawyers, physicians who are medical authors, and all writers generally, can find rest by a change of employment, and it is a matter of observation that those who have accomplished the most in the world of literature have been those who were pressed upon by a variety of employments.

If we study the history of the great literary workers of the different eras of the world, we shall find that those who have accomplished the most and endured the longest have availed themselves most studiously of the rest that comes from a change of toil, at least in a desultory manner, if not methodically.

Cæsar was a marvel of industry, but it was not by doing one but many things that he achieved his fame. The same may be said of Marlborough and Napoleon and Washington, and of nearly all the great warriors, as well as statesmen of history. Variety of labor is a necessity for great leaders in war, or government, and hence it is that so many of them have endured responsibilities that have astonished the world.

asthma, and all his life long he fought against consumption, but he was always equal to his responsibilities. During the excitement of our late war thousands of private citizens were driven to insanity or an early grave, but he who bore the sorrows of us all-our martyred President--was sustained by the very variety of cares that pressed upon him and by the jokes and nonsense that were the safetyvalves of his nature. Dr. Johnson, with all his irregularities, yet accomplished a great deal of work and in tasks requiring very opposite faculties. The same is true of his friend and companion, Oliver Goldsmith. Southey, the hardest brain-worker of his time, distributed his energies between history, biography, miscellany, letter-writing, and poetry. It is a fact clearly established by statistics that those who have solely occupied themselves with poetry have been, with scarcely an exception, unhealthy and short-lived as compared with other brain-workers. It is well to rest the imagination by exercising the faculties in science and mathematics.

The poet Campbell had a variety of duties for each day, of which writing poetry and editing the New Monthly were among the least. On the other hand Byron wrote little but poetry and died at 37. Judge Story was a Titanic worker, but he passed each day in alternations of study and reading, lecturing and talking. Dr. Arnold accomplished his great labors by doing many things rather than one. Rev. Albert Barnes wrote his numerous and popular commentaries before breakfast, and devoted the rest of the day to his pastoral duties. Bulwer tells us that all his novels were written between the hours of ten and one, the rest of the day being divided between Parliament, society, reading, and a thousand other nameless duties. But we need not look to by-gone days for examples of the beneficial effects of a variety of intellectual labor. Living illustrations are all about us.

We wonder that Dickens can accomplish so much, and in such opposite spheres; that he can be at once a volumi

editor, and a man of business; be prëeminent in them all, and yet appear so young after thirty years of such activity. Variety of labor has been to him a means of rest: his reading on the platform, and acting in the parlor, have counterbalanced the excessive devotion to imaginative composition that might otherwise have shortened his days. We wonder that Mr. Greeley can add to his responsibilities as editor the exposure and fatigue of popular lecturing and political speaking, not considering that exclusive labor in the sanctum would be more exhausting than five times the same amount of labor distributed in different spheres.

The exercise of public extemporaneous speaking is a most beneficial change from the confinement of study, from the fact that it calls into vigorous exercise the physical and emotional, as well as the purely intellectual nature. Public speaking, of the natural, platform style, is in fact one of the best forms of physical exercise that can be recommended. We cannot say as much of the too common custom of reading sermons, in constrained positions, and in unnatural tones; and those who fall into this practice have but themselves to censure for any laryngeal difficulties and nervous weakness that may visit them.

It is on this principle of the preeminent healthfulness of public speaking that we account for the gigantic labors of Wesley, Whitefield, and Chalmers. The most enduring and laborious of our living platform-speakers are not confined to notes. Newman Hall has recently astonished us by delivering four and even five sermons on the Sabbath and an address almost nightly during the week; but be it remembered that he spoke extemporaneously, with a natural, easy and energetic delivery, thus bringing into harmonious play, on each occasion, the physical, emotional, intellectual and moral nature.

Another method of changing labor is by taking physical exercise and recreation. After all the faculties of the mind have been successively called into play, there yet remains a most potent means of rest before we resort to sleep.

Many false ideas are extant on the subject of recreation, and many injurious theories and practices have been inculcated by those who have themselves needed instruction. We have been taught to worship muscle, even in literary and professional men, as though physical and mental soundness were in proportion to the size of the arms and legs.

Nothing could be more absurd than that brain-workers should take pride in the measurement of their flexors and extensors.

