The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1868-12-09
3,2ocfson JntelIlgcntu.
Too Much w ork.

among the wlSeSt OF our citizens lhaG we
are d too hard,worked peoplc-that we
have.too few festival and anniversary days,
inwhich, escaping from the slavery OF bu-
siness, we may indulge in that innocent
recreation which is alike healthfu and ne
cessarv to body and mind. Ever since
our foreathers landed at Plymouth, we
Americans have been laborlOuS, hard
toiliny race. We are born to toll. The
child, almost as soon as he can talk, is
taught by precept and example the neces-
sitY of future exertion; i'll manhood he
directs all the faculties with which Heaven
has endowed him to the acquisition OF
money, which, when accumulated, he val
ues only as means of swelling his alrea-
dy groaning Golfers; and in old age he
knows no enjoyment so keen CT gratifying
as still striving with unceasng diligence
to turn into his own purse the golden tlde
in which all around linn are trying 20 dab
BILE. Go into our large towns and cities;
bark to the morning cries, the increasing
roar, as the rush of life hurrles through
the crowded thorouglltares; walk by the
ellttering shops; the wharves crowded
with the products OF thousand cines;
mark the arriving cars and departing
fleets. and note the mutiludinous occnpa-
tions of the thousands of anxious and busy
citizens. whose incessaat and varied labors
no pen can chronicle. Nowhere do yon
find any drones-every man Is at WORK
with might and main, bending all his ply
sical or mental energies, or both, towards
the acquisition of wealth. An insane and
Unsuitable passion for accumulation has
seized upon the public mind; money is
literally the god of many OF our people,
and the god of their families. For this
they rise up before the sun is in the heav-
ems, and long after his going down. For
this the iron wheel of business rolls round,
like the wheel of day and night, from
january to December, with no pause to
cool it's fiery axle. Isit any way surprising
that, under such an increasing pressure OF
labor, large proportion of Americans
break down early in life, and often, when
just in sight of the goal, sink into prema
ture graves?
1t is not, however, the hard work we
do, SO much as the fretting care and anxi.
ETY. wes cherish, that exhausts our vital
energies, and puts an early period to our
lives. We fully believe that, with the
exception of few Indian tribes, Americans
are the most solemn people under the sun.
There is no other community OH the whole
face of the earth who carry about so
habitually their business cares, or who,
amid SO many circumstances OF comfort,
have so little enjoyment of their lives. 1t
it is even hard for many of us to laugh; or
ifwesdo occasionally in merriment, our
laughing is not of the free and easy,
obstreperous kind, which Milton has pair
ted as 'holding both sides, or like
Falstafis, without intervallums," but
ratherl like that which Tom Davis described
Johnson's to be, ga kind of good natured
growlr Bv day and by night we can
think and dream OF nothing but the iron
realities of life. Anxious, pcrplexing
thought sits on the business mans brow
as he rubs his eyes at daybreak the duties
of the toilet are rushed through with
slash, wipe, and a brush; breakfast is
swallowed rs if a fiery chariot were
waiting at the doorsteps; the place of bu-
siness is flown to on the wings OF steam;
the day is spent in straining to .overtake
complicated details of business too exten
sive for the minds grasp; it costs a race
to be in time for dinner, even when it Is
postponed till night; and'diuner is curtailed
of it's fair proportion of time, that he may
solve some knotty problem OF business
that could not he solved during the day.
The hour for sleep arrives; but tired na
ture's restorer refuses "to knit up the
ravelled sleeve of care;' the over excited
and jaded brain keeps up lis lhrobblnc s;
and thus things go on till the poor bond
slave of Mammon finds his constitution
shattered, the coffin maker soon takes his
dimensions in his minds eye, and he
descends at last to his everlasting rest,
with the glorious satisfaction, perhaps, OF
having gained for all his care and toll
his ioyless days and s!eepless nights
more money in funds that any man Oh
'Change.
No man who knows anything Of the
human constitution can doubt that period
ical relaxation from care is as necessary
to the mind as rest to the body. BY
iniudicionslv exacting too much of the
mental faculties, we blunt instead of sharp
eninr them, and there is q partial death OF
the finer and more valuable powers. But
not only are we haunted by the demon OF
over work, but our life to-day is so often
lived at fever-heat-is so rapid and rest
less, as to produce morbid nervous cen
dition, from which not one leading business
man in hundred escapes. There is
hardly principal merchant or professional
man in our cities who cannot count upon
his fingers dozen or more of his rivals
Or friends who, not content to work in
measure and lighting the candle at both
ends fell with the harvest around them,
lust as they had gathered a few sheaves Of
the golden grains. 1t is the pace that
kills. Never did we more urgently need