The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-04-29
TIE HURRY Oh. MODERN LIFE.
4 > = 80 - =. - -
Living.

MAAH ~ 80
Remedy for the Evils of overspeed in
Living.
Mr.. Greg, in his recent lecture before
the Royal society in England. says, and
says justly, that the desire for speed mere
ly as speed is becoming too powerful
factor In modern life; our trains are too
swift for human spines and our aIineH
to be In time for them destroys the nerves !;
our Atlantic steamers are driven through
fogs which one days additional southing
would avoid, and our risks in the business
of daily life are multiplied purely to save
hours, till anxiety has a direct and soften
ing influence on the brain. Leisure is
surrendered until we have no time either
to plan or TO reflect, TO think .eithersH hai
our lives are or what we want them to be,
and until the. poison of continued exc tie
ment enfeebles The subtle Organization Of
the mind. Life becomes a mere journey
in an express train, journey pursued by
all men, and by most men with the Single
object of accommodating riches quickly.
So severe are now the exactions On all eX-
cept those who labor with the hands, that
the pursuit of g practiee' ,~muSt nows be
unrelaxing, and when the professional
road to success is open it must be trav-
eled to exhaustion. The lawyer must
make hay while the sun shines, be-
cause for him it generally shines so late,
and his career is so often divided into two
unequal proportions, waiting YEARLY for
work and grOaning and sinking under It's
excess. The physician cannot in middle
life refuse or select among the crowding
patients whom he has looked and longed
forthrough the years of his youth. "There
is little reason, in my opinion" says
Macaulay, ito envy a pursuit in which
the most of its devOtees can expect is
that of relinquishing liberal studies and
social comfort by passing nights without
sleep and summers without one glimpse
ofthe beauties of nature, they. may attain
that laborious, that invidious, that closely
watched slavery. which is Knocked by tie
name of power" The man who desires
to avoid being crushed by. the immense
demands of the laboring class for wages.
or by the lavishness of the, opulent, IS
compelled to accumulate much and accu-
mulate it fast till life becomes head
long race, scene of toll under which the,
working section OF head-workers, the besf
middle-class NAV, as Mr.. Greg fears, dis
appear altogether. They may be worked
out by the strain of getting, the fatigue of
spending, and the burden of that " socie-
ty'' which ought to be the greatest allevia-'
ton of intellectual toll. and is only too fire.
quently an aggravatioR. ss .
! 1t is not to the selfdeIlial of the few
says the London Spectator, but to the self
culture of the many that we look for the
remedy of an evil which is atlast begin
ming to be recognized, can be avoided.
The terrible hurry of life can be mitigat-
ed most easily by a discrimination not to
be hurried, by a conviction that the dam
gers of overwork in middle life are as
great as the dangers ofidleness, by re-
solve to face pecuniary risk as bravely and
quietly as any other. There are men in
the world who do these things new, and
as knowledge extends there viii be more
men who regard life with something OF the
scientific spirit. and are.not carried away
by the aimless swirls of the rushing cTr-
rent. Freedomhas come 10 so5etysand
withfreedom Is coming the nerve which it
usually develops. The agricultural Labor
ers of the eastern coupties entertain, we
are told, among their many curious. tradi-
tional ideas prejudice in favor OF their
own slow, slouchfng gait. When any one
of them gives it up and shows a DISPOSE
ton to run or walk at the pace and in the
wav usual in Cities lle Is sOIemnly cau-
toned by the more experienced elders,
who remark in his hearing, but through
the potter form of an observation to the
world at large :: .Ah, he'll wear hisself
out, Peter will. At fifty there'll be moth
in OF him, nothin'.'i A rebake of this
kind, embodying the hereditary village
wisdom of which only laborers and George
Eliot are the repositories, rarely fails OF
its effect, and similar though less quaint
form of advice is spreading lastamong the
cultivated. We cit in the passion for
holidays, in the interesting habit of seek.
ing secluded places for outings, in the
gravity with which women begin TO re-
gard the symptoms of Over-work in the
men belonging to them. The new gener-
alton has caught the idea, and we look to
see in a few years a distinct decline in the
speed of life, though, no doubt, the pace
will remain fastest at the wrong end. 1t
is in the cultivation of this feeling, cultivl-
ton in a sensible, and as it were, scientific
way, and not in any alteration in the
habits of the upper classes, that we see
grounds for hope When men dread a
breakdown as they would typhoid, men
tai sanitation will be cultivated as careful
ly as drainage, till by degrees the man who
quickens the race will be hardly less re-
probated by opinion than the man who in
a populous neighborhood refuses TO clean
rookery. The reprobation win not 90
far, but the idea, at least, will be health,
and health and hurry in Mr.. Greg's sense
are irreconcilable foes.
.-s 49, 49,. - -. "a