The old Roman Seneca understood this two thousand years ago, and declared that scholars should be ashamed to pride themselves on "length of arm or breadth of back." A certain measure of muscular development is necessary to the vigorous activity and play of all the functions, to the enjoyment of a perpetual love of activity and to exuberance of the animal spirits-and that is all that the brain-worker needs. Such a condition, however, cannot be maintained without moderate and pleasant physical exercise of some kind. What that kind shall be, or when or how it should be taken, matters not, so long as it is enjoyed. Fishing, hunting, riding, walking, bowling, billiards, skating, gymnastics, all are good, and all are bad, accordingly as they are enjoyed by the individual, and make him happier and healthier in his whole nature. But in none of these should the aim be to secure great muscular development, but only that golden mean of roundness and hardness that consists with the healthful activity of all the faculties of mind and body.

Muscular development as such does not secure exemption from disease, nor does it especially favor long life. Army surgeons are all agreed that, during the late war, the largest and stoutest soldiers were the most subject to the diseases incident to camp life, and were the soonest to die. The Maine lumbermen perished under malarious that seemed only to fatten and harden the delicate frames of our college boys. Severe spasmodic physical exercise in the way of active games, boating, racing, and

exposure

the like, is especially injurious to the young and growing constitution. It was observed that the young Grecian athletes, who won the prizes at the Olympic games, failed to rise to prominence in after-life. And we are told that the race crews of Oxford and Cambridge are inclined to heart disease, and find it difficult to pass muster in the Life Insurance offices.

It cannot be too urgently taught that it is not size but quality of muscle that the scholar should desire. It is not by lifting heavy weights at certain hours of the day, or by excessive and spasmodic movements of any part of the body, that we secure the best conditions for mental labor. Let the scholar avoid all violence, all that excessively wearies or tends to exhaust the system. Let him select the kind of exercise that he likes best, and follow it as long as he enjoys it, and no longer. Let him select his exercise as he does his food, by his taste, and even by his whims. There are cool mathematical natures that can endure one steady course of life, and one system of exercise from year to year, but such are not guides for the poetical, fickle, nervous, and flighty natures, whose moods change as often as the appearance of the sky.

Enjoyableness, then, is the great principle by which we are to select our methods of exercise, and by which we are to vary them. Most of us outgrow the athletic sports of boyhood, and prefer to take our exercise in a calmer and more dignified

manner.

That literary man, however, is to be envied, who, amidst the cares of middle life, still retains his fondness for boyish sports, for his spirits will thereby be more lively, his industry more successful, and his life more protracted.

Richelieu had a habit of jumping up and touching the ceiling. Sydney Smith would rise from his desk and jump over chairs as an amusement. Our Webster was a renowned angler, and but for his so frequently resorting to the brook-side he probably would not have survived his disappointments so long as he did. Dr. Lyman Beecher kept in his cellar a bank of

sand which he used to shovel about from one side to the other between morning and afternoon service. Dickens has been famous as a pedestrian for years; it is said that he not unfrequently walks from 15 to 20 miles as a recreation after his morning's task is over. One is tempted to envy such natures, and to covet their perpetual sprightliness and boyish activity, which render their literary career so happy, so useful, and so protracted. On the contrary, those are to be pitied who, in mature or advanced years, lose all taste for the sports and recreations of boyhood. And this is especially to be deplored in a literary or professional man, or in a merchant or man of business, who needs the rest that comes from pleasant physical exercises.

In this respect we Americans are far behind Europeans. The English gentleman joins in the chase or in active games in his park; the Germans frolic and dance in their gardens; the Frenchman trips merrily through a whole round of light and cheery amusement. Of late years there has been observed a growing fondness among us for various out-door sports and exercises, that promises well for the health of the next generation.

Still another method of changing labor is by the activity of social and domestic life. Social life brings into action the entire nature--the physical, the emotional, and the moral, as well as the intellectual

and, when pursued as the sole end of existence, as it is by the frivolous and fashionable, it provides sufficient exercise for the mind to keep it in almost constant activity. But, on the whole, social and domestic life exercises an entirely different set of faculties from those which are employed in composition or study, and therefore it is a most agreeable and beneficial means of rest for the scholar and man of letters. The exercise of the af fections, emotions, and sympathies of the family relation--the miscellaneous chitchat at table, in the parlor, on the street, in the door-way, at the market or store or office-the excitement of preparing for and entertaining company-the physical exercise of dancing, singing, and playing,